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0 points0xDEAFBEAD2y ago0 comments

If he's a crank, it should be easy to explain specifically why he's wrong.

I don't agree with Eliezer on everything, and I often find him obnoxious personally, but being obnoxious isn't the same as being wrong. In general I think it's worth listening to people you disagree with and picking out the good parts of what they have to say.

In any case, the broader point is that there are a lot of people concerned with AI risk who don't have a financial stake in Big AI. The vast majority of people posting on https://www.alignmentforum.org/ are not Eliezer, and most of them don't work for Big AI either. Lots of them disagree with Eliezer too.

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riversflow2y ago

> If he's a crank, it should be easy to explain specifically why he's wrong.

Sure. The premise that a super intelligent AI can create runaway intelligence on its own is completely insane. How can it iterate? How does it test? Humans run off consensus. We make predictions and test them against physical reality, then have others test them. Information has to be gathered and verified, it's the only rational way to build understanding.

a_w2y ago

> How can it iterate? How does it test?

Honest/dumb question - does it need to test? In nature mutations don't test - the 'useful' mutations win.

Couldn't a 'super intelligent AI' do the same?

riversflow2y ago

> the 'useful' mutations win.

Thats testing.

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0xDEAFBEADOP2y ago

It sounds like you disagree with Eliezer about how AI technology is likely to develop. That's fine, but that doesn't show that he's a crank. I was hoping for something like a really basic factual error.

People throughout history have made bold predictions. Sometimes they come true, sometimes they don't. Usually we forget how bold the prediction was at the time -- due to hindsight bias it doesn't seem so bold anymore.

Making bold predictions does not automatically make someone a crank.

staticman22y ago

There used to be a subreddit called Sneerclub where people would make fun of Eliezer and some of his buddies. Here's a discussion of a basic factual error he made on how training AI works, even though this topic is supposedly his life's work:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/131rfg0/ey_gets_...

I enjoyed the comment that his understanding of how AI training works is like "thinking that you need to be extremely careful when solving the equations for designing a nuclear bomb, because if you solve them too quickly then they'll literally explode."

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riversflow2y ago

He is engaging in magical thinking. I showed a factual error, that AI has neither information gathering and verifying capability or a network of peers to substantiate their hypothesis, and you refuse to engage it.

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nradov2y ago

That's not how this works. There is no need to explain why he's wrong. Claims made by cranks without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

0xDEAFBEADOP2y ago

Evidence isn't the only valid form of argument. Consider a mathematical proof or a thought experiment, for example.

nradov2y ago

Show me a mathematical proof then.

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