wedrifid comments on Existential Risk and Public Relations - Less Wrong

36 Post author: multifoliaterose 15 August 2010 07:16AM

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Comment author: michaelkeenan 15 August 2010 09:30:50AM 7 points [-]

During graduate school I've met many smart people who I wish would take existential risk more seriously. Most such people who have heard of Eliezer do not find his claims credible. My understanding is that the reason for this is that Eliezer has made some claims which they perceive to be falling under the above rubric, and the strength of their negative reaction to these has tarnished their mental image of all of Eliezer's claims.

Can you tell us more about how you've seen people react to Yudkowsky? That these negative reactions are significant is crucial to your proposal, but I have rarely seen negative reactions to Yudkowsky (and never in person) so my first availability-heuristic-naive reaction is to think it isn't a problem. But I realize my experience may be atypical and there could be an abundance of avoidable Yudkowsky-hatred where I'm not looking, so would like to know more about that.

Did that objectionable Yudkowsky-meteorite comment get widely disseminated? YouTube says the video has only 500 views, and I imagine most of those are from Yudkowsky-sympathizing Less Wrong readers.

Comment author: wedrifid 15 August 2010 10:50:18AM 18 points [-]

But I realize my experience may be atypical and there could be an abundance of avoidable Yudkowsky-hatred where I'm not looking, so would like to know more about that.

Yudkowsky-hatred isn't the risk, Yudkowsky-mild-contempt is. People engage with things they hate, sometimes it brings respect and attention to both parties (by polarizing a crowd that would otherwise be indifferent.) But you never want to be exposed to mild contempt.

I can think of some examples of conversations about Eliezer that would fit the category but it is hard to translate them to text. The important part of the reaction was non-verbal. Cryonics was one topic and the problem there wasn't that it was uncredible but that it was uncool. Another topic is the old "thinks he can know something about Friendly AIs when he hasn't even made an AI yet" theme. Again, I've seen that reaction evident through mannerisms that in no way translate to text. You can convey that people aren't socially relevant without anything so crude as saying stuff.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 15 August 2010 11:19:33AM 14 points [-]

Cryonics was one topic and the problem there wasn't that it was uncredible but that it was uncool.

[insert the obvious bad pun here]

Comment author: wedrifid 15 August 2010 11:33:39AM 6 points [-]

I know, I couldn't think of worthy witticism to lampshade it so I let it slide. :P

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