This seems like a generic excuse you've developed, and it's not a bad one to use when waving off random comments from people who have little idea what they're talking about. But my particular arguments already share most of the same assumptions as MIRI, with each post focusing only on one or two key points of disagreement. If it's not worth your time to reply to my criticisms, then I don't see whose criticisms you could possibly find it worthwhile to respond to.
Which of your many discussion threads on AI risk strategy do you most wish would be engaged further by somebody on staff at MIRI?
I was going to say "this post" but now that Eliezer has responded I'm satisfied with MIRI's level of engagement (assuming he doesn't abruptly disappear at some point as he occasionally does during our previous discussions).
Looking at my other top level posts, I'd be interested to know what MIRI thinks about this and this.
I'd be interested to know what MIRI thinks about this and this.
My initial replies are here and here.
Which other writings of yours would you most like at least an initial reply to? Or, if there were discussions that were dropped by the MIRI party too soon (from your perspective), I could try to continue them, at least from my own perspective.
On the subject of how an FAI team can avoid accidentally creating a UFAI, Carl Shulman wrote:
In the history of philosophy, there have been many steps in the right direction, but virtually no significant problems have been fully solved, such that philosophers can agree that some proposed idea can be the last words on a given subject. An FAI design involves making many explicit or implicit philosophical assumptions, many of which may then become fixed forever as governing principles for a new reality. They'll end up being last words on their subjects, whether we like it or not. Given the history of philosophy and applying the outside view, how can an FAI team possibly reach "very high standards of proof" regarding the safety of a design? But if we can foresee that they can't, then what is the point of aiming for that predictable outcome now?
Until recently I haven't paid a lot of attention to the discussions here about inside view vs outside view, because the discussions have tended to focus on the applicability of these views to the problem of predicting intelligence explosion. It seemed obvious to me that outside views can't possibly rule out intelligence explosion scenarios, and even a small probability of a future intelligence explosion would justify a much higher than current level of investment in preparing for that possibility. But given that the inside vs outside view debate may also be relevant to the "FAI Endgame", I read up on Eliezer and Luke's most recent writings on the subject... and found them to be unobjectionable. Here's Eliezer:
Does anyone want to argue that Eliezer's criteria for using the outside view are wrong, or don't apply here?
And Luke:
These ideas seem harder to apply, so I'll ask for readers' help. What reference classes should we use here, in addition to past attempts to solve philosophical problems? What inside view adjustments could a future FAI team make, such that they might justifiably overcome (the most obvious-to-me) outside view's conclusion that they're very unlikely to be in the possession of complete and fully correct solutions to a diverse range of philosophical problems?