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lukeprog comments on The Inefficiency of Theoretical Discovery - Less Wrong
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Regardless of why the opportunity has presented itself, can we hope that the MIRI research team and associated researchers will use (or are using) the fact that "visible progress in decision theory is one way to “make a name” for oneself" and proceed to do so? Seems like pretty low-hanging status-fruit given the team's progress so far.
For MIRI, the hard part is writing up the results in a way that appeals to philosophers. That's a highly specialized skill, and not one we've focused on hiring for (at our current budget). We tried to pay Rachael Briggs $20k to do it, since she had two decision theory papers selected for the Philosopher's Annual, but it was too work-intensive even for her. I think it would drive Eliezer mad to write in that style. I suspect I could do it, but it would take a lot of my time. I might be able to persuade Preston Greene to do it some day. Or maybe Kenny Easwaran, who attended our September 2013 decision theory workshop.
If possible, I'd be curious to hear more details about why Briggs found it too work-intensive. Her giving up on it was definitely not an outcome I would have predicted.
Seconded, I am also curious about why this is hard/how the style needed differs from how lukeprog and Eliezer write papers.
Some of the comments on Eliezer's "Intelligence Explosion Microeconomics" suggest that his style might be too digressive & chatty by typical journal standards.
Maybe the difficulties that you face are part of the answer to the question of why theoretical progress doesn't happen faster.
After a paper published in 2011: "[Original draft was available in 2003. Hurrah for academic publishing. One journal reviewed the manuscript for nearly two years before determining that it was too long. No wonder philosophy has not advanced farther in the past 2,500 years.] "