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Kaj_Sotala comments on Leaving LessWrong for a more rational life - Less Wrong
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That depends on whether you believe that machine intelligence researchers are the people who are currently the most likely to produce valuable progress on the relevant research questions.
One can reasonably disagree on MIRI's current choices about their research program, but I certainly don't think that their choices are concerning in the sense of suggesting irrationality on their part. (Rather the choices only suggest differing empirical beliefs which are arguable, but still well within the range of non-insane beliefs.)
On the contrary, my core thesis is that AI risk advocates are being irrational. It's implied in the title of the post ;)
Specifically I think they are arriving at their beliefs via philosophical arguments about the nature of intelligence which are severely lacking in empirical data, and then further shooting themselves in the foot by rationalizing reasons to not pursue empirical tests. Taking a belief without evidence, and then refusing to test that belief empirically--I'm willing to call a spade a spade: that is most certainly irrational.
That's a good summary of your post.
I largely agree, but to be fair we should consider that MIRI started working on AI safety theory long before the technology required for practical experimentation with human-level AGI - to do that you need to be close to AGI in the first place.
Now that we are getting closer, the argument for prioritizing experiments over theory becomes stronger.