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ZacHirschman comments on Less Wrong lacks direction - Less Wrong Discussion

9 Post author: casebash 25 May 2015 02:53PM

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Comment author: estimator 25 May 2015 03:31:12PM 6 points [-]

Agreed that LW is in a kind of stagnation. However, I think that just someone writing a series of high-quality posts would suffice to fix it. Now, the amount of discussion in comments is quite good, the problem is that there aren't many interesting posts.

If a group said that they thought A was an important issue and the solution was X, most members would pay more attention than if a random individual said it. No-one would have to listen to anything they say, but I imagine that many would choose to. Furthermore if the exec were all actively involved in the projects, I imagine they'd be able to complete some themselves, especially if they choose smaller ones.

It isn't quite a good thing; many people noticed that LW is somewhat like Eliezer's echo chamber. Actually, we should endorse high-quality opinions different from LW mainstream.

Comment author: ZacHirschman 25 May 2015 08:18:01PM 1 point [-]

What are your heuristics for telling whether posts/comments contain "high-quality opinions," or "LW mainstream"? Also, what did you think of Loosemore's recent post on fallacies in AI predictions?

Comment author: estimator 25 May 2015 09:50:28PM -1 points [-]

It's just my impression; I don't claim that it is precise.

As for the recent post by Loosemore, I think that it is sane and well-written, and clearly required a substantial amount of analysis and thinking to write. I consider it a central example of high-quality non-LW-mainstream posts.

Having said that, I mostly disagree with its conclusions. All the reasoning there is based on the assumption that the AGI will be logic-based (CLAI, following the post's terminology), which I find unlikely. I'm 95% certain that if the AGI is going to be built anytime soon, it will be based on machine learning; anyway, the claim that CLAI is "the only meaningful class of AI worth discussing" is far from being true.

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