When thinking on this, you seriously do not think that one candidate will be better than the other? Your world view doesn't bring you to a view where one is even a slightly better candidate?
Mmm okay a bit confused by the thrust of the first bit. Is it that you wish to set yourself apart from my view because you see it unavoidably leading to untenable positions (like self-extinguishing)?
Jumping to the rest of it, I liked how you put the latter option for the positioning of the shepard. I'm not sure the feeling out of the "shepard impulse" is something where the full sort of appreciation I think is important has come out.
But I think you're right to point towards a general libertarian viewpoint as a crux here, because I'm relatively willing to r...
Thanks for the continued dialogue, happy to jump back in :)
I think it's very reasonable to take a "what would they consent to" perspective, and I do think this sort of set up would likely lead you to a world where humane executions and lives off the factory farm were approved of. But I guess I'd turn back to my originial point that this sort of relation seems apt to encourage a certain relation to the animal that I think will be naturally unstable and will naturally undermine a caring relationship with that animal.
Perhaps I just have a dash too much ...
Garrett responded to the main thrust well, but I will say that watermarking synthetic media seems fairly good as a next step for combating misinformation from AI imo. It's certainly widely applicable (not really even sure what the thrust of this distinction was) because it is meant to apply to nearly all synthetic content. Why exactly do you think it won't be helpful?
Yeah, I think the reference class for me here is other things the executive branch might have done, which leads me to "wow, this was way more than I expected".
Worth noting is that they at least are trying to address deception by including it in the full bill readout. The type of model they hope to regulate here include those that permit "the evasion of human control or oversight through means of deception or obfuscation". The director of the OMB also has to come up with tests and safeguards for "discriminatory, misleading, inflammatory, unsafe, or deceptive outputs".
(k) The term “dual-use foundation model” means an AI model that is trained on broad data; generally uses self-supervision; contains at least tens of billions of parameters; is applicable across a wide range of contexts; and that exhibits, or could be easily modified to exhibit, high levels of performance at tasks that pose a serious risk to security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters, such as by:
(i) substantially lowering the barr...
Hmm, I get the idea that people value succinctness a lot with these sorts of things, because there's so much AI information to take in now, so I'm not so sure about the net effect, but I'm wondering maybe if I could get at your concern here by mocking up a percentage (i.e. what percentage of the proposals were risk oriented vs progress oriented)?
It wouldn't tell you the type of stuff the Biden administration is pushing, but it would tell you the ratio which is what you seem perhaps most concerned with.
[Edit] this is included now
What alternative would you propose? I don't really like mundane risk but agree that an alternative would be better. For now I'll just change to "non-existential risk actions"
This is where I'd like to insert a meme with some text like "did you even read the post?" You:
I don't think we can rush to judgement on your character so quick. My ability to become a vegan, or rather to at least take this step in trying to be that sort of person, was heavily intertwined with some environmental factors. I grew up on a farm, so I experienced some of what people talk about first hand. Even though I didn't process it as something overall bad at the time, a part of me was unsettled, and I think I drew pretty heavily on that memory and being there in my vegan transition period.
I guess the point is something like you can't just bec...
Have no idea what it entails but I enjoy conversing and learning more about the world, so I'd happy do a dialogue! Happy to keep it in the clouds too.
But yeah you make a good point. I mean, I'm not convinced what the proper schelling point is, and would eagerly eat up any research on this. Maybe what I think is that for a specific group of people like me (no idea what exactly defines that group) it makes sense, but that generally what's going to make sense for a person has to be quite tailored to their own situation and traits.
I would push back on th...
Thanks for such an in depth and wonderful response, I have a couple of questions.
On 1. Perhaps the biggest reason I've stayed away from Pomodors is the question of how much time for breaks you can take before you need to start logging it as a reduction in time worked. Where have you come out on that debate? I.e. maybe you've found increased productivity makes the breaks totally worth it and this hasn't really been an issue for you.
On 3. How are you strict with your weekends? The vibe I get from the rest is that normally you make sure what you're doing is r...
Sure, sure. I'm not saying there isn't perhaps an extreme wing, I just think it's quite important to say this isn't the average, and highlight that the majority of vegans have a view more like the one I mentioned above.
I think this is a distinction worth making, because when you collapse everyone into one camp, you begin to alienate the majority that actually more or less agrees with you. I don't know what the term for the group you're talking about is, but maybe evangelical vegans isn't a bad term to use for now.
First thanks for your kind words, they were nice to receive :)
But I also think this is wonderfully put, and I think you're right to point to your feelings on truth as similar. As truth for you, life to me is sacred, and I think I generally build a lot of my world out of that basic fact. I would note that I think one another's values are likely important for us to, as truth is also really important to me and I value honestly and not lying more than most people I know. And on the flipside I imagine that you value life quite a bit.
But looking at t...
I think the first paragraph is well put, and do agree that my camp is likely more apt to be evangelical. But I also want to say that I don't think the second paragraph is quite representative. I know approximately 0 vegans that support the "cross the line once" philosophy. I think the current status quo is something much closer to what you imagine in the second to last sentence, where the recommendation that's most often come to me is "look, as long as you are really thinking about it and trying to do what's best not just for you but for the animals as wel...
What Elizabeth had to say here is broadly right. See my comment above, for some more in depth reasoning as to why I think the opposite may be true, but basically I think that the sort of loving relationship formed with other animals that I imagine as the thing that holds together commitment over a long period of time, over a large range of hard circumstances, is tricky to create when you don't go full on. I have no idea what's sustainable for you though, and want to emphasize that whatever works to reduce is something I'm happy with, so I'm quite glad for ...
While I think the environmental sustainability angle is also an active thing to think about here (because beef potentially involves less suffering for the animals, but relatively more harm to the environment), I did actually intend sustainability in the spirit of "able to stick with it for a long period of time" or something like that. Probably could have been clearer.
Just posted a comment in part in response to you (but not enough to post it as a response) and would love to have your thoughts!
[Forum Repost] Didn't catch this until just now, but happy to see the idea expanded a bit more! I'll have to sit down and think on it longer, but I did have some immediate thoughts.
I guess at its core I'm unsure what exactly a proper balance of thinking about folk ethics[1] (or commonsense good) and reasoned ethics[2] (or creative good) is, when exactly you should engage in each. You highlight the content, that reasoned ethics should be brought in for the big decisions, those with longevity generally. And Ana starts to map this out a bit fu...
Thanks for this response; I find it helpful.
Reading it over, I want to distinguish between:
See below if you'd like an in depth look at my way of thinking, but I defiantly see the analogy and suppose I just think of it a bit differently myself. Can I ask how long you've been vegetarian? And how you've come to the decision as to which animals lives you think are net positive?
Yeah sure. I would need a full post to explain myself, but basically I think that what seems to be really important when going vegan is standing in a certain sort of loving relationship to animals, one that isn't grounded in utility but instead a strong (but basic) appreciation and valuing of the other. But let me step back for a minute.
I guess the first time I thought about this was with my university EA group. We had a couple of hardcore utilitarians, and one of them brought up an interesting idea one night. He was a vegan, but he'd been offered some mac...
Thank you. This was educational for me, and also just beautifully put.
I have two responses, one on practicalities and one on moral philosophy. My guess is the practical issues aren't your cruxes, so I'm going to put those aside for now to focus on the moral issue.
you say:
...one that isn't grounded in utility but instead a strong (but basic) appreciation and valuing of the other. But let me step back for a minute.
[...]
what I'd love to see one day is a posturing towards eating animals like our posturing towards child abuse, a very basic, loving expr
Are there any hopes to get this updated again or is this on the backburner now?
Are there any hopes to get this updated again or is this on the backburner now?
Ah okay cool, so you have a certain threshold for harm and just don't consume anything above that. I've found this approach really interesting and have recommended others against because I've worried about it's sustainability, but do you think it's been a good path for you?
I’m not sure why you’d think it’s less sustainable than veganism. In my mind, it’s effective because it is sustainable and reduces most of the suffering. Just like how EA tries to be effective (and sustainable) by not telling people to donate massive amounts of their income (just a small-ish percentage that works for them to the most effective charities), I see my approach as the same. It’s the sweet-spot between reducing suffering and sustainability (for me).
Did you go vegetarian because you thought it was specifically healthier than going vegan?
What do you feel like your plan is now moving forward? Like do you have a specific subsect of this you hope to try out?
How exactly do you come to "up to and including acts of war"? His writing here was concise due to it being TIME, which meant he probably couldn't caveat things in the way that protects him against EAs/Rationalists picking apart his individual claims bit by bit. But from what I understand of Yudkowsky, he doesn't seem to in spirit necessarily support an act of war here, largely I think for similar reasons as you mention below for individual violence, as the negative effects of this action may be larger than the positive and thus make it somewhat ineffective.
2. What is Overton's window? Otherwise I think I probably agree, but one question is, once this non-x-risk campaign is underway, how to you keep it on track and prevent value drift? Or do you not see that as a pressing worry?
3. Cool, will have to check that out.
4. Completely agree, and just wonder what the best way to promote less distancing is.
Yeah, I suppose I'm just trying to put myself in the shoes of the FHI people here that coordinated this and feel like many comments here are a bit more lacking in compassion than I'd like, especially for more ...
The LessWrong comments here are generally (quite) (brutal), and I think I disagree, which I'll try to outline very briefly below. But I think it may be generally more fruitful here to ask some questions I had to break down the possible subpoints of disagreement as to the goodness of this letter.
I expected some negative reaction because I know that Elon is generally looked down upon by the EAs that I know, with some solid backing to those claims when it comes to AI given that he cofounded OpenAI, but with the (immediate) (press) (attention) it's getti...
This post didn't do well in the games of LessWrong karma, but it was probably the most personally fruitful use of my time on the site in 2023. It helped me clarify my own views which I had already formed but hadn't put to paper, or cohered properly.
I also got to think about the movement as a whole, and really enjoyed some of what Elizabeth had to share. Particularly I remember her commentary on the lack of positivity in the movement, and have taken that to heart and really thought about how I can add more positivity in.