The state of LessWrong criticism

You will not be able to convince a community that it deserves mockery by means of mockery.

Robert Gross recently started to output satirical videos about the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), formerly known as the Singularity Institute, and its associated community LessWrong (LW). Even though I perceive them to be very amusing, I believe that such videos should only exist in addition to more serious and polite criticism.

Holden Karnofsky, from GiveWell, provides some examples of serious and polite criticism. Unfortunately his posts only capture a very small subset of what many people perceive to be wrong about MIRI/LW.

I am aware of the perceived arrogance and disdain of certain people associated with LW. But such a perception is very subjective. And even if the perception is correct, is it sensible to adopt the same attitude towards them? Where does that lead? We should aim for higher standards.

I think those who desire to criticize LW should be better than LW itself at adopting some of the principles that are being discussed on LW:

(1) Principle of charity: ...the principle of charity requires interpreting a speaker's statements to be rational and, in the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest possible interpretation.

The principle of charity is probably better known as steelmanning within LessWrong itself.

(2) To steelman: the act of figuring out even better arguments for your opponents’ positions while arguing with them and to beat those arguments rather than only their actual arguments or their weakest arguments (weak-manning) or caricatures of their arguments (straw-manning).

(3) Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

That said, on several occasions I failed to adopt the above principles and have often mocked MIRI/LW when it would have been better to engage in more serious criticism. But I did not fail completely. See for example my primer on AI risks or the interviews that I conducted with various experts about those risks. I cannot say that MIRI/LW has been trying to rephrase the arguments of their critics in the same way that I did, or went ahead and asked experts to review their claims.

Some of my older posts still contain words and phrases that could perceived to be impolite. I will change that at some point. Yet I believe that I have been charitable even in those posts. See e.g. my post 'The Singularity Institute: How They Brainwash You', to which someone commented that the caricature of SI is so effective that it even seems to defeat the skeptic in my own blog post

At this point in time there exists very little serious criticism, most of which has been written by me. I wrote most of it, even given the fact that my current level of education is completely insufficient to seriously tackle the underlying issues, because nobody else bothered to do so when I started. I hope that is going to change at some point.

 

Ive always liked position to, argue for your opponents side better than them.....and still defeat that. Its a very good tactic for many reasons

 

Effective mockery undermines credibility, while credibility is gained when someone thinks you merit a reasoned response.

I don't think people expect to have much success convincing hardcore LW believers that they're wrong. Ridicule is more aimed at preventing bystanders from taking it seriously in the first place.

 

Is SB seriously now some kind of hub of criticism for some inoffensive website?

What have you people done?

 

Yes, sadly Eliezer Yudkowsky has party discouraged people from doing that by arguing against Devil's Advocacy. The LessWrong sequences are basically an intricate framework of beliefs which are mostly rational on their own but together shield them from any criticism.

LessWrong says that beliefs should pay rent in future anticipations. With an exception for the implied invisible, which does not pay rent in future anticipations. And infinite sets as an exception of the exception, which might be implied but not required. And it of course does exclude many claims about AI risks, because you’re entitled to arguments, but not (that particular) proof.

And if you dare to compare AI risks to Pascal's mugging...beware.

 

I am sorry if my post is inappropriate for this forum. I have seen it being linked to by Eliezer Yudkowsky himself as some kind of bad example (I do not remember and am unable to verify what exactly he said because he blocked me on Facebook, where he posted the link).

I saw at least two threads on this forum going on for more than 10 pages. So I thought it might be appropriate to post the above. If you want me to leave, fine.

 

I rolled my eyes at those threads too.

Do whatever you like, I'm not a mod. I just don't see what all the fuss is about.

 

Only yesterday someone wrote me that he was deeply worried about Roko's basilisk. A week ago other people told me to block someone on Facebook because they feared that he might suffer a trauma from some of my posts. Other people donate $1000 per month to MIRI because they believe that otherwise we are all going to die as a result of a future superintelligence misunderstanding simple goals.

I think it is relatively important to figure out if they are wrong. Because if indeed they are wrong they are wasting valuable human resources and drive people crazy.

 

. . . What in the actual fuck.

 

People give thousands of dollars to the Republican Party and lose sleep worrying about the coming commufascist Obozo takeover. Liberalism in Europe has killed thousands of people and driven many more into destitution.

That said, those are saturated topics so I guess arguing against those may have a lower marginal benefit than making fun of Roko's Basilisk.

 

It's like watching the birth of Scientology...

 

Though actually, I was just thinking about Roko's Basilisk so if anyone is willing to defend it I'll go a round with you out of interest.

 

What's a LessWrong?

 

Satirical Youtube Videos about a niche website with a small and unremarkable userbase just make you look like a douche.

Of course, I think we've all picked up on that from the rest of Gross's behavior, so...

edit: By the same token, no one gives a fuck what you've done in terms of mocking LW. This didn't need it's own thread, and you should feel exceedingly bad for making it one. LessWrong is a bad community, and Yudkowsky is a shitty writer and probably a bad person. None of that required you to make your own thread in which to wave your dick around.

I assure you, Alexander, no one here gives a fuck. Take your masturbatory shit back to the other thread or off the forum entirely. Because at the end of the day the affairs of other boards are not our goddamn concern.

 

Mildly harmful pseudo scientific movement with delusions of cultish grandeur.

 

LW and his site kind of remind me of Freud. While Sigmund Freud came up with many brilliant ideas, such as defense mechanisms or the concept of couch psychology, as the years passed, his theories expanded, grew more radical, and ultimately moved to crazytown. Except that they didn't actually come up with the brilliant ideas, they already existed, and they're just building a religious cult around it called rationality. Its rather embarrassing actually to see the stuff which I literally majored in get turned to such ends.

Though as others have pointed out, one of the important rules of SB is the affairs of other boards do not concern us.

 

Come on, the videos are really funny, even if they get some insider stuff wrong. People make videos about less important things than a community that applies for a patent on rationality and which is supported by billionaires. A community which could potentially cause inappropriate opposition against the whole field of machine learning.

The videos are also a good test about how lightheartedly those people are. All I am saying is that people interested in debunking some of their ideas should be wary that mockery alone is possibly not enough.

 

No, they're not. Also I think one of these two accounts is a sock puppet.


But again, more importantly, no one cares. Again, affairs of other boards.

 

What accounts are you talking about?

 

Serious and polite external criticism of complete insanity lends credibility to such insanity. In particular GiveWell's criticism makes it look like under slightly more transhuman beliefs - which the donors share - MIRI is worthwhile.

MIRI is an external manifestation of narcissistic delusion, not a legitimate institution deserving of polite critique. It doesn't exist because of AI risk, it exists because Yudkowsky tried programming an AI and had nothing what so ever to show for his work.

I can confirm. I have received message from folks worried about the basilisk too. (I don't usually go by nickname of Basilisk he he).

Yeah.
edit: agreed on affairs of other boards rule.

 

Why do you all care about this shit?

 

Have you ever visited Dale Carrico's Amor Mundi blog? He's been writing profusely about, among others, Less Wrong community.

 

I came across it recently when trying to figure out who Robert Gross is but didn't bother checking it out in more detail. Will do so now, thanks.

 

Who are these people?