The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad? • Hacker News Board

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#411

Post by polygamous_bat » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 1:53 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #352

jmull wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both those 1%s are very unlikely to be anywhere close to being true. The sci-fi version of AGI that people are imaging now will never exist. No one has any idea how to create AGI now, and therefore, no one knows what it might actually look like if it ever does. Any “solutions” people come up with now will have nothing to do with the problems a real AGI might pose. If people want to get together and talk about this st…

Well, opinions differ. I'd guess the probability of there being AGI as in computers able to think as well as a human in most ways by 2300 as close to 100%. Things we have now are getting closer eg Deepmind's Gato and GPT-3.

> Things we have now are getting closer eg Deepmind's Gato and GPT-3.

For someone who actually works in the field, let me inform you that you've been had by the marketing folks. Deepmind's Gato is as close to AGI as connecting a line of cars with chains and calling it a train. Gato is glorified if else statement over multiple models, and not really "general" at all.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#412

Post by concordDance » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 1:54 PM UTC

bnralt wrote: post #388

concordDance wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've dug into this stuff over the last couple days, because I had previously understood Effective Altruism to be something akin to like a pledge drive for Charity Navigator's best-reviewed charities or something, and it turns out it's nothing of the sort. As someone with multiple EA friends: this is precisely what it is. > they have their own weird language, there's a hierarchy, and people on the inside operate und…

> If AGI has even a 1% chance of happening this century and those donations reduce the risk of it going wrong and killing everyone by 1% that's still money very well spent. "If killer GMOs have even a 1% chance of happening this century and donations to Greenpeace reduce the risk of them killing everyone by 1% that's still money well spent." Would you find that argument compelling? My guess is that most people would…

> Would you find that argument compelling?

Of course not.

The people who are donating to AI risk are those who have spent a lot of time thinking about it, reading about it and investigating it.

If someone spent a bunch of time reading about GMO risk and decided it was a serious concern and that Greenpeace was the solution then I'd think them perfectly reasonable to donate to Greenpeace. And if I knew them to be intelligent and reasonable people I might even be willing to give then some time to convince me that I should also donate to Green peace

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#413

Post by skinnymuch » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 1:54 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #400

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like someone who literally argued that a person doing mere charity or volunteer work is bad, because they are wasting time and effort that they could've spent making money This is the part of EA that triggers a lot of red flags for me. Making money, or rather making significant money, necessitates participation in a system of exploitation that is largely responsible for the ills the charitable donations are meant t…

> This is the part of EA that triggers a lot of red flags for me. Making money, or rather making significant money, necessitates participation in a system of exploitation that is largely responsible for the ills the charitable donations are meant to alleviate in the first place. I mean, given that you think that I understand where you're coming from. But just note that many, many people would highly disagree with tha…

You missed the major point of being the exact capitalists that are the reason for charity to be so necessary. That’s white washing greed and self interest. Get to have a better life selfishly then donate the money to be morally better.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#414

Post by medstrom » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 1:55 PM UTC

headsoup wrote: post #396

In my view it's a movement for people making excuses for themselves. You don't need movements to be altruistic, you just do it or not. Of course they end up getting tied up in knots because they're trying to project altruism through continuously more complex justifications.

Yes, that would make the movement suspect. But if you'd read MacAskill or other sources, you'd know the original motivation was pretty much the opposite. The were aghast that lots of people currently donate to charities that ensure e.g. 4 livers to save 4 lives for the same amount of money that could've saved 1000 lives in another country. To reiterate, all these donors are already altruistic, and the original EAs were horrified at the 996 lives lost through the altruists' lack of thought.

The emphasis is not on the altruism but on the effectiveness. The altruism is a given: if it wasn't, you'd not be moved by any of the material anyway.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#415

Post by polygamous_bat » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 1:55 PM UTC

medstrom wrote: post #403

jmull wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main substantive point I made is: "No one has any idea how to create AGI now" Correct, no? The rest follows by basic logic. You can't craft solutions to problems you don't know anything about. You can't assign probabilities to outcomes without any information on the inputs or mechanisms of the system.

Thank you for engaging with me. I have two questions. 1. "No one has any idea how to create X now" does not lead to "Imminent creation of X is very unlikely to be true". Right? 2. You can always assign probabilities. I'll give you an example: say I'm a scary dictator and I ask you: "is A or B correct?" You have no idea what I mean by A or B, so you'd assign 50-50 if you had to bet something dear on the outcome of my…

I will only respond to 1.

> "No one has any idea how to create X now" does not lead to "Imminent creation of X is very unlikely to be true". Right?

Wrong. Here's the logical chain:

1. For someone to do X, they will need to know how to do X. (Unless you think it's all just alchemy, and we're boiling urine to distill gold.)

2. For creation of X to be imminent, someone's knowledge of how to create X will have to be almost complete.

3. Currently, no one knows how to do X.

4. Thus, creation of X is nowhere near imminent.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#416

Post by AlexandrB » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #189

heavyset_go wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The example of a community theater highlights another issue I have with effective altruism. It effectively encourages you to only donate to things you can make a quantifiable case for. Then you will be delighted/horrified to find out that the effective altruism community doesn't feel the need to make quantifiable justifications for how they spend their own donations, as evidenced by this $20k grant they gave someon…

I am not sure exactly what people miss, but taking a stab in the dark - human emotions have evolved over millions of years to try and guide people in the direction of making rational decisions more often than not. The expected situation is that the rational option and the emotional option align. If they don't, that means: 1. Your model of the world is incomplete or inconsistent (eg, forgetting to include negotiation…

> I am not sure exactly what people miss, but taking a stab in the dark - human emotions have evolved over millions of years to try and guide people in the direction of making rational decisions more often than not. The expected situation is that the rational option and the emotional option align.

I'm completely befuddled by this. My experience is that people make most decisions emotionally and then harness their brain to rationalize those irrational decisions after the fact. It's the reason that science (the process) has to exist. Because people will fool themselves to reach a conclusion they want if there are no procedural guardrails.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#417

Post by skinnymuch » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

FeepingCreature wrote: post #330

blitzar wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SBF gave $40 million - 800,000 mosquito nets to candidates in politcal races. Surely 800,000 mosquito nets is "more effective" than 800,000 robo calls and shitty campaign ads with a moron at the end saying "I'm Joe Blow, and I endorse this bullshit"

This doesn't seem evidence that EA is bad so much that SBF was a bad effective altruist?

The problem is EA community rallied around SBF while he was doing this stuff publicly.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#418

Post by polygamous_bat » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 1:59 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #392

tptacek wrote: post #137

My "Effective Altruism Is Not A Cult" t-shirt is prompting a lot of questions already answered by my shirt. I've dug into this stuff over the last couple days, because I had previously understood Effective Altruism to be something akin to like a pledge drive for Charity Navigator's best-reviewed charities or something, and it turns out it's nothing of the sort. In fact, if you read some of the commentary from EA insi…

> This is logic straight out of the 16th century Medici papacy of Leo X. Maybe it's some kind of horrible drug interaction with Rationalism, or maybe EA is fundamentally Rationalist? Either way: when your logic has established that you can obtain moral superiority by literally buying indulgences, it has officially proven too much, I think you're missing the point of that paragraph, or at least misrepresenting it here…

> The underlying logic of someone who made and gave away billions being overall ahead of other people morally is sound.

Do you hear yourself, not even asking how they "made" their billions? This is what "EA is indulgence for billionaires" people are talking about exactly.

If you make your billions unethically, no amount of charity will make you a good person.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#419

Post by xorfish » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 1:59 PM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #298

JamesBarney wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is you wouldn't endanger the lives of teenagers to build a community theater because you believe the lives of teenagers are more valuable than a community theater. But repairing a community theater could easily cost $100,000 which would save the lives of ~22 people in Guinea if donated to certain bed net charities. And even the most die hard theater fans probably wouldn't save a theater if to do so it would…

The same argument means that any luxury that any person indulges in. Let’s say thanksgiving, christmas, craft beer, VR headset, calling their mother, etc. is costing X lives (X is not necessary integer) and so isn’t the rationalist thing to do. “Ah bit they are luxuries, distinct from charity…” Ok then give me the luxury of donating to the local theatre!

I think this is fitting in that context:

Schindler's List | "I Didn't Do Enough"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9vj2Wf57rQ

In the end, nearly everyone values their life higher than the life of others. The more distant that the "others" are the less we value them.

Re: The good delusion: has effective altruism broken bad?

#420

Post by agentwiggles » Wed, Nov 16, 2022, 2:01 PM UTC

pooper wrote: post #329

Tenoke wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can reduce everything to being religion if you do it this way to the point of the comparison being useless. HN? Religion. Weight lifting? Religion. Dental hygiene? Religion. Voting? Religion. Functional Programming? Religion. Punk? Religion.

> HN? Religion. Weight lifting? Religion. Dental hygiene? Religion. Voting? Religion. Functional Programming? Religion. Punk? Religion. Well dental hygiene is definitely not a religion. I don't even floss (use a water pik now but flossing back teeth is difficult, parents never taught me to floss when I was a child). Leaving this aside, I have also noticed people call test-driven development / behavior driven developm…

Heh, my first job was a big TDD shop and while I learned many valuable skill - and even still write my tests first at times - I definitely encountered people who were religiously dogmatic about TDD and pairing.

Both of those are useful tools, but doing them 100% of the time is challenging. For me, as a brand new dev, the attitude of "you must always write a test before you write code" was stifling and made it harder to learn things at times.

To quote our noble caveman patron saint, "how grug test what grug not understand domain yet?!"