141–150 of 319 posts
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That's not true. sbf was about that, but EA is not. Are there other cases of EA fraud?
>Are there other cases of EA fraud? You mean besides the legions of pseudo-philosopher techbros pontificating about how they can save the world and organize sex parties while doing so?
Is having sex parties now considered fraud? I need to speak to my lawyer.
What an irony! The Bostrom Institute has to close in the midst of the spectacular rise of AI, and the all-important questions of AI risks and human value alignment are more hotly debated than ever. I hope that Bostrom and his colleagues will continue and deepen their research, because humanity needs such insights now more than ever.
Is FHI even needed anymore? His ideas clearly won and took hold of a large group of people. AI doomerism is the default stance most people have on AI. e/acc makes up a tiny fraction of popular discourse today.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/660e95991cf0293c2463b...
and Google Doc version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jgl2KqtiJ6lLkpoZ1I_VeniP...
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"Oxford" did not choose the name
By your definition no name ever was "chosen" by any corporation in history. Organizations are made of people, and when a new org inside the main org is named, it obviously was named by someone (or a committee). In the end, the "organization" choose the name, potato po-ta-to.
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His work is often quietly cited by a handful of moral philosophers. In particular, The Discarded Image, anytime someone is writing about medieval philosophy. Anyway, being a philosopher simply isn't what the guy did and academics are fairly dismissive without consideration anytime religion (and specifically Christian apologetics) gets in the mix.
I'd interested to take a look if you have any further info about which moral philosophers and which works cite The Discarded Image? I admit I haven't read that one myself; my own take on him as a philosopher stems from reading Mere Christianity and summaries of Surprised by Joy, and not being aware of any references to his work by more recent philosophers that I've been interested in such as Chomsky, Zizek, or Dennet…
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I wonder if these people ever paused to consider they aren't as smart as they think they are, if they're just figuring out some basics of human communication in their mid 20s that my 8 year old has known for years.
High dimensionality, more granular interpretation/models of the world. More conscious/deliberate behaviour, less benefit from neurological canalisation. I don't think you're seeing ineptitude, I think you're seeing lucidity, sapience.
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I have no agenda for or against Nick Bostrom. It's a full paragraph quote from the Wikipedia article, with a link.
Are you trying to imply that Wikipedia articles by definition have no agenda and no one quoting a Wikipedia article can have an agenda either?
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I'd interested to take a look if you have any further info about which moral philosophers and which works cite The Discarded Image? I admit I haven't read that one myself; my own take on him as a philosopher stems from reading Mere Christianity and summaries of Surprised by Joy, and not being aware of any references to his work by more recent philosophers that I've been interested in such as Chomsky, Zizek, or Dennet…
Mary Midgley
Your comment led me to this: https://www.lewisiana.nl/marymidgley/
Good riddance to these ideologues. It's a shame that the announcement shows no trace of remorse for the crimes they inspired (e.g. at FTX) or the lives that have been ruined by the cults to which they lent academic legitimacy. Instead, their demise is chalked up to some bland moaning about "administrative headwinds". Realistically, we're probably only looking at a brief respite before they regroup under some other be…
It's quite a leap to assume that SBF only turned to a life of crime because the EA movement lured him into it. There are legitimate criticisms of EA and I'm not personally a follower of the movement but your post comes off as way too generally dismissive. Many of the people involved seem to have good intentions and a lot of money has been donated to objectively good causes. The longtermism stuff is more squishy, but…
It's not an assumption. It's a matter of record, understood by anyone who knows the basics of the FTX saga. SBF is a lifelong utilitarian, and his co-conspirators were also committed EAs. Anyone who obscures that fact is abetting the campaign of obfuscation.
> Many of the people involved seem to have good intentions
Yup. That includes Sam and his friends. How did that turn out?
> a lot of money has been donated
To borrow your language, "it's quite a leap to assume" that anyone donated money just because EA lured them into it. How do we know they weren't going to behave altruistically in the absence of the movement?
Why is there an isolated demand for rigor when confronting the movement's adverse effects? Do you think that Sam is inherently a criminal, with ideology playing no role, whereas EA donors aren't inherently generous?
> to objectively good causes
Fair enough. I will concede that there were a few of these. In some cases, early EA principles may have helped people arrive at these good ideas in a way that wouldn't have happened without the movement.
It's just that, I get annoyed when people dismiss the downsides, writing them off as aberrations or lone bad actors. And given the major flaws in the philosophy, it's hard to shake my suspicion that most of their longtermist explorations are worse than just "squishy". It seems quite plausible that they're doing more harm than good.