Diagnosing the circular firing squad / crab bucket

Eliezer Yudkowsky can warn humankind that If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies and get on the New York Times bestseller list, but he won’t get upvoted to the top of LessWrong.

According to the leaders of LessWrong, that’s intentional. The rationalist community thinks aggregating community support for important claims is “political fighting”.

Unfortunately, the idea that some other community will strongly rally behind Eliezer Yudkowsky’s message while LessWrong “stays out of the fray” and purposely prevents mutual knowledge of support from being displayed, is unrealistic.

Our refusal to aggregate the rationalist community beliefs into signals and actions is why we live in a world where rationalists with double-digit P(Doom)s join AI-race companies instead of AI-pause movements.

We let our community become a circular firing squad. What did we expect?

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Cold Open

00:00:32 — Introducing Holly Elmore, Exec. Director of PauseAI US

00:03:12 — “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies”

00:10:07 — What’s Your P(Doom)™

00:12:55 — Liron’s Review of IABIED

00:15:29 — Encouraging Early Joiners to a Movement

00:26:30 — MIRI’s Communication Issues

00:33:52 — Government Officials’ Reviews of IABIED

00:40:33 — Emmett Shear’s Review of IABIED

00:42:47 — Michael Nielsen’s Review of IABIED

00:45:35 — New York Times Review of IABIED

00:49:56 — Will MacAskill’s Review of IABIED

01:11:49 — Clara Collier’s Review of IABIED

01:22:17 — Vox Article Review

01:28:08 — The Circular Firing Squad

01:37:02 — Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate

01:49:56 — LessWrong’s Lukewarm Show of Support

02:02:06 — The “Missing Mood” of Support

02:16:13 — Liron’s “Statement of Support for IABIED”

02:18:49 — LessWrong Community’s Reactions to the Statement

02:29:47 — Liron & Holly’s Hopes for the Community

02:39:01 — Call to Action

SHOW NOTES

PauseAI US — https://pauseai-us.org

PauseAI US Upcoming Events — https://pauseai-us.org/events

International PauseAI — https://pauseai.info

Holly’s Twitter — https://x.com/ilex_ulmus

Referenced Essays & Posts

* Liron’s Eliezer Yudkowsky interview post on LessWrong — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kiNbFKcKoNQKdgTp8/interview-with-eliezer-yudkowsky-on-rationality-and

* Liron’s “Statement of Support for If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aPi4HYA9ZtHKo6h8N/statement-of-support-for-if-anyone-builds-it-everyone-dies

* “Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate” by Eliezer Yudkowsky (2009) — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7FzD7pNm9X68Gp5ZC/why-our-kind-can-t-cooperate

* “Something to Protect” by Eliezer Yudkowsky — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SGR4GxFK7KmW7ckCB/something-to-protect

* Center for AI Safety Statement on AI Risk — https://safe.ai/work/statement-on-ai-risk

OTHER RESOURCES MENTIONED

* Stephen Pinker’s new book on mutual knowledge, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows... — https://stevenpinker.com/publications/when-everyone-knows-everyone-knows-common-knowledge-and-mysteries-money-power-and

* Scott Alexander’s “Ethnic Tension and Meaningless Arguments” — https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/04/ethnic-tension-and-meaningless-arguments/

PREVIOUS EPISODES REFERENCED

Holly’s previous Doom Debates appearance debating the California SB 1047 bill — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUP3GywD0yM

Liron’s interview with Eliezer Yudkowsky about the IABI launch — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQtpSQmMNP0

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