LessWrong (30+ Karma) “A Review of Nina Panickssery’s Review of Scott Alexander’s Review of ‘If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies’” by GradientDissenter
A review of Nina Panickssery's review of Scott Alexander's review of the book "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" (IABIED).
[This essay is not my best work but I just couldn't resist.]
I confess I mostly wrote this because I think a review of a review of a review is funny. But I also have a lot of disagreements with both Nina and the authors of IABIED. Nina's review is the first time a skeptic has substantively argued against the book (because the book isn’t out and the authors haven’t given an advance copy to very many skeptics). I want the discourse around critiques of the book to be good. I want people to understand the real limitations of the authors’ arguments, not straw-mans of them.
Although she frames her writing as a review of Scott's review, Nina is clearly trying to provide an in-depth critique of the book [...]
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Outline:
(01:29) On Fictional Scenarios and Concrete Examples
(03:26) On AI Goals and Alignment
(04:26) On the Evolution Analogy
(06:33) On Reward Functions and Model Behavior
(07:48) Other Tidbits
The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:
September 15th, 2025
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.