Liron Shapira, host of [Doom Debates], invited us on to discuss Popperian versus Bayesian epistemology and whether we're worried about AI doom. As one might expect knowing us, we only got about halfway through the first subject, so get yourselves ready (presumably with many drinks) for part II in a few weeks! The era of Ben and Vaden's rowdy youtube debates has begun. Vaden is jubilant, Ben is uncomfortable, and the world has never been more annoyed by Popperians.

Follow Liron on twitter (@liron) and check out the Doom Debates youtube channel and podcast.

We discuss

Whether we're concerned about AI doom
Bayesian reasoning versus Popperian reasoning
Whether it makes sense to put numbers on all your beliefs
Solomonoff induction
Objective vs subjective Bayesianism
Prediction markets and superforecasting

References

Vaden's blog post on Cox's Theorem and Yudkowsky's claims of "Laws of Rationality": https://vmasrani.github.io/blog/2021/the_credence_assumption/
Disproof of probabilistic induction (including Solomonov Induction): https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.00749
EA Post Vaden Mentioned regarding predictions being uncalibrated more than 1yr out: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hqkyaHLQhzuREcXSX/data-on-forecasting-accuracy-across-different-time-horizons#Calibrations
Article by Gavin Leech and Misha Yagudin on the reliability of forecasters: https://ifp.org/can-policymakers-trust-forecasters/
Superforecaster p(doom) is ~1%: https://80000hours.org/2024/09/why-experts-and-forecasters-disagree-about-ai-risk/#:~:text=Domain%20experts%20in%20AI%20estimated,by%202100%20(around%2090%25).
The existential risk persuasion tournament https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-extinction-tournament
Some more info in Ben's article on superforecasting: https://benchugg.com/writing/superforecasting/
Slides on Content vs Probability: https://vmasrani.github.io/assets/pdf/popper_good.pdf

Socials

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What's your credence that the second debate is as fun as the first? Tell us at incrementspodcast@gmail.com

Special Guest: Liron Shapira.

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