Open Thread 305
This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. ACX has an unofficial subreddit , Discord , and bulletin board , and in-person meetups around the world .
Metadata
- Published: December 04, 2023
- Source: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-thread-305
- Document ID:
2023-12-04_open-thread-305_full
Category Map
Brands
- X (4 mentions)
Concepts
- accelerationists (3 mentions)
Organizations
People
- SBF (12 mentions)
- Beff Jezos (2 mentions)
- DYoshida (2 mentions)
- sclmlw (2 mentions)
- Benji York (1 mentions)
- bestgreatestsuper (1 mentions)
- Emily Baker-White (1 mentions)
- johnny_lin (1 mentions)
- theahura (1 mentions)
Publications
- Forbes (7 mentions)
Full Primary Source Text
This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. ACX has an unofficial subreddit , Discord , and bulletin board , and in-person meetups around the world . 95% of content is free, but for the remaining 5% you can subscribe here . Also: 1: Some good comments on the monosemanticity post , including dyoshida on simulation , johnny_lin’s attempt to gamify explaining AI , theahura on the analogy to polygenicity , sclmlw on cell signaling pathways , bestgreatestsuper on manifolds . And Benji York links a post on 11-dimensional abstract structures in the human brain . Many of these seem to be getting at the same idea where there are evolved systems scientists have so far failed to really understand - AIs, the genome, cellular signaling pathways - and maybe the same idea of a polysemantic → monosemantic reduction will help with all of them. I would love to see a longer treatment of this by someone who knows what they’re talking about. 2: In my defense of EA , I said of its failures (primarily SBF) that “I’m not sure they cancel out the effect of saving one life, let alone 200,000”. A friend convinced me that this was an unfair exaggeration. There are purported exchange rates between money and lives , destroying billions in value is pretty bad by all of them, and there are knock-on effects on social trust from fraud that suggest its negative effects should be valued even higher. I regret this sentence, no longer stand by it, and have added it to my Mistakes page. 3: Related: I’m a big fan of the philosophical principles behind EA. I’m also mostly a big fan of the community, in the sense that it includes some of the best people I know - but I only know some parts of it, it’s also included bad actors, and friends have reminded me to remind you not to suspend normal healthy skepticism just because someone’s in a community with a good philosophy. 4: Pseudonymous accelerationist leader “Beff Jezos” was doxxed by Forbes . I disagree with Jezos on the issues, but want to reiterate that doxxing isn’t acceptable. I don’t have a great way to fight back, but in sympathy I’ve blocked the journalist responsible (Emily Baker-White) on X, will avoid linking Forbes on this blog for at least a year, and will never give an interview to any Forbes journalist - if you think of other things I can do, let me know. Apologists said my doxxing was okay because I’d revealed my real name elsewhere so I was “asking for it”; they caught Jezos by applying voice recognition software to his podcast appearances, so I hope even those people agree that the Jezos case crossed a line. Also, I complain a lot about the accelerationists’ failure to present real arguments or respond to critiques, but this is a good time to remember they’re still doing better than the media and its allies: