rationalist tries to get head around dealing with actual professionals in a professional context. Also, fuck them donkeys.

There's the kind of regular who's been thinking seriously about AI safety and alignment since pre-2022, who have passing to intimate familiarity with the funding ecosystem, the Sequences, and various conferences that happen at Lighthaven. Let's call them rationalists.

... Let's not, because a bunch of us here fit all those descriptions, yet are clearly not "rationalists". The way that they use that term makes it synonymous with Orthodox ("right practices/thinking").

At the local AI safety co-working space

ok this is gonna be a doozy

Plenty of things professionals consider serious AI work (bias, misinformation, labor displacement, near-term harms) are donkey sanctuaries to at least some parts of the rationalist funding ecosystem, and perhaps it would be useful to make that common knowledge, but that legibility will come at the cost of resentment.

for context, "donkey farms" is shorthand for wooly-headed small-scale thinking, not Rationalist

I'm squarely in the rationalist camp, which means that when I see a problem my default response is to write a post and publish it publicly.

so how has that been working out for you so far "jenn"?

anyway my prediction is that there's gonna be a ton of money donated to a bunch of dodgy orgs, some people will profit handsomely, and in about 4 years it will all have blown over and no-one will mention it ever again

Top comment:

The responsibility probably rests on the rationalists here. People become professionals all the time (and indeed, maximizing impact often requires being a professional), but well under 1% of the population has the personality to ever become a rationalist.

Only 144,000 people will go to heaven!

how do we get people to take our concerns about being paperclipped by the acausalrobotgod seriously?

If people have wrong beliefs or don't take things seriously that should be taken seriously (e.g. space property rights), just tell them. Reasonable people update on reasonable arguments.

Space property rights.

x-risk-pill

...

At least this article exposes quite well how the EA stuff about animal welfare is used as a front/greenwashing(ish) sort of thing.

This article has an astonishing amount of almost-self-awareness, where only one vital step is missing in order to answer all their questions.

I promise this is my last donkeypost but I think this thread needs some donkey pictures. All pics from the Irish Donkey Sanctuary

I'm getting the urge to give some cash to a donkey sanctuary. Does anyone know a good one

So much gold in the comments.

... tone down the extent to which we broadcast the the unorthodox aspects of the culture which aren't directly linked to AI safety. don't be too eager to discuss stuff like polyamory/meditation/board games/drugs/meal replacement/overt analysis of social status+signalling games etc.

The first reponse to this?

beg your pardon, how did board games got on this list?

On one hand, rationalists continuing to be nuts. But on the other this is the most self aware I've seen a rationalist be

Maybe I should probably host a session that's just "here are all of the weird idiosyncratic things that rationalists are more likely to believe, ask me questions about them and I won't get mad".

Genuinely seems to be an understanding of the fact that they do believe weird shit. And they even seem to understand how everyone is frustrated at having to deal with them in order to get resources.

What a stupid cult. Someone needs to pull the plug. The poor brainfucked computer wrecks need to go outside, and pet a donkey sometimes.

Seems like there are two types of people.

Those who enjoy holding conferences about the best way of shoveling donkey shit (plus points if they somehow are permitted to come up with global rules for handling donkey shit from the arctic to the equator and from the sea side to the mountain) and allocate funding for buying fancy AI powered shovels.

And those who shovel donkey shit.

The cosmic-level irony here is that what they need now is lobbyists, the normiest of professions, yet their epistemic narcissism will probably prevent them from having the countenance necessary to recruit them.

I'm not necessarily an animal lib person, but I think an animal rights/animal liberation/ethical vegan framework for looking after and respecting animals is probably better than an EA one. If only because they're more experienced in creating social change. Apparently only about 1 to 3% of Americans are vegans. So they have the numbers over the EAs, and they could probably beat them in a fight too.

Plenty of things professionals consider serious AI work (bias, misinformation, labor displacement, near-term harms) are donkey sanctuaries [read: Irrelevant bikeshedding preoccupations for irrational people] to at least some parts of the rationalist funding ecosystem, and perhaps it would be useful to make that common knowledge, but that legibility will come at the cost of resentment.

it's always funny how seemingly 'rational' people fail to account for the fact that while they have extreme future time preference, 99% of people in the real world don't. So even in the world they are right (lol, lmao), the near-term harms will cause second order effects that will fuck up the systems that facilitate the pursuit of their stupid longtermist preoccupations.

Unless, the smarter ones do realize that, and their strategy is just to throw in with the people exacerbating the near-term harms, with the belief that when, at critical moments for their "x-risk/s-risk" prevention efforts, these same people will actually align with them out of rational altruism.

hmm, can't see any problems with this idea! Rationality achieved ✅

...Is this space property rights thing a new big deal in the community?

I had a nifty idea. So markets are like, totally cool, connecting things to other things and it’s all totally optimal. So what if we set up some kind of ‘altruism market’? Instead of a bloated inefficient EA organisation centrally planning where funds should be allocated and deciding which causes are the most effective, we could open it up so that the savviest donors can select the best destination for their funds directly, and skip all the overhead. We could run that for a while and then, if it turns out that donkey sanctuaries are able to attract enough donations to continue operating in the Market of Altruism, then we can only rationally conclude that a donkey sanctuary is the most Effective Altruism.

So there are 2 ways to look at this.

Scenario 1: EA is like the early Christian church in Rome. It's radically different from the existing norms but is quickly gaining adherents. Its beliefs are weird - give up riches now for great rewards later. Embrace humility and subservience, not power. Belief is decentralized, not imposed from above. As the Church grows, more and more elites join in, and it gradually takes over the existing structures.

Scenario 2: EA is a like a very rich, very eccentric person looking to donate their money but have some weird hangups.

Scenario one requires a compelling story that makes prospective converts believe and wholly commit to the cause. For the Christian church, it was the literaly promise of eternal life, once Christ returned (and he would, soon). EA has that promise too but it's muted and it's kinda theologically backwards to Christianity- instead of the Devil/your own sinful nature trying to stop you reaching paradise[1], you have to defeat the Devil (rampant AI) to reach it yourself.

The second scenario is the most likely, and the most likely effect is that grifters / "consultants" who are good at playing along with the weird beliefs will be able to mirror the belief system, pocket a large amount of the money on tap, and nothing much will happen.

[1] although I believe the idea of the Devil and original sin developed much later

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