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ESYudkowsky's profile
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky
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@ESYudkowsky

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Eliezer YudkowskyVerified account

@ESYudkowsky

Ours is the era of inadequate AI alignment theory. Any other facts about this era are relatively unimportant, but sometimes I tweet about them anyway.

Joined June 2014

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    1. Robin Hanson‏Verified account @robinhanson 1 Oct 2017

      Robin Hanson Retweeted Robin Hanson

      Some try to explain this saying utopia has less drama than dystopia. But never explain a changing parameter with a constant factor.https://twitter.com/robinhanson/status/914504814712754177 …

      Robin Hanson added,

      Robin HansonVerified account @robinhanson
      The better things get, the less we hope: "Thomas More [wrote] Utopia .. in 1516. Utopianism peaked 300 years later" http://time.com/4960648/paradise-now-the-story-of-american-utopianism/ …
      5 replies 3 retweets 18 likes
    2. Eliezer Yudkowsky‏Verified account @ESYudkowsky 1 Oct 2017
      Replying to @robinhanson

      While I'm sure pessimism is a real factor here, I think writing has also improved over time and decreased bad low-conflict utopian novels.

      1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
    3. Eliezer Yudkowsky‏Verified account @ESYudkowsky 1 Oct 2017
      Replying to @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson

      Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth novels still do background Utopia very well (and focus on zombie invasions) but that is not easy.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    4. Eliezer Yudkowsky‏Verified account @ESYudkowsky 1 Oct 2017
      Replying to @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson

      It's ok to realize that you can't yet write good Utopia and prefer good dystopia to bad Utopia, and I think many SF writers made that choice

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    5. Robin Hanson‏Verified account @robinhanson 1 Oct 2017
      Replying to @ESYudkowsky

      Okay, but that sounds like a constant factor, which can't explain changes over time.

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    6. Eliezer Yudkowsky‏Verified account @ESYudkowsky 1 Oct 2017
      Replying to @robinhanson

      No, I'm saying older writers made worse literary decisions (or older SF editors tolerated it more). I think that changed over time.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    7. Robin Hanson‏Verified account @robinhanson 1 Oct 2017
      Replying to @ESYudkowsky

      And the turning point for making better literary decisions was ~1816? And that insight has taken 200 years to slowly diffuse to writers?

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      Eliezer Yudkowsky‏Verified account @ESYudkowsky 1 Oct 2017
      Replying to @robinhanson

      Leaving aside the separate slow increase of pessimism and flashy cynicism, I also think writing slowly got better over last N-hundred years.

      11:47 AM - 1 Oct 2017
      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Robin Hanson‏Verified account @robinhanson 1 Oct 2017
          Replying to @ESYudkowsky

          That theory explains a constant trend toward dystopia. But one needs to add more to explain the overall pattern that changes direction.

          2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Eliezer Yudkowsky‏Verified account @ESYudkowsky 1 Oct 2017
          Replying to @robinhanson

          *shrugs helplessly* I was only around for the most recent part of it.

          3 replies 0 retweets 1 like
        4. Daemon Todd‏ @daemontodd 1 Oct 2017
          Replying to @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson

          Literary works are vastly more likely to reflect cultural trends than to explain them.

          1 reply 2 retweets 7 likes
        5. Jim Rutt‏ @jim_rutt 1 Oct 2017
          Replying to @daemontodd @robinhanson @ESYudkowsky

          but do the rare ones that do drive trends end up driving the system trajectory?

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        6. Daemon Todd‏ @daemontodd 1 Oct 2017
          Replying to @jim_rutt @robinhanson @ESYudkowsky

          Affecting the system trajectory, certainly. But hard to causally disentangle the work itself from the culture primed to receive & amplify it

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        7. End of conversation

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