Daniel Tan's Shortform

Daniel Tan

This is a special post for quick takes by Daniel Tan. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.

All things considered, I think I’m pretty happy about AI safety escaping containment into the broader discourse. Yes there has been lots of bad takes, and not a few bad faith actors, but also a surprising amount of genuine good faith reaction.

Overall I think the basic arguments are now “out there” enough that people can be empowered to come to their own conclusions. I also don’t particularly feel the need to continue religiously correcting people with bad takes. Either they will update or be proven wrong in time.

So I’m happy about how this has gone! Even the parts I don’t really like.

3Cleo Nardo2mo

I think the vast majority of ordinary people, and policymakers, would basically want to slow down, and make other good-by-lights decisions, if they were fully attuned to the situation. So mostly we win by making people aware of what's going on, and keeping attention on it (so people priortise it above other things happening in the world).

2Daniel Tan2mo

I agree, but I also think any individual overdoing it is not productive, because (i) you'll seem to have ulterior motives and become less persuasive (ii) you'll end up rehashing the same arguments with the same doubters (iii) you burn out on sincerity and earnestness and your engagement becomes less good so you fall into the "urgh the takes are so bad" mentality, which is unproductive for engaging genuine good faith people Basically I would love for a constant stream of new people to keep sharing their thoughts on this Ezra Klein style. Especially if they had previously been opposed to it and recently became safety pilled ("only nixon could go to china" etc)

fwiw i suspect ezra is not a nixon here.