His metaphors serve as useful intuition pumps for ideas that are highly abstract and far removed from what the average layperson has thought about prior. When I started reading about AI risk, many of the ideas I was introduced to, like optimization and orthogonality, were completely novel and I had a hard time understanding them. The various metaphors, analogies, and parables that exist within the AI-risk discussion were of significant benefit to me in gaining the necessary intuitions to understand the problem.
His metaphors serve as useful intuition pumps for ideas that are highly abstract and far removed from what the average layperson has thought about prior. When I started reading about AI risk, many of the ideas I was introduced to, like optimization and orthogonality, were completely novel and I had a hard time understanding them. The various metaphors, analogies, and parables that exist within the AI-risk discussion were of significant benefit to me in gaining the necessary intuitions to understand the problem.