"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
I think Sinclair's point applies even more to the AI Dystopian than it does to the median AI researcher. I'm confident that if this AI pathway turns out to be a dead-end and we enter another AI Winter the working scientists won't be living on welfare benefits. I'm not sure about the dystopian, particularly the MIRI group. While there are some reputable computer scientists in the ranks of Dystopians, the foremost, loudest voices are people I, without naming names, doubt have employable skills beyond being an activist.
It's like professional climate change activists. We do not need to be denialists about the risks of anthropogenic climate change to have doubts that activists lack employable skills beyond "being an activist." For that very reason, it's legitimate to doubt they are updating their beliefs with both regularity and objectivity.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
I think Sinclair's point applies even more to the AI Dystopian than it does to the median AI researcher. I'm confident that if this AI pathway turns out to be a dead-end and we enter another AI Winter the working scientists won't be living on welfare benefits. I'm not sure about the dystopian, particularly the MIRI group. While there are some reputable computer scientists in the ranks of Dystopians, the foremost, loudest voices are people I, without naming names, doubt have employable skills beyond being an activist.
It's like professional climate change activists. We do not need to be denialists about the risks of anthropogenic climate change to have doubts that activists lack employable skills beyond "being an activist." For that very reason, it's legitimate to doubt they are updating their beliefs with both regularity and objectivity.