Samantha Atkins wrote:
While I have my own doubts about Eliezer's approach and likelihood of
success and about the extent of his biases and limitations, I don't
consider it fruitful to continue to bash Eliezer on various lists once
you feel seriously slighted by him or convinced that he is hopelessly
mired or whatever. Pointing people to the entire long SL4 back and
forth, much of which is more tedious sniping than real substance is not
helpful. If you have a more compact case to make please do so. But
most of us do not have the time to rehash the past dispute in detail or
the interest.
- samantha
Samantha,
By expressing your personal opinion about the SL4 episode, you are
sowing confusion: Aleksei accused me of making (multiple, unwarranted)
personal attacks -- are you really telling me that I should not defend
myself against this accusation by making references to things that you
do not like, like the tedious SL4 episode?
More generally, though, about whether I should have spoken up about
Yudkowsky in the first place (a different matter).
Yudkowsky is not "hopelessly mired". Nothing so innocuous. He is
behaving like the leader of a personality cult; he is making statements
about AI and cognitive science that are simplistic, extremely misleading
and worthy of challenge (if not downright wrong); and has used his bully
pulpit to suppress criticism of his ideas. Yudkowsky has made
slanderous accusations about a person's qualifications and credentials
(mine) and has written an extensive, juvenile diatribe against that
person (me), purely in response to a situation in which his ideas were
challenged. This is not "hopelessly mired", this is deeply irrational
behavior.
People who behave like that need to be challenged. Especially when
others cite Yudkowsky's writings, as Joshua Fox did recently, after
those writings have been challenged and Yudkowsky's response to the
challenge was to mount a vicious ad hominem flame war against the
challenger. What on earth do you think a rational person should do?
Just meekly stand by and watch Yudkowsky's writings get repeated as if
they were gospel? Quietly roll over when he uses his gang to mount ad
hominem attacks, rather than address the concrete issues?
Forget the nasty details of the SL4 episode, Samantha. Drop it. Just
look at the wider picture. Look at the critiques against Yudkowsky for
their content, and then try to imagine that any rational, academic
researcher in his right mind would respond to a criticism of his ideas
with a document such as this:
http://sl4.org/archive/0608/15928.html
Bear in mind that the person who made those remarks has no
qualifications beyond high school, but the person he attacked has
publications in cognitive science and a postgraduate degree in the
subject. You don't think there is a serious problem here? Are you joking?
This is not about my dispute with Yudkowsky, it is about someone
standing up and pointing to the emperor's nakedness.
Richard Loosemore.
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