“Optimistic Assumptions, Longterm Planning, and ‘Cope’” by Raemon

LessWrong (Curated & Popular)

Eliezer Yudkowsky periodically complains about people coming up with questionable plans with questionable assumptions to deal with AI, and then either:

• Saying "well, if this assumption doesn't hold, we're doomed, so we might as well assume it's true."
• Worse: coming up with cope-y reasons to assume that the assumption isn't even questionable at all. It's just a pretty reasonable worldview.

Sometimes the questionable plan is "an alignment scheme, which Eliezer thinks avoids the hard part of the problem." Sometimes it's a sketchy reckless plan that's probably going to blow up and make things worse.
Some people complain about Eliezer being a doomy Negative Nancy who's overly pessimistic.
I had an interesting experience a few months ago when I ran some beta-tests of my Planmaking and Surprise Anticipation workshop, that I think are illustrative.
i. Slipping into a more Convenient World
I have an exercise where I give people [...]
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Outline:
(00:59) i. Slipping into a more Convenient World
(04:26) ii. Finding traction in the wrong direction.
(06:47) Takeaways
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First published:
July 17th, 2024
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8ZR3xsWb6TdvmL8kx/optimistic-assumptions-longterm-planning-and-cope
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.