Eliezer Yudkowsky on large language model economics

Re:Eliezer Yudkowsky on large language model economics by bnralt on Tuesday March 14, 2023 @10:40AM (#35152261)

I’ve noticed a similar writing style in a lot of others from the same group (AI Doomsdayers/“Rationalists”). Most of the time I stumble across something from that corner of the web it feels like the author was thinking “Why convey an idea in just one sentence when I can convey it in ten?”

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Re:Eliezer Yudkowsky on large language model economics by xdavidliu on Tuesday March 14, 2023 @11:14AM (#35152823)

Reminds me a of a quote by Chomsky about post-modernism (not what EY is, but similar to what you're talking about)

> Some of what appears in it sort of actually makes sense, but when you reproduce it in monosyllables, it turns out to be truisms. It’s perfectly true that when you look at scientists in the West, they’re mostly men, it’s perfectly true that women have had a hard time breaking into the scientific fields, and it’s perfectly true that there are institutional factors determining how science proceeds that reflect power structures. All of this can be described literally in monosyllables, and it turns out to be truisms. On the other hand, you don’t get to be a respected intellectual by presenting truisms in monosyllables.

https://www.openculture.com/2013/07/noam-chomsky-calls-postm...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscurantism

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Re:Eliezer Yudkowsky on large language model economics by PaulHoule on Tuesday March 14, 2023 @11:18AM (#35152901)

It's like Amway, people get into the EY cult and it takes over their life, they are trained to talk like EY to drive all the "normies" away, isolate them, and make them easier to control.

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Re:Eliezer Yudkowsky on large language model economics by mitthrowaway2 on Tuesday March 14, 2023 @12:58PM (#35154572)

Using a lot of words is often a response to getting repeatedly misinterpreted or misunderstood by others. It results in putting up ten explanatory, context, definitional, or guardrail sentences for each one sentence of novel content.

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Re:Eliezer Yudkowsky on large language model economics by xdavidliu on Tuesday March 14, 2023 @01:56PM (#35155601)

I think you're talking about something else: using words extremely precisely, even to the point of the being annoying. I recall reading the Unabomber's manifesto and being annoyed by the almost paranoid preciseness.

In contrast, this comment chain was more about EY using large words pretentiously, to suggest expertise or intellectual depth that he doesn't actually have.

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