Meta: IAFF vs LessWrong

post by Vanessa Kosoy (vanessa-kosoy) · 2018-06-30T21:15:56.000Z · LW · GW · 9 comments

It seems that currently many or even most researchers started posting on LessWrong.com instead of IAFF. I am troubled by this for two reasons.

  1. I hoped that eventually IAFF will draw in all of the AI alignment research community rather than only the MIRI-sphere. Moving to LessWrong seems like a step in the opposite direction. However, if everyone else think differently, I will go along with it.

  2. More critically, LessWrong.com is currently unusable for this purpose from my point of view. This is because there is no way to see only the posts relevant to AI alignment. For me, it is not practical to follow all of the new posts, and reading all the AI alignment relevant posts soon after they appear. Instead, I occasionally take a break from my own work and catch up with what everyone else is doing. But now it became impossible without combing through a huge list of irrelevant things. I would be surprised if I am the only one with this problem.

Let's discuss the situation, please. I wish that either we get some solution for seeing only the AI alignment posts on LessWrong really soon, or that people continue at least posting the links on IAFF.

9 comments

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comment by AlexMennen · 2018-07-12T22:21:17.000Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

There is a replacement for IIAF now: https://www.alignmentforum.org/

Replies from: jessica.liu.taylor
↑ comment by jessicata (jessica.liu.taylor) · 2018-07-13T08:02:39.000Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Apparently "You must be approved by an admin to comment on Alignment Forum", how do I do this?

Also is this officially the successor to IAFF? If so it would be good to make that more clear on this website.

Replies from: Imported-IAFF-User-301, AlexMennen
↑ comment by IAFF-User-301 (Imported-IAFF-User-301) · 2018-07-15T01:30:44.000Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

The Alignment Forum is currently in a closed beta. More information available here:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JiMAMNAb55Qq24nES/announcing-alignmentforum-org-beta

↑ comment by AlexMennen · 2018-07-13T16:52:12.000Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

There should be a chat icon on the bottom-right of the screen on Alignment Forum that you can use to talk to the admins (unless only people who have already been approved can see this?). You can also comment on LW (Alignment Forum posts are automatically crossposted to LW), and ask the admins to make it show up on Alignment Forum afterwards.

Replies from: rohinmshah
↑ comment by Rohin Shah (rohinmshah) · 2018-07-14T00:30:44.000Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I was told that they'd be opening up the forum properly soon (next week?), and to wait until then.

comment by Rohin Shah (rohinmshah) · 2018-07-02T06:19:48.000Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I currently write the Alignment Newsletter (http://rohinshah.com/alignment-newsletter/) which typically at least links to every LessWrong AI alignment post, IAFF post (except meta-ones like these), and some other papers and blog posts that seem relevant. However, there can be up to 2 weeks of delay, so it isn't a great solution.

comment by IAFF-User-309 (Imported-IAFF-User-309) · 2018-07-07T04:14:30.000Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

So I'm guilty (and perhaps an impetus for this post). I never linked or posted here because I assumed this site was more geared towards "pages of equations"-style work. Since I'm not yet at the point where I can produce that, I figured I'd stick to LW. I'll start at least posting the links here!

comment by cousin_it · 2018-07-03T07:52:30.000Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I've kinda switched to the view that we should have the whole party happening on LW, so people from different backgrounds can mix and get exposed to each other's interests. But yeah, it would be nice if new LW had tags, like old LW.

comment by jessicata (jessica.liu.taylor) · 2018-06-30T23:49:25.000Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Strongly agree that all AI alignment research should at least be linked from here.