How do I know if my first post should be a post, or a question?

post by Nathan1123 · 2022-08-04T01:46:15.312Z · LW · GW · 1 comment

This is a question post.

Contents

  Answers
    5 Raemon
    2 ViktoriaMalyasova
None
1 comment

Hello!

My name is Nathan, which you could divine from my username but I figured it would start off on the right foot to greet using conventional social norms. 

I consider myself a novice in decision theory philosophy and ethical AI, so I am intimidated by the high standard of quality writing and research in these posts. It feels more like people are submitting to a scientific periodical than an online forum. While I may never thoroughly read through Eliezer's books, I have been trying to browse the top posts of the site in order to understand the basic fundamentals of the community. 

As for me personally, I have been working a few years as a Software Engineer, with a masters degree in Computer Science. In the last year I have also been studying a lot in AI algorithms, and recently obtained a certification in Deep Reinforcement Learning. I also have a certain love of philosophy, although most books I have read are pre-modern philosophy of the Neo-Platonic or Scholastic variety. 

I stumbled across this site just in the last few days, after following a rabbit hole of sensationalist news articles surrounding the hysteria on UAI and the Basilisk. But after seeing how things work around here, I am more fascinated by the concepts of ethical AI and the need to model human moral values mathematically. (From what I could tell, it seems that the Basilisk has run its course a while ago and is no longer talked about much, anyway). Personally, I hold a lot of doubt that a sentient, superintelligent AI will ever be physically possible, but regardless I still understand how the discussions of ethical AI are extremely relevant. 

For a while, I have had a lot of thought about this topic, which if I were to post them would fill out at least a moderately-sized article of a few pages. That being said, it would be mainly ideas of my own personal knowledge and not a rigorous, academic research. Would that be appropriate as a post? Or would it be best to keep such personal musings out of the posting space, and instead post it here, phrased in the form of a question?

Thanks,

Nathan

Answers

answer by Raemon · 2022-08-04T06:15:48.885Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Welcome! Whether your first post should be a post or question... depends entirely on the post. If you're explicitly asking a question you hope others will answer, a question post makes sense. If you're mostly saying things you personally think, a post makes sense. (It doesn't matter how rigorous you are – it's fine to write posts that are your off-the-cuff thoughts).

↑ comment by Nathan1123 · 2022-08-04T14:16:49.601Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Okay, thank you!

answer by ViktoriaMalyasova · 2022-08-04T18:38:56.348Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Welcome!

>> ...it would be mainly ideas of my own personal knowledge and not a rigorous, academic research. Would that be appropriate as a post? 
It would be entirely appropriate. This is a blog, not an academic journal.

1 comment

Comments sorted by top scores.

comment by Shmi (shminux) · 2022-08-04T08:17:43.954Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Looks like this issue is out of the way, since you talked about yourself and asked a question in your first post. So just post whatever, and see what the feedback is like.