I Think Eliezer Should Go on Glenn Beck

I think an interview between the two could be a way for AI alignment to be taken more seriously by retirees who will vote and write their congressman.

And a way to be taken less seriously by the liberals and progressives who dominate almost all US institutions.

A cause, any cause whatsoever, can only get the support of one of the two major US parties.  Weirdly, it is also almost impossible to get the support of less than one of the major US parties, but putting that aside, getting the support of both is impossible.  Look at Covid if you want a recent demonstration.

Broadly speaking, you want the support of the left if you want the gov to do something, the right if you are worried about the gov doing something.  This is because the left is the gov's party (look at how DC votes, etc), so left admins are unified and capable by comparison with right admins, which suffer from 'Yes Minister' syndrome.

AI safety is a cause that needs the gov to act affirmatively.  It's proponents are asking the US to take a strong and controversial position, that its industry will vigorously oppose.  You need a lefty gov to pull something like that off, if indeed it is possible at all.

Getting support from the right will automatically decrease your support from the left.  Going on Glenn Beck would be an own goal, unless EY kicked him in the dick while they were live.

My guess is that this would be quite harmful in expectation, by making it significantly more likely that AI safety becomes red-tribe-coded and shortening timelines-until-the-topic-polarizes-and-everyone-gets-mindkilled.

Is political polarization the thing which risks it being negative EV? Is the topic of AI x-risk easily polarized? If we could make biological weapons today (instead of way back where the world was different e.g. slower information transfer, lower polarization), and we instead wanted to prevent this, would it be polarized if we put our bio expert on this show? What about nuclear non-proliferation? -- Where the underlying dynamic is somewhat similar: 1. short timelines, 2. risk of extinction. 

Surely we can imagine the less conservative wanting AI for the short term piles of gold, so there is the risk of polarization from some parties being more risk accepting and wanting innovation.

He's also a writer with book titles that sound like LessWrong articles, though they were written before this site hit the mainstream. He wrote "The Overton Window" in 2010, and "The Eye of Moloch" in 2012.

This is more about appearing on a large platform mainstream that is willing to take you seriously than political allegiance. I would obviously support an appearance on Rachel Maddow if she understood the issue as well as Beck. For political reasons, it is probably preferable to appear on a liberal platform, but none of them are offering, and none of them are actively reaching out the way Beck is. 

I suspect we should probably pass on this, though it might make sense for a few AI safety experts to talk to him behind the scenes to make sure he’s well informed.

I am worried that AI safety experts appearing on Glenn Beck may make it harder to win progressive support. Since Glenn is already commenting on this issue there’s less reason for an expert to make an appearance, however, if it looks like the issue is polarising left, then we might want to jump on the issue.