Can we get full audio for Eliezer's conversation with Sam Harris?
post by JakubK (jskatt) · 2022-08-07T20:35:56.879Z · LW · GW · 7 commentsThis is a question post.
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Answers 3 Evan R. Murphy None 7 comments
I listened to this full interview in 2018, and it made me take AI risk way more seriously. I now plan to devote my career to this problem, so people often ask me what the concern with AI is all about. I really really really want to share this podcast with them, but these days less than half of the audio is available for free (the full interview requires a subscription of at least $8.33 per month). So the best I can do is offer them this transcript, which I find much less engaging than the audio. Sam appreciates effective altruism and has no problem releasing full audio for episodes about gun violence, so I bet he'd have no problem releasing the full Eliezer Yudkowsky audio if someone (e.g. Rob Bensinger) prodded him. To do my part, I just sent a request via Sam's contact form.
Side note: if Eliezer did some new interviews on relevant podcasts, he might persuade a lot more people to take alignment seriously. And there would be a more up-to-date interview (citing more attention-grabbing evidence for the possibility of advanced AI, e.g. DALL·E 2) for me to share with my vaguely-interested-but-mostly-unconcerned friends.
Answers
Sam appreciates effective altruism and has no problem releasing full audio for episodes about gun violence, so I bet he'd have no problem releasing the full Eliezer Yudkowsky audio if someone (e.g. Rob Bensinger) prodded him. To do my part, I just sent a request via Sam's contact form.
Yes, Sam might be receptive to that. Alternatively, instead of asking to release it for free, one of the funders in AI safety could offer to pay Sam a recurring fee to make this video publicly available.
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comment by Multicore (KaynanK) · 2022-08-08T00:35:23.589Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
is one of the first results for "yudkowsky harris" on Youtube. Is there supposed to be more than this?
Replies from: jskatt↑ comment by JakubK (jskatt) · 2022-08-08T16:16:44.364Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Yes. Here's how I imagine some people will respond to getting a link to this video. "Oh, it's some weird YouTube video with capitalized words in the title and 265 views." And the channel is called "Thinking Atheist" and has very few subscribers. It's way less likely to be taken seriously than the full audio on the official podcast.
Also, it's hard to listen to YouTube videos when moving around because people can't (easily) download them. And people have to keep their screen on the whole time (and not use their phone for any other purpose) unless they have some premium YouTube subscription.
↑ comment by gjm · 2022-08-08T23:10:27.782Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
It seems like you're answering "yes" to the question "is there supposed to be more than this?", but the things you say in elaboration seem like they aren't saying that there's supposed to be more, but that a YouTube video is a bad format for this stuff.
Could you clarify whether there is in fact more audio than the audio on that YouTube video?
(For the avoidance of doubt, I am not disagreeing with any of what you say about the downsides of the YouTube video. I am just trying to understand whether there is or isn't more audio to be had than what's in that video.)
Replies from: jskatt↑ comment by JakubK (jskatt) · 2022-08-09T15:21:47.919Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I mean that a YouTube video (especially this YouTube video) is not good enough for sharing with people (at least in my case), so I want an audio version from a source that looks somewhat official. (I want something "more than this.")
When I do a short "yudkowsky harris" search on YouTube and Google, this is the only full version of the interview that I can find.
comment by Joe_Collman · 2022-08-08T15:14:35.853Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
(the full interview requires a subscription of at least $8.33 per month)
Not quite - it requires that, or clicking on "Can't afford a subscription? Click here", followed by "Need up to a full scholarship? Contact us". Generally they give full scholarships to anyone who asks; Sam has repeatedly made clear that he doesn't want price to be a barrier.
Granted it's still preferable to release the full audio, since many won't bother with the extra clicks and email. I just wanted to point out that if anyone here wants access, there is a way (in case Multicore's linked video disappears).
I imagine the only reason the full audio isn't already released is that it's an old podcast - made before the only-half-length-versions-are-free approach. X-risk-related full episodes have generally been released for free more recently.
comment by Evan R. Murphy · 2022-08-08T01:20:30.089Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I agree that is a great interview. A few months ago it was freely available at the link below but has since been taken down: