Posts

Effectively Handling Disagreements - Introducing a New Workshop 2024-04-15T16:33:50.339Z
Rationalist Storytelling (French) 2024-02-19T22:25:04.022Z
Attitudes about Applied Rationality 2024-02-03T14:42:22.770Z
Running your own workshop on handling hostile disagreements 2023-11-08T10:28:13.032Z
Categories of Arguing Style : Why being good among rationalists isn't enough to argue with everyone 2023-05-07T17:45:41.925Z

Comments

Comment by Camille Berger (Camille Berger) on What happens if you present 500 people with an argument that AI is risky? · 2024-09-05T21:00:25.599Z · LW · GW

Side comment from someone who knows a thing or two in psychology of argumentation:

1-I think that including back-and-forth in the argument (e.g. LLM debates or consulting) would have a significant effect. In general argumentation in-person vs on exposure showcases drastic différences.

2-In psychology of reasoning experiments, we sometimes observe that people are very confused about updates in "probability" (see -70% engineers, 30% lawyer, I pick someone at random. What's the probability it's one or the other -Fifty-fifty) I wouldn't be surprised if the results were different if you said "On a 0 to 10 scale where 0 is... And 10 is... Where do you stand".

3-The way an argument is worded (claim first, data second, example third vs example first, data second, claim third) also has an impact, at least according to argumentation theory. In particular I recall that there were no concrete examples given in the arguments (e.g. "Bad llama", "Devin", "Sydney", etc) which can give the impression of an incomplete argument.

Comment by Camille Berger (Camille Berger) on Ten arguments that AI is an existential risk · 2024-08-15T10:34:58.380Z · LW · GW

Note: This might be me who is not well-informed enough on this particular initiative. However, at this point, I'm still often confused and pessimistic about most communication efforts about AI Risk. This confusion is usually caused by the content covered and the style with which it is covered, and the style and content here does not seem to veer off a lot from what I typically identify as a failure mode.

I imagine that your focus demographic is not lesswrong or people who are already following you on twitter. 
I feel confused. 

Why test your message there? What is your focus demographic? Do you have a focus group? Do you plan to test your content in the wild? Have you interviewed focus groups that expressed interest and engagement with the content?

In other words, are you following well grounded advice on risk communication? If not, why?

Comment by Camille Berger (Camille Berger) on Attitudes about Applied Rationality · 2024-02-19T22:52:53.808Z · LW · GW

I feel some worry when reading your comment on stereotypes.

I think that what I have depicted here gestures at vague axes in a multidimensional space, and I sort of expect that people can see which coordinate they're closer to and, mainly, realize that others might be at a different location, one they still need to inquire on. I hope them to adopt a certain gentleness and curiosity in aknowledging that someone might have a different perspective on rationality, and I hope that they will not try to label people out loud.

I'm always a bit worried when naming things, because people seem to associate categories with "boxes" or "boundaries" rather than "shores of vast and unknown territories".

Comment by Camille Berger (Camille Berger) on Attitudes about Applied Rationality · 2024-02-04T13:05:30.669Z · LW · GW

I agree. I think I wanted to convey something like "normative views". The word "stereotype" bothers me a bit because it is a bit loaded (as in, "a sexist stereotype").
What do you think of "Types of Applied Rationality" ?
Edit : settled on "Attitudes" for now.