“The Best Lay Argument is not a Simple English Yud Essay ” by J Bostock

Epistemic status: these are my own opinions on AI risk communication, based primarily on my own instincts on the subject and discussions with people less involved with rationality than myself. Communication is highly subjective and I have not rigorously A/B tested messaging. I am even less confident in the quality of my responses than in the correctness of my critique.

If they turn out to be true, these thoughts can probably be applied to all sorts of communication beyond AI risk.

Lots of work has gone into trying to explain AI risk to laypersons. Overall, I think it's been great, but there's a particular trap that I've seen people fall into a few times. I'd summarize it as simplifying and shortening the text of an argument without enough thought for the information content. It comes in three forms. One is forgetting to adapt concepts for someone with a far [...]

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Outline:

(01:14) Failure to Adapt Concepts

(03:41) Failure to Filter Information

(05:09) Failure to Sound Like a Human Being

(07:23) Summary

The original text contained 4 images which were described by AI.

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First published:
September 10th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CZQYP7BBY4r9bdxtY/the-best-lay-argument-is-not-a-simple-english-yud-essay

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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