Voices
Zvi Mowshowitz on 'Modesty's Bailey', using the Yudkowsky-Aschenbrenner fight over AGI timelines as the test case
In an August 26 post Mowshowitz separates the defensible motte (other people's opinions are evidence) from the bailey (you may not weigh your own view above expert consensus without special information). The worked example is Leopold Aschenbrenner telling Eliezer Yudkowsky to defer to OpenPhil's 2050 AGI estimate and Yudkowsky replying that he does not consider them epistemic peers, with Yudkowsky later clarifying that peerhood means colleagues worth arguing with, not people you defer to unheard. He lists ten legitimate grounds for rejecting consensus, including spotting information cascades and motivated reasoning, and lands on the point that communities conflate intelligence with social status.
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