Talk:Machine Intelligence Research Institute

NPOV for Pakaran

I've taken a lot of stuff out of the article that seemed to be basically just handwaving and self-promotion. This is what it read like when I found it:

"The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence is a non-profit organization that seeks to create a benevolent artificial intelligence capable of improving its own design. To this end, they have developed the ideas of seed AI and Friendly AI and are currently coordinating efforts to physically implement them. The Singularity Institute was created in the belief that the creation of smarter-than-human, kinder-than-human minds represents a tremendous opportunity to accomplish good. Artificial intelligence was chosen because the Singularity Institute views the neurological modification of human beings as a more difficult and dangerous path to transhuman intelligence."

"The Singularity Institute observes that AI systems would run on hardware that conducts computations at billions or trillions of times the characteristic rate of human neurons, resulting in a corresponding speedup of thinking speed. Transhuman AIs would be capable of developing nanotechnology and using it to accomplish real world goals, including the further enhancement of their own intelligence and the consensual intelligence enhancement of human beings. Given enough intelligence and benevolence, a transhuman AI would be able to solve many age-old human problems on very short timescales."

As it stands, that isn't a bad article, it's just that it isn't really suitable for an encyclopedia. It presents some things as fact that are clearly opinion. It makes contentious statements, such as that it originated concept of "Seed AI" (astonishing for such a new organization--I read similar ideas in Von Neumann's book in the mid-seventies, and that had been written nearly thirty years before). The claim to be "coordinating efforts to physically implement" Seed AI and Friendly AI seem to rest on fundraising and writing a lot of papers about an extremely loosely defined programming language which seems to lack even an experimental implementation.

Wikipedia isn't for original research, it isn't for us to put up our pet ideas (however valid they may be). It's to catalog human knowledge from a neutral point of view. The article as it stood was in my opinion not so much an encyclopedia article as a promotional panegyric. --Minority Report 03:07, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ok, in the interest of admitting biases, I'm a financial donor to the SIAI. It's true that there have been holdups in beginning actual development, largely because there's a need to get all the theoretical underpinnings of Friendly AI done first.

That said, claiming that the SIAI is a "religion" rather than a group (which you may or may not agree with) is intrinsically PoV. --Pakaran (ark a pan) 03:55, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with most of your criticisms, Minority Report, and the article was not NPOV as it existed before. The statement that they are coordinating efforts to implement seed AI is quite valid, however. SIAI is developing a smaller, less ambitious AI program, although the primary objective of its research now is formalizing the theoretical framework for Friendly AI.

Also, using the phrase "quasi-religious" to describe an institution that claims to be entirely secular is highly misleading. SIAI has no affiliation with any religion.

I'm interested in your comments regarding von Neumann's work. I was not aware that von Neumann had speculated in this area. If you can find a source perhaps it should be mentioned at Seed AI. — Schaefer 05:02, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think my use of the term "quasi-religious" was an overstatement. I was trying to encapsulate the visionary aspect of this work, and the use of language which seems to owe more to religion than to engineering. I apologise if I also mischaracterized the Seed AI stuff; from looking around the site I saw a lot of hot air and little activity. I read a few books by Von Neumann in the late seventies, and the idea of having self-improving machines was very much his aim. I'm sorry I can't recall the specific book. I thought it might be The Computer and the Brain but a glance at the contents page on Amazon doesn't offer any clues. The idea was certainly in the air in the 1970s, long before Vinge's 1993 paper. --Minority Report 11:09, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've added basic information on the SIAI-CA and removed an erroneous middle initial. I also changed the first paragraph to reflect the fact that the SIAI actually does want to build software, rather than just talk about it, and to clarify that the 'Singularity' in the name refers to influencing the outcome of a technological singularity. --Michael Wilson

Merges

I have merged in information from the previously separate items on Emerson and Yudkowsky, which amounted to about a line of exposition and a few links. Those items now redirect to this item.

Yeah, I'd like that redirect to be removed. Actually, I'm removing it now. Eliezer Yudkowsky is wikified in many articles already. There is no reason to redirect an article about a person to their association's article. Biographical articles can be fleshed out over time and as of now it *looks* like we don't have an article on Yudkowsky when in fact we did. A line would have been a good start for smeone to write more. I'm making Eliezer Yudkowsky a bio-stub. --JoeHenzi 22:52, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What is "reliably altruistic AI"?

Is it behavior that promotes the survival and flourishing of others at a cost to one's own? Wouldn't this require an AI with self-awareness and free will? But if an AI has free will, would it be moral to enslave it to serve the interests of others at the cost of it's own interests? Or is this merely a nod at Azimov's science-fiction "Three Laws of Robotics"? Those are close to a robotic version of a policeman's duties which may be seen as altruistic but may also be seen fulfilling a contract for which one is compensated. Or does the statement merely envision a non-self-aware AI with an analog of what ethologists call biological altruism? Whatever SIAI has in mind, I think the article should either make it explicit or drop the sentence since, as it stands, it is difficult or impossible to know what it means. Blanchette 04:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The SIAI web site spends many pages addressing that question. Unfortunately I don't think it can be concisely added to this article, which is already fairly long; interested parties will just have to follow the references. Perhaps someone could expand the 'promotion and support' section of the 'Friendly Artificial Intelligence' article to detail the SIAI's definition of the term better. --Michael Wilson

Michael, thanks for the hint that what the author of the phrase "reliably altruistic AI" had in mind was the same thing as "Friendly AI". A search of the SIAI website reveals that the phrase "reliably altruistic AI" is not used there, nor is the term "reliably altruistic" nor is "altruistic AI". So "reliably altruistic AI" looks like an attempt to define Friendly AI that leads one away from rather than closer to understanding SIAI's ideas. I have replaced it with "Friendly AI" and the curious will then understand that further information is available through the previous link to "Friendly artificial intelligence". --Blanchette 07:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Notibility

I just removed the notice about notability considering the institute has been written about in dozens of major publications. It's fairly obvious the notice doesn't belong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.81.203.35 (talk) 15:21, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Robotics attention needed

• Update
• Expand
• Check sources and insert refs
• Reassess once finished

Chaosdruid (talk) 08:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Self-published papers?

Two of the several linked papers are even slightly peer-reviewed. Should these be linked? There is no evidence given that this work is noteworthy, either. If these extensive sections should be here, there needs to be evidence they're noteworthy and not effectively just an ad - David Gerard (talk) 11:53, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

When was SIAI->SI name change?

The SI->MIRI name change was January 2013. When was the SIAI->SI name change? I can't pin it down more closely than "some time between 2010 and 2012" - David Gerard (talk) 11:09, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality?

User User:Zubin12 added a neutrality POV tag in this edit. However, the tag says "[r]elevant discussion may be found on the talk page," and the only discussion of neutrality issues on the talk page dates back to 2004. Per this guideline, the POV tag can be removed "[i]n the absence of any discussion." I'm going to remove the tag now, and if anyone feels the need to discuss the neutrality of the article, they can discuss it here first. --Gbear605 (talk) 00:29, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Large amounts of Bias present

The article is most likely written by those supportive of the organization and it's mission, which is to be expected but that has caused a large amount of bias to appear in the article. Not only is much of the terminology used in the article confusing and not standardized but tons of tenous connections some of which I have removed.

The research section is incredibly confusing and next to impossible for a layman or even somebody not familiar with the specific sub-culture associated with the organization to follow, additional criticism or controversy about the organization remains limited. For this reason the article doesn't meat W:NPV standards Zubin12 (talk) 00:49, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for adding your reasoning for the tag. I'm not entirely convinced it needs to be there, but I'm okay with leaving it for now. Gbear605 (talk) 01:07, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't see how any of it is biased or confusing at all. Could you give some examples? K.Bog 15:15, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

It is a blatant advertisement, full of sources by the organization and other primary sources, and quotes that are not encyclopedic. This is not an encyclopedia article Jytdog (talk) 15:40, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

I think that's completely false. The primary sources here are being used for straightforward facts just like WP:PRIMARY says; it's okay to cite research to say what the research says. The presence of primary sources doesn't make something an advertisement. And the quotes seem perfectly encyclopedic to me. K.Bog 16:06, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, that being said the research section does have some problems. So, I'll go ahead and fix it, and probably you will feel better about it afterwards.K.Bog 16:21, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

It is disgusting to see fancruft with shitty, bloggy sources on science topics. Video games, I understand more This is just gross. Jytdog (talk) 17:04, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Please keep your emotions out of it. If you're not capable of evaluating this topic reasonably then move on to other things. Plus, I was in the middle of major edits, as I noted already. It's not good etiquette to change the article at the same time. I'm going to return it to the version I am writing, because I was working on it first, and then incorporate your changes if they are still relevant and suitable. K.Bog 17:29, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

"Disgust" is more an opinion, and one quite appropriate to blatant fan editing. This needs some serious non-fan review, and scouring of primary sources - David Gerard (talk) 17:40, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

But it's not fan editing, and primary sources are acceptable in the contexts used here. If you believe it requires third party review then flag it for actual third party review - you don't get to claim that you are unbiased if you have an axe to grind, whether it's negative or positive. K.Bog 17:44, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog you can finish if you want but you interrupted a major in-progress edit (this is the second time you did this to me, as I recall) and I'm going to revise it to my draft before looking at your changes.K.Bog 18:03, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that you were working over the page. That is what tags are for. Please communicate instead of edit warring. I will self revert. Jytdog (talk) 18:06, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I searched for the tag but couldn't remember what it was called. That's why I wrote it here on the talk page. K.Bog 18:11, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Merge of changes

@User:Jytdog these are the significant differences between my version and your version:

• I kept the summary quote from the AI textbook because it is an easy to understand general overview of the research. One person here believed the article was too technical. I don't generally agree, but this quote is good insurance in case many people do find it too technical.
• I added Graves' article because it was published by a mainstream third party magazine and deals extensively with the subject matter.
• I have revised/streamlined the information about forecasting to read better.
• I have kept the AI Impacts info because it is referenced by reliable secondary sources.
• I kept brief references to all the papers that have been published in journals or workshops. Since they were published by a third party, they are notable enough for inclusion, and they follow WP:Primary, as they are being used to back up easily verifiable information about the subject ("X works on Y"). With these inclusions we have enough material to preserve all four research subsections.

The other things that you changed are things that I agree to change. I finished the article to my current satisfaction. Let me know if there is a problem with any of this or if the merge is complete K.Bog 19:40, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

There are still far too many primary or SPS refs. See below.

OK

• Hawking, Stephen; Tegmark, Max; Russell, Stuart; Wilczek, Frank (2014). "Transcending Complacency on Superintelligent Machines". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
• Basulto, Dominic (2015). "The very best ideas for preventing artificial intelligence from wrecking the planet". The Washington Post. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
• Ackerman, Elise (2008). "Annual A.I. conference to be held this Saturday in San Jose". San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
• "Scientists Fear Day Computers Become Smarter Than Humans". Fox News Channel. Associated Press. 2007. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
• Abate, Tom (2006). "Smarter than thou?". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
• Abate, Tom (2007). "Public meeting will re-examine future of artificial intelligence". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
• Chen, Angela (2014). "More Rational Resolutions". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
• Tegmark, Max (2017). Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. United States: Knopf. ISBN 978-1-101-94659-6. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
• Russell, Stuart; Norvig, Peter (2009). Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-604259-4.
• LaFrance, Adrienne (2015). "Building Robots With Better Morals Than Humans". The Atlantic. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
• Gallagher, Brian. "Scary AI Is More "Fantasia" Than "Terminator"". Nautilus. Retrieved 28 July 2018.
• Clarke, Richard A. (2017). Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes. HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0062488023.

bloggy but OKish

• Hsu, Jeremy (2015). "Making Sure AI's Rapid Rise Is No Surprise". Discover. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
• D'Orazio, Dante (2014). "Elon Musk says artificial intelligence is 'potentially more dangerous than nukes'". The Verge. Retrieved 5 October 2015.

churnalism

• De Looper, Christian (2015). "Research Suggests Human Brain Is 30 Times As Powerful As The Best Supercomputers". Tech Times. Retrieved 12 October 2015.

primary/SPS

(note sources by MIRI people are used as primary sources, where the content comments on them)

• "IRS Form 990" (PDF). Machine Intelligence Research Institute. 2013. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
• "Team". Machine Intelligence Research Institute. 2016. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
• Soares, Nate; Fallenstein, Benja (2015). "Aligning Superintelligence with Human Interests: A Technical Research Agenda". In Miller, James; Yampolskiy, Roman; Armstrong, Stuart; et al. (eds.). The Technological Singularity: Managing the Journey. Springer. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• "Research Workshops". Machine Intelligence Research Institute. 2013. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
• GiveWell (2015). Potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence (Report). Retrieved 11 October 2015. {{cite report}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• "Singularity Institute Strategic Plan" (PDF). Machine Intelligence Research Institute. 2011. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
• "Singularity Summit: An Annual Conference on Science, Technology, and the Future". Machine Intelligence Research Institute. 2012. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
• Muehlhauser, Luke (2012). "July 2012 Newsletter". MIRI Blog. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
• Stiefel, Todd; Metskas, Amanda K. (22 May 2013). "Julia Galef" (podcast). The Humanist Hour. Episode 083. The Humanist. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
• Muehlhauser, Luke (2013). "We are now the "Machine Intelligence Research Institute" (MIRI)". MIRI Blog. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
• Bostrom, Nick (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (First edition. ed.). ISBN 0199678111.
• Muehlhauser, Luke (2015). "Musk and Gates on superintelligence and fast takeoff". Luke Muehlhauser Blog. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
• Future of Life Institute (2015). Research priorities for robust and beneficial artificial intelligence (PDF) (Report). Retrieved 4 October 2015. {{cite report}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• "2015 Awardees". Future of Life Institute. 2015. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
• Graves, Matthew (8 November 2017). "Why We Should Be Concerned About Artificial Superintelligence". Skeptic. The Skeptics Society. Retrieved 28 July 2018.
• Bostrom, Nick; Yudkowsky, Eliezer (2014). "The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence". In Frankish, Keith; Ramsey, William (eds.). The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-87142-6. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Yudkowsky, Eliezer (2008). "Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk". In Bostrom, Nick; Ćirković, Milan (eds.). Global Catastrophic Risks. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199606504. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• LaVictoire, Patrick; Fallenstein, Benja; Yudkowsky, Eliezer; Bárász, Mihály; Christiano, Paul; Herreshoff, Marcello (2014). "Program Equilibrium in the Prisoner's Dilemma via Löb's Theorem". Multiagent Interaction without Prior Coordination: Papers from the AAAI-14 Workshop. AAAI Publications.
• Soares, Nate; Levinstein, Benjamin A. (2017). "Cheating Death in Damascus" (PDF). Formal Epistemology Workshop (FEW). Retrieved 28 July 2018.
• Soares, Nate; Fallenstein, Benja; Yudkowsky, Eliezer; Armstrong, Stuart (2015). "Corrigibility". AAAI Workshops: Workshops at the Twenty-Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Austin, TX, January 25–26, 2015. AAAI Publications.
• Taylor, Jessica (2016). "Quantilizers: A Safer Alternative to Maximizers for Limited Optimization". Workshops at the Thirtieth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
• Hibbard, Bill. "Avoiding Unintended AI Behaviors" (PDF). Artificial General Intelligence: 5th International Conference, AGI 2012, Oxford, UK, December 8–11, 2012. Proceedings.
• Hibbard, Bill. "Decision Support for Safe AI Design" (PDF). Artificial General Intelligence: 5th International Conference, AGI 2012, Oxford, UK, December 8–11, 2012. Proceedings.</ref>
• Yudkowsky, Eliezer (2011). "Complex Value Systems in Friendly AI" (PDF). Artificial General Intelligence: 4th International Conference, AGI 2011, Mountain View, CA, USA, August 3–6, 2011. Berlin: Springer.

Jytdog (talk) 20:04, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

churnalism removed, I didn't notice it. Your list of primary/SPS is much too long because you are including a lot of separate organizations as well as authors. Bostrom is listed as an advisor on their website, not a member of the organization; if Russell is secondary then so is Bostrom. Givewell and FLI are separate entities. The Humanist Hour is a separate entity. They are not 'MIRI people.' And if an outside group writes or publishes on this group, it's not a primary source, it's a secondary source. e.g., FLI is only a primary source if they talk about themselves.

Also, some of those primary sources are being used in concert with secondary sources. If a fact is cited by both a relevant primary source and a secondary source saying the same thing, what compels you to remove the primary source? Of course, it doesn't really matter to me, so I've gone ahead and removed those, as well as some others from your list. The majority of sources are secondary, however there is no wiki policy that adjudicates on how much of an article can be primary sourced, as long as there are sufficient secondary sources. If an article can be made longer with appropriate use of primary sources, without being too long, then it's an improvement. Because more, accurate, information is simply a good thing.

Moreover, the section is no longer written like an advertisement. So neither tag is warranted.K.Bog 20:58, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog: There is only a single self-published source here, the FLI report, which satisfies WP:SPS. There are only about a dozen primary sources (i.e. papers written by people at MIRI) - less than half of the sources in the whole article, and all of them are published by third parties, and otherwise in accordance with WP:Primary. So the article mainly relies on secondary sources, therefore the primary source tag is unwarranted, see? As for advertisement - is there any specific wording in it that sounds like an advertisement? K.Bog 04:02, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I have no words. I may have some later. Jytdog (talk) 04:19, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

arbitrary break

Content like this:

He argues that the intentions of the operators are too vague and contextual to be easily coded.

References

is still in the article. This is a primary source (a conference paper published on their own website and branded even) and the content is randomly grabbing some thing out of it. Not encyclopedic. This is what fans or people with a COI do (they edit the same way). There are a bunch of other conference papers like this as well and used in the same way. Conference papers are the bottom of the barrel for scientific publishing. There are still somewhat crappy blogs or e-zines like OZY and Nautlius.

A different kind of bad:

In early 2015, MIRI's research was cited in a research priorities document accompanying an open letter on AI that called for "expanded research aimed at ensuring that increasingly capable AI systems are robust and beneficial". Musk responded by funding a large AI safety grant program, with grant recipients including Bostrom, Russell, Bart Selman, Francesca Rossi, Thomas Dietterich, Manuela M. Veloso, and researchers at MIRI. MIRI expanded as part of a general wave of increased interest in safety among other researchers in the AI community.

References

In the first sentence

a) the first citation is completely wrong, which I have fixed.

b) The quotation doesn't appear in the cited piece (which is not the open letter itself, but rather says of itself "This article was drafted with input from the attendees of the 2015 conference The Future of AI: Opportunities and Challenges (see Acknowledgements), and was the basis for an open letter that has collected nearly 7000 signatures in support of the research priorities outlined here."

c) The cited document doesn't mention MIRI - this content saying "MIRI's research was cited in a research priorities document..." is pure commentary by who over wrote this; similar to the way the conference papers are used, discussed above. Again we don't do this.

In the second sentence:

a) The WaPo source doesn't mention the open letter. (I understand the goal here, but this is invalid way to do it)

b) The following people named as getting money, are not mentioned in the WaPo source: Russell, Selman, Rossi, Dietterich. However, Bostrom, Veloso, and Fallenstein at MIRI are mentioned. The WaPo piece mentions Heather Roff Perkins, Owain Evans, and Michael Webb. But this list has nothing to do with MIRI, so what is this even doing here?

The content is not even trying to summarize the source. This is editing driven by something other than the basic methods of scholarship we use here.

The third sentence:

The source here is the one that actually is telling the whole story of this paragraph. The reference lacks a page number (another issue of basic scholarship). It doesn't say that MIRI expanded per se; there is one sentence mentioning MIRI and it says "Major new Al­ safety donations enabled expanded research at our largest nonprofit sister organizations: the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in Berkeley, the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford and the Cen­tre for the Study of Existential Risk in Cambridge (UK)."

I have fixed the paragraph here. Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

section above with interspersed replies and signatures added to isolated bits

Content like this:

He argues that the intentions of the operators are too vague and contextual to be easily coded.

References

is still in the article. This is a primary source (a conference paper published on their own website and branded even) and the content is randomly grabbing some thing out of it. Not encyclopedic. This is what fans or people with a COI do (they edit the same way). There are a bunch of other conference papers like this as well and used in the same way. Conference papers are the bottom of the barrel for scientific publishing. There are still somewhat crappy blogs or e-zines like OZY and Nautlius.Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I've explained again and again that published primary sources are perfectly encyclopedic, and OZY and Nautilus are both published secondary sources. Computer science is different from other fields: most CS work is done in workshops and conferences rather than journals, and they are not considered "bottom of the barrel", so perhaps you aren't equipped to know what is reputable or not in the field of computer science. I don't know if you've actually looked at that citation either; the content in this article is roughly summarizing the thesis. If you want there to be *more* detail in this article, that's fine - feel free to add it yourself, but that's clearly not a reason to take away any details. So, I'm at a loss to see what the problem is. Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the use of academic sources elsewhere on Wikipedia, because this is exactly how we write things all the time. K.Bog 21:38, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I do understand your reading of WP:PRIMARY; you are not using primary sources carefully and overall their use is too extensive; please do review WP:PRIMAY. There are big red warning flags in that part of policy, that you are ignoring, and you are focusing solely on the "may be used" bit Jytdog (talk) 15:02, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

They pass the warning flags. I don't see any basis for calling them "too extensive"; they are less than half. There is nothing in the policy preventing that, and I haven't seen anyone level this sort of treatment towards articles on other subjects. Red flags don't imply that you can only use a few of them, they imply that you can only use them in a few manners, this being one of those manners. K.Bog 17:06, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

A different kind of bad:

In early 2015, MIRI's research was cited in a research priorities document accompanying an open letter on AI that called for "expanded research aimed at ensuring that increasingly capable AI systems are robust and beneficial". Musk responded by funding a large AI safety grant program, with grant recipients including Bostrom, Russell, Bart Selman, Francesca Rossi, Thomas Dietterich, Manuela M. Veloso, and researchers at MIRI. MIRI expanded as part of a general wave of increased interest in safety among other researchers in the AI community.

References

In the first sentence

a) the first citation is completely wrong, which I have fixed. Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Sure. Technical problem, I didn't write it, kudos to you for noticing.K.Bog 21:38, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

b) The quotation doesn't appear in the cited piece (which is not the open letter itself, but rather says of itself "This article was drafted with input from the attendees of the 2015 conference The Future of AI: Opportunities and Challenges (see Acknowledgements), and was the basis for an open letter that has collected nearly 7000 signatures in support of the research priorities outlined here."Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Sure, that was probably a quotation from some other source that got lost in the perpetual churn and hacking. This is the kind of problem that articles have when people start revising them without paying any attention to the basic process of writing content.K.Bog 21:38, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

We collided earlier in trying to clean this up. I stepped back and let you do your thing. In this diff you wrote: I finished the article to my current satisfaction.. The mistake is yours; it and your response to it reflect your lack of commitment to Wikipedia's mission and the policies and guidelines through which we realize it. Jytdog (talk) 15:22, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

c) The cited document doesn't mention MIRI - this content saying "MIRI's research was cited in a research priorities document..." is pure commentary by who over wrote this; similar to the way the conference papers are used, discussed above. Again we don't do this. Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

No, that is a straightforward statement of fact, which is different from commentary. I presume that we do make straightforward statements of fact all the time.K.Bog 21:38, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

That is not a valid way to use sources in Wikipedia; we summarize what they say, we don't connect dots ourselves. This is the same thing people are saying to you elsewhere on this page. Jytdog (talk) 15:22, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

It is not "connecting the dots" if it is a straightforward, literal, neutral statement of fact. That is what I have been saying to the other person who has made this complaint, and in their case as well they haven't given any convincing rebuttal. K.Bog 17:06, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Okay, as it turns out, the cited document does explicitly mention MIRI, on page 112: "Research in this area... could extend or critique existing approaches begun by groups such as the Machine Intelligence Research Institute". K.Bog 09:57, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

In the second sentence:

a) The WaPo source doesn't mention the open letter. (I understand the goal here, but this is invalid way to do it) Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Okay. Then rewrite it to "Musk funded". K.Bog 21:38, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

You violated policy here; again in this diff you wrote: I finished the article to my current satisfaction.. Jytdog (talk) 15:22, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

b) The following people named as getting money, are not mentioned in the WaPo source: Russell, Selman, Rossi, Dietterich. However, Bostrom, Veloso, and Fallenstein at MIRI are mentioned. The WaPo piece mentions Heather Roff Perkins, Owain Evans, and Michael Webb. But this list has nothing to do with MIRI, so what is this even doing here? Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't have WaPo access, so I don't know. Again I presume that the information was present across multiple sources, which got lost in one or more of your bouts.K.Bog 21:38, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

You violated policy here; again in this diff you wrote: I finished the article to my current satisfaction.. Jytdog (talk) 15:22, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

The content is not even trying to summarize the source. This is editing driven by something other than the basic methods of scholarship we use here. Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

You don't summarize the source, you summarize the part of the source that is relevant to the subject matter of the article. Maybe you should think more about this sort of thing before throwing accusations around. K.Bog 21:40, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

You violated policy here; again in this diff you wrote: I finished the article to my current satisfaction.. It is clear in your comment about, that you are pursuing whatever your interest is, and ignoring WP policy to get there. Jytdog (talk) 15:22, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

To all of the above accusations: "I completed it to my current satisfaction" does not mean "it is free of mistakes". In that context, I was talking about the merge of changes between my version and your change. Moreover, your version had the same "history" section as mine if I recall, and some of it has changed since back then anyway. Note that I was not the original writer of these (to the best of my recollection). K.Bog 17:06, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

The third sentence:

The source here is the one that actually is telling the whole story of this paragraph. The reference lacks a page number (another issue of basic scholarship). Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

"Basic scholarship"! My ebook lacks page numbers so I do not know which page it's on, but somehow you assume that I am bad at basic scholarship? That's rather arrogant on your part. Please do better in the future. K.Bog 21:38, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Books have pages. I don't even own the book and I was able to find the relevant pages. Jytdog (talk) 15:22, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Not my ebook. I don't see what else there is to say here. K.Bog 17:06, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Perfectly bad response. (by the way most ebook readers allow you to switch between "flowing text" and "book format"). It is a matter of paying attention to good scholarship, which should lead you to find the page numbers not focusing on what you happen to possess. Its not about you. Citations are so other people can a) verify the information and b) learn more. Jytdog (talk) 17:21, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't say that MIRI expanded per se; there is one sentence mentioning MIRI and it says "Major new Al­ safety donations enabled expanded research at our largest nonprofit sister organizations: the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in Berkeley, the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford and the Cen­tre for the Study of Existential Risk in Cambridge (UK)." Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Expansion of research at a research group = expansion. It would be idiotic to bicker over this level of semantics.K.Bog 21:38, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

It is puffery. Jytdog (talk) 15:22, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Neutral, factual language, that is written by a third party and directly relevant to the topic. "Oh, but Tegmark works at FLI!" Sure, but that doesn't make it puffery. K.Bog 17:06, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Nope. MIRI expanding is hiring more people, getting new space, etc. All we can get from that one sentence is that they got more research funding. For all we know they were underfunded before then and became able to use capacity they already had, that was underutilized. "MIRI expanded" is both literally and under policy, not supported by the source and puffed up. Puffery.Jytdog (talk) 17:25, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Your proposed wording is fine. My point is just that going from underutilization to full utilization is still "expansion", so the accusation that I am writing "puffery" is specious. K.Bog 17:38, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I have fixed the paragraph here. Jytdog (talk) 15:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

• note: in this diff Kbog inserted responses within my remarks in the Arbitrary break section above. This broke up my comment and also makes it hard for people to follow and see who said what. I addressed this by a) here by addig back my uninterrupted comment from the history, and giving the interspersed section a new header, and then in this diff, adding my signature to the cut-off bits of my original comment. I have now replied in several signed diffs above, continuing the interspersed discussion. Jytdog (talk) 16:18, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm fine with this reorganization, I thought it would be easier for readers to follow a conversation that is broken up (like it is now), I just can't insert other people's signatures. K.Bog 17:06, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Mention of Nick Bostrom

Kbog, why are you edit-warring a tangential mention of Nick Bostrom in? If he's MIRI it's self-sourced puffery, and if he's not then it's tangential. Having lots of blue numbers after it - one of which is a Bill Gates interview on YouTube with no mention of MIRI - doesn't make it look cooler or something - David Gerard (talk) 08:17, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

That mention was in both my and Jytdog's versions of the article, clearly I am not trying to edit war anything *into* the article, this is typical bold-revert-discuss, exactly how things are supposed to work. The relevance is that it is background for the expansion of interest and funding for the organization. E.g. in the World War II article, the "Background" section has a mention of World War I, and that is not tangential. You are right that Gates is not relevant, I took him out of it. Puffery is non-neutral language, like "esteemed", "highly regarded", etc - whereas this article uses plain factual language. Anyway the current wording should make it more clear - I can now see how the previous wording might have made it appear out of place and gratuitous. K.Bog 08:28, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

User:Kbog The current wording is a still a bit puffy,and the article has the endemic problem of simply quoting the opinion of others rather being a real encyclopedic entry. There are far too many "Believes" and "Argued" in the article for it to qualify as a proper encyclopedia entry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zubin12 (talk • contribs) 00:58, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

"Believes" and "argues" are not puffy, they are neutral, factual representations of people's positions: they neither support nor condemn any ideas, they state an uncontroversial fact about what people are saying. If you want an alternative, we can remove them with pure statements of the material, e.g., replace "Muelhauser and Bostrom argue that hard-coded moral values would eventually be seen as obsolete" with "hard-coded moral values would eventually be seen as obsolete", and so on. But proper attribution of arguments seems like a more encyclopedic way of doing things. K.Bog 01:26, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

A lot of those people paraphrased or quotes in the article have only a tangential connection to the MIRI institute. The research section needs a total re-write to include the only research that was undertaken by the institute or was closely connected with it. Only Notable or relevant arguments/opinions should be included in the encyclopedia.Zubin12 (talk) 01:44, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't know of any Wikipedia policy against statements that have a tangential connection to the subject of the article. All the research in the research section is about research done by people at the institute or closely connected with it. All the arguments and opinions here are published by third parties, so they are notable enough for inclusion.K.Bog 01:48, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

In your last revert, you said, "The fact that Musk Endorsed the book is irrelevant, your argument that he needed to be mentioned because he gave the MIRI a grant is superflous". I don't know what you mean by this: "superfluous" means "redundant"; if my argument is redundant then I am right anyway. The "history" section is a story about relevant things that have happened in the past, and part of this story is Musk's involvement. Anyway, you cannot remove material without building a talk page consensus first. Merely saying "let's take this to the talk page" doesn't give you a right to continue edit warring. The material stands until there is a decision to change it. K.Bog 01:53, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

As a third party editor, I agree with Kbog that the reversion done in https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Machine_Intelligence_Research_Institute&diff=next&oldid=856553209 should be essentially left as is until talk page consensus is reached. Gbear605 (talk) 01:57, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

OK, I have changed it to what I presume is an agreeable rewrite - the Musk endorsement is now placed in the final paragraph, next to his actions, so that no one mistakes it for being irrelevant. K.Bog 02:02, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

The article is about the MIRI, not every article that has cited or been influenced by the MIRI.

1.) Mentioning that Nick Bostrom's book has been endorsed by Elon Musk isn't related to the MIRI directly, only through tenous second-order effects. It's enough to say that the book helped spark a public discussion that drew attention to the organization. The fact that Musk Endorsed it has zero Direct connection to the subject of the article. The fact that the MIRI got a grant due to a conference organized by Musk is mentioned separately.

2.) The fact that this followed-up by an Huffington post article by 2 separate respected and famous people, just make it puffery by name-dropping famous people who hae mentioned the organization build up it's credibility.

3.) The research section's language is convoluted and needs to be simplified to a more understandable and general level. The sourcing and citations itself are fine, but the level and non-standard terminiolgy used makes it seem like fan-crutf.(Additionally, just like I behaved inapportiably by edit-warring, the Tag Should be re-added as they should not be removed until after talk-page discussion achieves consensus). Zubin12 (talk) 02:08, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the tags should be re-added until consensus is reached. I'm adding them back now.Gbear605 (talk) 02:11, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Per Wiki Policy, a maintenance template should be removed immediately if there is a consensus that its initial placement was in error (note: consensus doesn't necessarily mean "everyone agrees"). We can positively see from the article that the block quotes are a small part of it, and that the language imparts real information in a neutral factual manner. Zubin still hasn't actually attempted to justify either tag, he has merely stated that it is too technical and has some irrelevant information, which *he feels* are promotional, even though there is no basis for this inference in the Wikipedia manual of style or anywhere else. If he will still refrain from forming a proper argument then it's an uncontroversial case for reversion. K.Bog 02:42, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, I was under the misapprehension that the tags were there prior to Zubin12's editing of this page. However, Zubin added them with https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Machine_Intelligence_Research_Institute&diff=prev&oldid=851150526. With that in mind, I would support going to a single POV tag (since the neutrality is clearly under dispute) until either a third party editor - who actually has a view about it beyond stopping the edit war - reviews this page, or the two of you manage to reach an agreement. Gbear605 (talk) 02:52, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

The previous tags for POV sorts of things were for issues that were raised and resolved above. The current version of the article has all of Jytdog's edits, and the only dispute so far has come from Zubin. K.Bog 03:03, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

1. It has a rather clear second-order connection, and that is okay. For instance, in the World War II article, it mentions the civil war between the KMT and the communists, because that has a second-order connection to the Sino-Japanese part of the conflict. That's included even though it is not technically about World War II. As for this article, the fact that Musk endorsed Bostrom's arguments has a rather clear second-order connection to the fact that he paid people to do research on them.

2. We are going out of our way to stack the article with reliable, notable sources, and that means articles in famous media outlets that quote respected and famous people. What bizarre theatrics are these, where the very defenses that exist to ward off deletionist gadflies are used as a pretext for their further persistence. It seems that literally everything, to you, is a reason to be combative: either it's not notable enough so it must be removed, or it's too notable so it must be puffery; either it's irrelevant, or it's so relevant that it's superfluous; and so on. Instead of doing this, you should stick to a straight and consistent application of Wikipedia's policies.

3. It's quite easy to understand, especially compared to other technical issues (see e.g. [1], which doesn't seem like "fan-cruft" to me), so I don't see the problem. It is just my judgement as a native English speaker that they are as understandable as possible without losing detail or encyclopedic tone; if you disagree, then propose a rewrite. AFAIK, no one else has found that this article is hard to understand. And that's not how tags work: they are not missiles that you can fire-and-forget, you don't get to tag-bomb a page just because you personally don't agree with it, they are subservient to editors' consensus rather than being above it. If other editors think the page is fine, then you need to show what the problem is. K.Bog 02:34, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

1. It's not a rather clear second-order connection, but a tenuous third-order connection. The chain of logic between the grants and the publication of the book takes 3 parts. There is a clear interest in explaining the background of a conflict that laid the ground-work for world war 2 is asia, that simply isn't present in mentioning the endorsement of an unaffiliated book. For example, if Musk's endorsements of the book caused the MIRI to be founded or reforms then it would be notable.

This is pointless bickering, please phrase your objection in terms of WikiPolicy. For instance, if there is a WikiPolicy against third-order connections, then go by that. Otherwise there is no point arguing about the number of steps in the chain of logic. You are begging the question by saying that there is no clear interest here: either introduce a significant argument, or concede the point. K.Bog 03:15, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

WP:Synth prohibits drawing conclusion from two sources that aren't explicitly stated, unless you find a source explicitly saying that without musk's endorsement of the Book the grant wouldn't have gond through or a public discussion wouldn't have started it would be prohibited by that.Zubin12 (talk) 03:29, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Nowhere in the article is it stated that Musk wouldn't have made the grant without the book, so this complaint is spurious. If you think there is an OR problem then identify a statement in the article that constitutes OR. What the article does is it states Musk's endorsement of Bostrom's arguments right before talking about his actions to fund work that is closely related to Bostom's book. The relation between these things is banal, not synthetic. K.Bog 03:42, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Can you see the catch-22 in what you are saying?. Either his endorsement of the book has no relation to MIRI Grant in which case it has no relation to the subject article and should be removed, or else it does share a relation unmentioned in the sources in which case mentioning it is a violation of WP:Synth.Zubin12 (talk) 03:57, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

It has a relation which is banal and non-synthetic, viz. that they are both about Musk's concern for superintelligence risk. There is a difference between actual synthesis, and taking two things that are obviously relevant to each other and writing them next to each other. K.Bog 04:07, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

, They might be related to each other but one of them isn't related to the topic of the article. Let's say the topic of an Article is X, Musk's Grant to the MIRI is Y, and his endorsment of the book is Z. X is Connected to Y, and Y is Connected to Z but Z is not connected to X and therfore shouldn't be included unless their is a source connecting it directly to the MIRI.Zubin12 (talk) 04:28, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

No such rules exist on Wikipedia, nor should they. K.Bog 05:07, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

2. The history page inflates a passing a mention, into a "Citation" and block-quotes an article with a single mention of the organization. I don't see any reason for including it in the history section of the article as it doesn't seem to have had any effect on the organization whatsoever. A source must be both Notable and Relevant to merit inclusion, many sources used in the article fail these criteria.

You're right that it has a single mention of the organization, but again I don't see the problem. That single mention is what is quoted here, with one previous statement for context. The Tegmark reference in this article makes clear the relation with MIRI's work, so perhaps you should read that first. You haven't pointed out how even a single source here is non-notable or not relevant, except perhaps for some of the other things I'm answering right here. K.Bog 03:16, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

WP:Due, a single reference as an example in an article demands at best a passing mention, rather than a full on-block quote. Unless the Huffington post article led to changes or an event at the MIRI then it shouldn't be block-quoted as it's placing an undue focus on a minor event.Zubin12 (talk) 03:29, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

The article talks extensively about the subject of AI safety, so it is not a passing mention. MIRI is written as one of the few examples of the primary issue raised by the article. Just because it only states the name once doesn't mean that's the only relevant bit. If it has too much weight relative to other sources, then add more details from those other sources. K.Bog 03:42, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

This article is about the MIRI not AI Saftey. The Huffington Post Article mentioned the MIRI institue as one example of an organization working on the issue, point out where else in the article is idea formulated by the MIRI are mentioned. Zubin12 (talk) 03:57, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and MIRI works on AI Safety. Tegmark's book explicitly points out that the HuffPo article was about the AI safety issue that Yudkowsky helped raise, so I do not need to explain that relation myself. K.Bog 04:07, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

. That's Textbook WP:Synth, you are making a connection based on 2 sources that aren't mentioned in them. Zubin12 (talk) 04:28, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I am not making a connection, I am writing them next to one another. There is some basic level of connections that we always make, e.g. if Finland's population was 10 million in one century, and 20 million the next, we can state those two facts next to one another without having a source that makes a connection. That's not what WP:Synth is about. K.Bog 05:04, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

3. The Kernel Article uses industry standard terminolgy, it might not be understandable for a layman but a person with a basic understanding of computer science will be able to grasp what it is talking about. By comparison this article is written in a way to puff-up meager insight, take a look at this line "Their work includes formalizing cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma between "superrational" software agents[20]and defining an alternative to causal decision theory and evidential decision theory.[21]", an almost incomprehensible line for anybody not familiar with the MIRI. Stylistic problems abound, Pronounces are used inconstantly and sentence structures are constantly repeated. Zubin12 (talk) 03:01, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

All those words are standard in decision theory, as can be discovered by merely Googling them, and anyone with a basic understanding of decision theory will grasp what it is talking about. I don't see any stylistic problems or "inconstant [sic]" use of "Pronounces [sic]", and I don't see any sentence structure that's repeated too much. To be blunt, you don't seem to be a native English speaker, your own bio states that you are from Singapore and are on Wikipedia in order to improve your grammar and spelling, and your writing here has many errors. While it's admirable of you to make such an effort and learn, you should understand our skepticism regarding your perceptions of what is or isn't good English style. K.Bog 03:15, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I am a native speaker of English, my grammar and spelling is horrid so i'm seeking to improve that by writing more. It's kinda chauvinistic to think that only second-language speaker would ever want to improve their language skills. The phrase "MIRI research" is used 3 times in a single paragraph, and the sentence structures are overcomplicated.For your information, English is the second most common first language in Singapore along with our Lingua Franca so don't make assumptions based on Partial Information.Zubin12 (talk) 03:29, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Whether it's a matter of first language or just unfamiliarity with decision theory, it's evident that you do not know the language that you are talking about here: with blue links, we can write "their work includes formalizing cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma between "superrational" software agents[20]and defining an alternative to causal decision theory and evidential decision theory," and in these articles we can see that these terms are used in all sorts of places besides MIRI. As for reusing the same phrase, or having "overcomplicated" sentence structures: again these appear to be total non-issues; I don't see anything like that to any problematic extent. There mere repeat of a phrase does not bother me. But if you want to fix these without removing any detail then go ahead. For instance, you can replace "MIRI research" with "work at MIRI" or other similar phrases, and so on. Either way, it has nothing to do with POV, promotionalism, or any such maintenance tag. By the way, you're wrong about the Kernel article as well: lots of computer science students have no idea what a positive definite matrix is, what a Gram matrix is, and other bits of it. K.Bog 03:42, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I gave one example earlier of repetion of a single phrase in a paragraph, anyway this was another issue with the article. My other 2 points deal with the NPOV problem present in the article. Other people have previously commented on the stylistic problem in the article, which has remained unresolved even if the discussion have gone dormant.Anyway WP:Otherstuff exists makes that line of argument spurious.Zubin12 (talk) 03:57, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

The article has been substantially revised since most of the comments here. I don't see any recent comments on style aside from Jytdog's, but it seems that all his stylistic changes have been included. So it seems that it's just you. This is not 'otherstuff', this is an appeal to common sense good practice. K.Bog 04:07, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

@David Gerad: seems to agree that my changes should be kept. It seems like the discussion isn't going anywhere and it's unlikley we will be able to convince each other or agree on a compromise in the current discussion. I"m going to take the liberty of pinging other editors of the artricle, for their view on our dispute. What are your thoughts? @Gbear605, David Gerard, and Jytdog:, Please Ping any other editors you feel might help resolve this dispute. Zubin12 (talk) 04:28, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

yes there is a boatload of completely offtopic stuff here, inappropriately sourced at that. Including the bit you are discussing. Jytdog (talk) 04:29, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Zubin12, I agree that it looks like you won't be able to come to a compromise. I'm not sure what the correct solution is, but I definitely agree that others need to be called in. Gbear605 (talk) 04:30, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Gbear605, Kbog Should a formal RFC be initated ? Zubin12 (talk) 04:35, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I have made one. K.Bog 05:35, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

• Kbog, you have name-dropped me three times above (diff, especially egregious diff, diff (bottommost)). I don't approve of this page at all. My fix here was just fixing the complete trainwreck of a paragraph; it at least completely sourced now. Issues of WEIGHT and whether to mention Musk at all are entirely distinct from basic scholarship and verification. More importantly, remember when I yielded to you? You have no idea whatsoever what this page would like if I were to have my turn at it. None. You have misrepresented my position. Jytdog (talk) 01:27, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I combined my changes with your changes, and presumed that you were complicit with that which you hadn't objected to. I saw you were unconvinced about the primary sources, but those were in the "research" section, not the "history" section under dispute, and they were a sourcing issue rather than a POV issue. I certainly didn't mean to misrepresent your position, but sure, it was sloppy on my part. K.Bog 02:43, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

You know what they say about "assume"... Jytdog (talk) 02:54, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Please keep the discussion on-topic and productive. Thanks. K.Bog 05:47, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Primary sources

As has been stated repeatedly above, the primary sources in this article meet the standards in WP:PSTS, and are a minority of the sources being used in the article. The only person here who has raised a problem with the use of primary sources here is Jytdog. Jytdog, you are perhaps unfamiliar with how articles on academic subjects on Wikipedia are normally written: published papers are standard, and comprise the bulk of reliable information on a topic. See, to pick an arbitrary example, Kantian ethics, which has been labeled a "good article," despite citing Kant himself numerous times, and citing other people for their own views. It's inappropriate to slap a maintenance template on the page when these points have been made repeatedly without being answered. K.Bog 04:24, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Stated repeatedly by you. Your use of primary sources is not appropriate, as me and the two other people are trying to explain to you. You are not listening. Jytdog (talk) 04:27, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I've clearly stated how it is appropriate, and you haven't responded. Nowhere have you or anyone else pointed out a real problem with the primary sources that are currently in the article. Zubin's comments are about a secondary source, the HuffPo article. No one else has stated any problems with the recent version of the article since the sourcing was revised. The only thing you have said on this matter is that the papers are from conferences, but as I have explained already, it is normal for computer science papers to be published in conferences. Now you're resorting to flat denial. I'm sorry, but if you don't give a sound argument, then you can't assume that people are "not listening" when they still disagree. K.Bog 04:41, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Kbog, so far this talk page discussion is you vs. everyone else - David Gerard (talk) 10:32, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

The Musk bit is puffery, and the cites regarding Future of Life Institute literally didn't mention Future of Life! Removed - David Gerard (talk) 13:08, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

and the book cite ... turned out to be a claim from Tegmark in his role at FLI that their programme had encouraged more grants! I've changed the mention to note that this is a first-party assertion - not any sort of third-party-verified factual claim. It's also literally the only mention of MIRI in the book. I've left it for now, but really, without something that's at least third-party RS as a source, this claim is unsupported and shouldn't be here - David Gerard (talk) 13:16, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Actually, it doesn't even support the claim - the quote (which, as I note, is literally the only mention of MIRI in Life 3.0) is "Major new AI-safety donations enabled expanded research at our largest nonprofit sister organizations: the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in Berkeley, the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford and the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk in Cambridge (UK)." That does not support the claim made in the text - this is a bogus citation. Removing the claim - David Gerard (talk) 13:41, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

The other claim cited to Life 3.0 is:

In fall 2014, Nick Bostrom's book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies[9] helped spark public discussion about the work of researchers such as Yudkowsky on the risk of unsafe artificial general intelligence.

As well as the sole MIRI mention not supporting this claim, the book mentions Yudkowsky precisely once, in a footnote:

Eliezer Yudkowsky has discussed aligning the goals of friendly AI not with our present goals, but with our coherent extrapolated volition (CEV). Loosely speaking this is defined as what an idealized version of us would want if we knew more, thought faster and were more the people we wished we were. Yudkowsky began criticizing CEV shortly after publishing it in 2004 (http://intelligence.org/files/CEV.pdf), both for being hard to implement and because it’s unclear whether it would converge to anything well-defined.

This sentence fails verification, and the cited reference is irrelevant to MIRI and shouldn't be in this article. I've marked it as failing verification for now, but it really needs a third-party RS citation that verifiably checks out - David Gerard (talk) 13:48, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Sure, there are three editors who have axes to grind here, with thoroughly unconvincing objections. I haven't seen any level-headed, independent person to side against me.

The Musk bit uses "neutral tone and the provision of factual information, cited to a reliable source", not "praise-filled (nor criticism-filled) adjectives appended to the subject's name", per the essay on WikiPuffery. The sources on Musk are reliable and published. It's easy to find independent published sources to back up Musk's grant: [[2]]

The claim that "This initiative and the publicity around it spurred further donations" is Jytdog's not mine, and I had already felt that it was not quite right. The claim that Musk's donation led to expansion is directly supported by the text.

You are misreading the book: it also mentions Yudkowsky 11% of the way through, shortly prior to the MIRI mention, right before discussing the impact of Bostrom's book, the Hawking op ed, and the Musk grant in mainstreaming the general topic.

So, clearly, it is relevant. K.Bog 16:42, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

It really isn't. I literally have the book in front of me. It doesn't support the claims you're trying to make from it. I have quoted why it doesn't - you need to quote why it does. As I noted, that is literally the only mention of Yudkowsky.

And "who have axes to grind here" - this is a discussion of bad referencing, making extensive reference to and quotation of the source material. If you take that as grounds to make personal attacks, that's not a problem with the rest of us - David Gerard (talk) 23:33, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

One mention is enough, I have already referenced the way in which it does (just read ahead through the mention of him and the mention of the book), and answered your points. If I'm right, then clearly this is not bad referencing. Sure, maybe I'm wrong. But that's the real issue here, and telling me that I'm a "fan" or whatever is not answering it. K.Bog 05:24, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Again I was fixing the severe very basic problems with the paragraph, not dealing with the larger issues of WEIGHT etc. The paragraph as I left it is completely supported by the source at the pages noted. DavidGerard if you look at pages 326 into 327 (327 is where the MIRI sentence is) you will see that 326 wraps up the 3rd mainstreaming step (the big Puerto Rico meeting and research priorities definition, and Musk's $10M of funding, and all the media attention) and then begins "The fourth mainstreaming step happened organically over the next two years, with scores of technical publications and dozens of workshops on AI safety....Persistent people had tried for many years to engage the AI community in safety research, with limited success, but now things really took off. Many of these publications were funded by our grants program...." and then down a bit, the paragraph on growth and more donations, including to MIRI. The content I had generated was summarizing what Tegmark wrote and is verified. I do agree with trimming it as UNDUE; I was not addressing these other issues, just the severe ones. This is not about primary sources, so doesn't really belong in this paragraph. The issues with primary sources and SPS remain very acute. Jytdog (talk) 02:04, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment on NPOV and sourcing

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The points of dispute are: (a) whether to remove the statement that Musk "had previously endorsed Bostrom's arguments,[11][12]" (b) whether to preserve the NPOV maintenance tag, (c) whether to preserve the primary source maintenance tag, and (d) whether the language is too technical. K.Bog 05:13, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

• Note -- the page as it stood when this RfC launched, was like this. Jytdog (talk) 02:16, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

• Your cites are bad and fail to check out, or turn out to be first-person assertions rather than the third-party verified claims they turn out to be, as I just noted above. This does not bode well. The article may need to be reconstructed from the ground up purely from verifiable and verified third-party RSes - not primary sources, not sources linked to MIRI, not sources making claims about themselves. Only then should we see about seasoning it with permissible primary sourcing and so on - David Gerard (talk) 13:19, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
• Yes remove that and all the other WP:OFFTOPIC fancruft about the broader issues that have been larded in here. Yes, remove the content that is commenting on or grabbing some random bit out of low quality primary sources like conference papers. The primary sources could be in the page as a list of publications of the like, perhaps, but they should not be used to generate so much of the content, if any. The concern about "technical" was a small part of the much larger concern about fancruft raised by Zubin12 when the page looked like this, as Zubin12 explained above in the section Large amounts of Bias present Jytdog (talk) 14:46, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
• Note that both of the above editors are involved in the dispute as well as me. The use of sources is in line with Wikipedia policy as well as standard practice on academic articles such as (for an arbitrary example) Kantian ethics, a "good article", where primary published sources are common. Papers in conferences are as good or better than journal papers for computer science [3]. I leave it to the reader to see if anything is too technical, "fancruft", "off-topic", and so on. Some of the sources may have ended up being misrepresented in the constant hacking and churn as every bit of this article gets fought over and some of the sources get removed, but they are generally well used as far as I can tell. The old version is here: [4] K.Bog 16:24, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
  • It turns out that disagreeing with you doesn't disqualify others from comment. The article is presently bad - David Gerard (talk) 23:35, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
    • I didn't state that disagreement with me disqualified others from commenting: I stated that the above comments came from people who are a part of the dispute, to indicate to readers that they are not coming through the RFC process. K.Bog 00:16, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

My view on this topic should be obvious, The tag's should be preserved for the reasons I articulated in the earlier, The musk references should be removed and the reliance on primary sources create both stylistic and content problems. Zubin12 (talk) 23:57, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

• Remove the cruft unless and until supported by reliable, independent sources. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 03:15, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your comment, can you take a look at the research section in the latest revision [[5]] and describe if it has insufficient sourcing? K.Bog 08:33, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Nope. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:36, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, No, Yes, No (a) yes, remove that bit seems good, no need to go into history of responses; (b) no, do not preserve the NPOV - either it is validly portraying primary cites from them or it is an NPOV violation of slanted coverage, not both; (c) yes, do preserve the refimprove tag, calling for additional independent sources; and (d) no, the language is not too technical, and actually to me it seems almost like the research section is retracing 19th century philosophy and theology. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:09, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

*Comment - I just got called here by Legobot, it looks like this RfC is redundant due to changes to the article - there is no reference to Musk in the article (except for his inclusion in the list of 'People'), there are no maintenance tags, and there's no obviously over-technical language. Suggest closing this RfC to avoid wasting people's time if the discussion has moved on. GirthSummit _(blether) 07:42, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

• • User:Girth Summit, the person wanting the content as it stood when this was opened, is awaiting the outcome of this RfC. That person believes that the something along the lines of the content when the RfC opened (see diff in the first bullet above) was better WP content. Per their note below, here, they are awaiting the outcome of this RfC. They are not edit warring which is happy, but the input from this RfC is very much needed. Jytdog (talk) 12:24, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
    • Understood - apologies, I confess I didn't read through the other comments - I just read the RfC, and then the article, which no longer includes the stuff the RfC was on. I'll read through the rest of the discussion properly before commenting again. Thanks for explaining. GirthSummit _(blether) 16:31, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Notes

• This is not an RfC about policy; I have removed that tag from the RfC because per WP:RFCST that The "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" category is for discussing changes to the policies and guidelines themselves, not for discussing how to apply them to a specific case. The same applies to "style", "WikiProject", and the other non-article categories. Jytdog (talk) 14:01, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Given the radical changes in the page is the RFC not a bit reduant at this point ?Zubin12 (talk) 08:47, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure that folks who preferred the prior version have really consented; i think they are being patient to see what the RfC brings. Jytdog (talk) 02:14, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Decent

The page like this would be much better. I don't have time to find more sources now so there may be key things I missed. But this tells the story, using primary sources only as needed in order to do that, and is driven as much as possible by independent, secondary sources. I removed all the overblown content based on passing mentions. Jytdog (talk) 01:54, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

A few comments:

The new, shorter lead is better. Phrases such as has been named as one of several academic and nonprofit groups are too wordy for the lead.

I don't see any reason to describe Yudkowsky as who was mostly self-educated. It reads as a bad attempt to smear him.

Removing the blockquotes is an improvement; they might be reasonable in an article in friendly artificial intelligence but are excessive here.

I have no opinion on whether the stand-alone list of works (in Bibliography form) is better than describing them in prose form.

I would keep the LessWrong navbox (though that might need to be re-named) but links in that box don't need to be repeated in the "See also" section.

power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:16, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Attempt to smear? No. It is from the FLI source, which is quite friendly to him. Please explain what sourced content in the page justifies keeping the LessWrong navbox. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 03:59, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

The fact that it largely run by the same people as the Center for Applied Rationality. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:18, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Founded by the same guy! Hm. I actually looked for good sources connecting MIRI/CFR etc and didn't find any; we should only bring back the navbox if we have some decently-sourced content that makes sense of it being here. Jytdog (talk) 19:15, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Many improvements but also some problems; various issues and proposed changes are listed below. With them, the article will be an improvement over the current version.

The lead overweights the 2000-2005 goal to "accelerate the development of artificial intelligence" which is only supported by a single source, which is a few sentences on an FLI blog, as the far more widely reported emphasis on risk is only given the same lead weight (MOS:LEADREL),

The FLI blog, while a weak source, is the only source that provides a complete overview. The turn from accelerating to managing the risks is remarkable, with respect to the organization (any organization that did such a flip) and is lead-worthy. Jytdog (talk) 16:11, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

"managing the risks of AI, mostly focused on a friendly AI approach" is vague (what is the "friendly AI approach"? it's not commonly known parlance, which is important for the intro) and somewhat redundant. The article should use the term future to reflect the emphasis among secondary sources in referring to artificial general intelligence, future artificial intelligence, superintelligence, long-run impact, and so on. "Ensuring safety" is more specific language because it narrows away the ideas of preventing AI entirely or defending people from AI, the latter being things that are not in the sources,

Therefore it should be, "The Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), formerly the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI), is a non-profit organization founded in 2000 by Eliezer Yudkowsky. MIRI's work focuses on ensuring the safety of future AI technology." K.Bog 04:26, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Some of that is useful - yes it is about AI of the future. Did some tweaks to the lead and body. Jytdog (talk) 16:11, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

The "extropian" reference is only supported by the passing mention of "its primary founder" being "a former member of the Extropian discussion group", and the source doesn't clarify whether this really was prior to the 2000 founding or if it was actually sometime in 2000-2005, so it should be removed. K.Bog 04:26, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

This is again, part of the history of MIRI; three two refs (FT , FLI, and New Yorker) all mention this. In general the article said far too little about the relationship between MIRI and transhumanism; the article was obviously written by people in that bubble who assume everybody knows all the ins and outs and history of that community. (A lot of pages related to transhumanism are in-bubble fancruft and are no longer and probably never were Wikipedia articles; you and I have encountered these issues before.) Jytdog (talk) 16:11, 28 August 2018 (UTC) (redact Jytdog (talk) 17:51, 28 August 2018 (UTC))

I'm not referring to other "pages related to transhumanism." FLI does not mention the Extropian group. At least FT does (missed it on initial read through) so it is supported.K.Bog 16:53, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes I made a mistake and have redacted. My apologies. Jytdog (talk) 17:51, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

The sale of the web domain and name is ancillary detail that has relatively little weight in the SU press release; rewrite as "...the institute sold the Singularity Summit to Singularity University[7] and the next month changed its name to "Machine Intelligence Research Institute".[8] K.Bog 04:26, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

It is why they changed their name; they no longer owned it -- what the article said before was some bullshit. Jytdog (talk) 16:11, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

"What the article said before" is explicitly mentioned in the release; in any case, I'm referring to the wording of this version: it shouldn't overweight organizational minutiae from a press release. Of course, if they changed their name, they will no longer have the old name and website. That much is implied. It's crufty detail. K.Bog 16:52, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

The term "crackpot" is not used to refer to SI or Yudkowsky or their general viewpoint in the FT source; instead, we should stick to the language of Tegmark and write "shift from something that was once ignored to the mainstream". K.Bog 04:26, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Every independent source talks about how most of the AI community viewed this stuff as crackpart alarmism, and how this changed around 2014 to 2015. The Life 3.0 book talks about the "mainstreaming" of concern about the risks of AI -- in other words, it was not mainstream before. That is from a person on the inside. Jytdog (talk) 16:11, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Sources describe "this stuff" in varying degrees from being ignored, met with skepticism, divisive, etc to being "crackpot" (at the time). The latter is stronger, less commonly mentioned, and simply not supported by the ref. K.Bog 16:52, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Also, if that sentence is going to refer to "this stuff" rather than MIRI/Yudkowsky in particular, then it should be revised to reflect the Tegmark source, which mentions a variety of things (the Hawking/Russell op ed, the Bostrom book, etc) with equal weight to the conference. The current version overweights the role of the FLI conference, it doesn't mention the other events that led to mainstreaming. Kbog (talk) 17:11, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes that is good. I have tightened it to remove that UNDUE weight. Jytdog (talk) 17:48, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

OK, but if there are other secondary sources describing the same trend of mainstreaming (even if they don't mention MIRI explicitly) then that bit should be expanded with more detail. Kbog (talk) 19:47, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Pending a clear answer from the RFC, the research section should preserve most of the content from my last version. You've stated that some of it is "not research but beliefs and the like", but that's okay if the section is titled "Research and approach". You've stated that some of it is primary sources, but per WP:Scholarship, "Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses," and AAAI, Oxford and Springer are all reputable, vetted academic presses. And none of the issues on WP:Primary are being violated. The primary sources are clearly not being used as the basis for the whole section, they are filling in the gaps of scholarly work that isn't simple or popular enough to be mentioned in websites/magazines/etc. Without them, the article gives undue weight to forecasting while the core issue that all the sources are mentioning - designing systems and mechanisms to be safe/ethical - is not described in any detail whatsoever. You also removed some other independent secondary sources for no apparent reason other condensing it, which is not justified: the section should give due weight to all reliable sources. As for the FLI research priorities document, it's being used to talk about Soares' work and the citation indicates that it is his work at MIRI, and the research priorities document is not being used alone. The Russell quote can be paraphrased. K.Bog 04:26, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Yeah I decided that something about assumptions/goals was useful in the next diff and kept ~some~ of that, hence the change in the section header and retention of some of that in the next diff. Jytdog (talk) 16:11, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Most of it was removed. It should be in prose form rather than further reading. Per MOS:EMBED, an article should not use a list if the material can be read easily as plain paragraphs. K.Bog 16:52, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

We do not build up mini literature reviews from primary scientific sources here. Not what we do. Jytdog (talk) 17:46, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

That's (a) not what I'm referring to (the section had a mix of sources), and (b) not supported by the P&G. Kbog (talk) 18:19, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

This is where aiming at the wrong thing comes in; we look to provide accepted knowledge and have that driven by independent, secondary sources (filling in around that with primary sources, carefully, not freely or abundantly). This is what all the P&G point to, as I summarize on my user page at User:Jytdog#NPOV_part_1:_secondary_sources - see particularly the three bullet points near the bottom. Following this is how we keep pages from falling into fancruft with excessive detail and overstating the importance of the subject. Jytdog (talk) 18:40, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Problems with your interpretation of "what all the P&G point to" include: secondary sources still reflect the views of the writer/publisher rather than being universally accepted; they must still be interpreted and judged for importance and relevance, there is a major difference between going "up the institutional ladder" and going from primary to secondary sources, and properly attributed statements are reliable (it is accepted knowledge that "Joe says X", even if "X" is not accepted knowledge). As I've pointed out, the explicit policies on sourcing seem to support a substantially more balanced approach.

In any case, this is filling in gaps that are left by secondary sources, not "building whole sections". A large number of secondary sources here have mentioned "making AI safe", "mechanisms to keep AI safe," "giving AI ethical goals," and so on, lending a high degree of notability to the subject, but none have described it in any more detail than that. Kbog (talk) 19:05, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Adding content about their research, sourced from their own papers, is not filling in gaps. It is adding overly detailed fancruft; this is exactly the clash in the views of what the mission of WP is. An article, the content of which is driven mostly by primary sources and passing mentions, is not decent and not aiming at the mission- it will invariably fail NPOV by giving UNDUE weight to things. Jytdog (talk) 19:08, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

It's a minority of the article, I don't see it as "overly detailed fancruft", and I have just described how it is the only way to give due weight to things here (in the absence of secondary sources with detail on the same thing). Per WP:DUE, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources"; it does not say secondary published, reliable sources. So if you only use secondary sources, you may give undue weight to things. Plus, it is strange that you are okay with filling in gaps via blogs and press releases, but not with scholarly publications. Kbog (talk) 19:24, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes clearly this is a clash in views on the mission, but it's the kind of clash that requires compromise or RFC or 3OP (or, maybe, a new policy set through the proper channels), not something that can be asserted. Kbog (talk) 19:34, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Notability

is very marginal. Lots of passing mentions but I had to resort to an in-bubble blog at FLI to get even one source focused on MIRI and its story. I found no others. Plenty of passing mentions but I don't believe this passes WP:ORGCRIT since we revised it. Jytdog (talk) 04:03, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Jytdog, here are five articles that talk about MIRI that pass the primary criteria: https://www.npr.org/2011/01/11/132840775/The-Singularity-Humanitys-Last-Invention (not used in WP article), https://www.ft.com/content/abc942cc-5fb3-11e4-8c27-00144feabdc0 (used in WP article), https://www.analyticsindiamag.com/top-non-profit-artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-institutes-that-are-working-on-making-ai-safe/ (not used in WP article), https://news.bitcoin.com/66-funding-stop-ai-apocalypse-comes-crypto-donors/ (not used in WP article), http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/04/will_artificial_intelligence_kill_us_all_an_explainer.html (not used in WP article). These all have significant coverage, although it is only the primary focus of the first two. Gbear605 (talk) 04:39, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Some of those are in Jytdog's version of the article, but his version also cuts some sources out. In any case, the page has been nominated for deletion twice already, and the motion failed both times. K.Bog 04:43, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Both AfDs were sparsely attended and weakly argued, and more importantly, were before we revised WP:ORGCRIT. Yes I forgot the NPR one (which is used). The Slate piece has just a paragraph, ditto the AnalyticaIndia listicle. The Bitcoin ref is churnalism unsurprisingly hyping bitcoin (unremarkably skewing the contents of the underlying press release/blogpost) to ignore the donations in Ethereum, and plagiarizing it in a couple of spots. Jytdog (talk) 13:18, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Singularitarianism

some merging might be in order? Jytdog (talk) 04:04, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Nah, it would be weird to conflate a niche think-tank/research centre with a broader movement.Zubin12 (talk) 08:45, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Irrelevant promotion of Yudkowsky in first sentence?

An anonymous editor removed what he termed "fluff" regarding the first sentence, which included (regarding Yudkowsky) "who was mostly self-educated and had been involved in the Extropian group,"- I'm inclined to agree that this is "fluff"; indeed, it seems to veer into promotion of the individual in question. I've reverted the edit in question so that this content is removed. I'm open to the idea that either of these bits of biographical information are relevant to this particular article, but frankly, this seems far-fetched. It's enough to mention his name in the lead, along with the brief relevant historical information in the first section (which seems perfectly appropriate). Also I think it's crucially important to point out that articles about organizations and individuals as contentious as this one are especially at risk of preferential editing by fans of the personalities and ideas involved. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 21:15, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

I tend to agree, this might belongs to Yudkowsky's BLP page or in a relevant context in this article, if this piece of information is essential to encyclopedic content about MIRI, but not otherwise. --Btcgeek (talk) 22:26, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

GiveWell and OpenPhil evaluations

As of two days ago, the article ended with this section:

In 2016 GiveWell, a charity assessment organization based on the effective altruism concept, did an extensive review of MIRI's research papers, and concluded that "MIRI has made relatively limited progress on the Agent Foundations research agenda so far, and this research agenda has little potential to decrease potential risks from advanced AI in comparison with other research directions that we would consider supporting".

I added the following section:

Subsequently the Open Philanthropy Project, a charity evaluator spun off from Givewell, evaluated MIRI more positively in 2017. They awarded MIRI a grant for $3.75m, supporting roughly half MIRI's budget. While acknowledging that MIRI was very hard to evaluate, they wrote that "The case for the statement “MIRI’s research has a nontrivial chance of turning out to be extremely valuable (when taking into account how different it is from other research on AI safety)” appears much more robust than it did before".

The second section seems to me to be just as relevant as the first - they both concern evaluations by (essentially) the same organisation, one year apart. Perhaps a slight claim could be made that the second one is slightly more relevant, as it is more recent.

David Gerald reverted my edit, citing primary sourcing. However, if true this would disqualify both paragraphs, as both use basically the same source. I think both contain useful information, so would prefer both to stay, rather than neither. Furthermore, according to USEPRIMARY, "Sometimes, a primary source is even the best possible source, such as when you are supporting a direct quotation." When I reverted him and pointed this out, David reverted my edit for a second time, citing "rv promotional edit". I'm not sure what exactly he means by this. I haven't been paid by MIRI, for example. It's true that the second paragraph paints MIRI in a slightly better light than the first one, but this is because the opinion of the charity assessment organization improved. Presumably it is not the case that adding any positive content at all is forbidden?

As such I am going to re-add the section, though I welcome David's comments. 69.141.26.148 (talk) 15:53, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

The wording seems misleading to me based on the source. The first part of the quote, "While the balance of our technical advisors’ opinions and arguments still leaves us skeptical of the value of MIRI’s research..." is not included. It seems that a note regarding the fact that Open Philanthropy Project funded MIRI is worth including, but the language used above is unnecessarily promotional. The primary source quoted seems to be quite nuanced. The addition either needs to add that nuance, or just make a note of the facts, i.e. they're granting $3.75 million over 3 years. Although a secondary source would be nice, it is understandable that it might be hard to produce. As such, a promotional edit doesn't necessarily mean a COI. For articles like these, it is important to observe WP:NPOV. --Btcgeek (talk) 17:50, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

How about something like the following? I think the sentence flow is a little more awkward now, but it captures the additional section you pointed to. 69.141.26.148 (talk) 01:09, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Subsequently the Open Philanthropy Project, a charity evaluator spun off from Givewell, evaluated MIRI more positively in 2017. They awarded MIRI a grant for $3.75m, supporting roughly half MIRI's budget, writing that "[w]hile the balance of our technical advisors’ opinions and arguments still leaves us skeptical of the value of MIRI’s research, the case for the statement “MIRI’s research has a nontrivial chance of turning out to be extremely valuable (when taking into account how different it is from other research on AI safety)” appears much more robust than it did before".

I suggest removing the "evaluated MIRI more positively in 2017" part. The source doesn't actually say that. They say they remain skeptical, but there are these 2 reasons why they increased their funding. It would also be nice to note that the grant of $3.75m is over 3 years - as it reads now, it seems like a one-time grant, but it isn't. Here's a slight edit of what David Gerard noted above as my suggestion - --Btcgeek (talk) 01:39, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Subsequently the Open Philanthropy Project, a charity evaluator spun off from Givewell, awarded MIRI a grant for $3.75m over 3 years, supporting roughly half MIRI's budget, writing that "[w]hile the balance of our technical advisors’ opinions and arguments still leaves us skeptical of the value of MIRI’s research, the case for the statement “MIRI’s research has a nontrivial chance of turning out to be extremely valuable (when taking into account how different it is from other research on AI safety)” appears much more robust than it did before".

Seems not unreasonable to me. I'll add it to the article. Thanks! 69.141.26.148 (talk) 22:59, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I disagree - you still don't have any reliable third-party sourcing that anyone in the real world has even noticed this. Please find a third-party Reliable Source, not a self-source. Surely this isn't hard, if this is worth even noting here. Else it's just promotional - David Gerard (talk) 06:47, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

David Gerard, I agree that it should have a third-party source. However, the preceding information about the Open Philanthropy Project, which you seem to wish to keep in, is also a primary source. I suggest that either both are included (since they are simply coverage from the same source, a year apart), a combination of the two is kept in, or neither is kept in. Gbear605 (talk) 14:22, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

I would remove both, if there's no evidence of third-party coverage in reliable sources. Is there? - David Gerard (talk) 19:07, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

I do not support its removal. WP:PRIMARY mentions cases where primary sources can be used. There is no requirement in Wikipedia per se that everything needs a secondary source. The use here of primary source seems to have been done carefully and free of interpretation, which generally requires a secondary source. I don't support the entire deletion of material that seemed to add value to the article, giving a context of the work done by this organization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Btcgeek (talk • contribs) 21:47, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

You're still supplying absolutely no evidence that this is in any way a noteworthy fact, and that putting it here would be anything functionally other than advertising. Let me repeat again: Do you have third-party coverage in Reliable Sources? This is a pretty simple question, with a yes or no answer - David Gerard (talk) 11:23, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Please read WP:PRIMARY to understand how primary sources are used in Wikipedia, as mentioned to you previously.--Btcgeek (talk) 01:44, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

So that'll be "no, I have no evidence that any third party anywhere has noted this at all"? Then it's just promotional fluff about MIRI - David Gerard (talk) 07:42, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

You're causing disruptive edits to the article without seeking consensus. I've provided you with the right Wikipedia policies to go through already regarding primary sources. The material you deleted was relevant to the article and accurate based on the sources. It didn't show MIRI in the best light, but that's ok and not the purpose of the Wikipedia article. Things like funding sources and independent evaluations are very important for projects that seem "out there" as there is potential for misrepresentation and fluff. Wikipedia tries to provide a holistic view of the organization, not just things that are promotional in nature. You still haven't provided any reason for the removal of this material other than saying you couldn't find secondary sources. It is pretty obvious that the material you removed ins't "promotional fluff" and is in fact the opposite - citing questions about their research and healthy skepticism that you somehow want to keep out of the article. Do you have a COI here? --Btcgeek (talk) 19:55, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

David Gerard is an admin for RationalWiki, which has a one-sided negative view toward MIRI, which can be seen in its pages on Eliezer Yudkowsky and LessWrong. He seems to very much not be a neutral party on this issue. Gbear605 (talk) 20:12, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

This sort of thing is normally considered a violation of WP:AGF and WP:NPA. Rather than attempting personal attacks upon other Wikipedia editors, I urge you to address the sourcing problems. In particular - do you have third-party reliable source coverage? If you can bring such, it will be a slam-dunk argument in favour of keeping the material - David Gerard (talk) 21:51, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

"You're causing disruptive edits to the article without seeking consensus." I am seeking consensus, which is why I'm here. But - and this is important - a talk page can't agree on its own to contradict fundamental sourcing rules of Wikipedia.

The reason for the removal is what I've said more than a few times - it's entirely self-sourced puffery, which appears to have zero third-party reliable sources coverage. I've said this a number of times; your claim "You still haven't provided any reason" is clearly factually false, and it's an assertion you should reread this page before making.

Do you have third-party, verifiable, reliable source coverage for the claim? Yes or no? This is a simple question, and you've yet to answer it. I must note yet again - if you can find such coverage, it will be a slam dunk case for it to be included in the article - David Gerard (talk) 21:51, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

This is what you've deleted from the article in your last deletion: "In 2016 GiveWell, a charity assessment organization based on the effective altruism concept, did an extensive review of MIRI's research papers, and concluded that "MIRI has made relatively limited progress on the Agent Foundations research agenda so far, and this research agenda has little potential to decrease potential risks from advanced AI in comparison with other research directions that we would consider supporting". Please explain how this is "self-sourced puffery". To me, the content seems clearly not self-sourced and clearly not puffery. --Btcgeek (talk) 04:02, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Citing an organisation about claims the organisation is making is primary sourcing. That's what the term means.

Do you have third-party, verifiable, reliable source coverage for the claim? Yes or no? This is a simple question, and you've yet to answer it. - David Gerard (talk) 07:30, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. First, confirm that "puffery" is no longer your concern, and that the material should not have been removed for reasons of puffery/self-promotion. Second, the sources that you removed seemed to follow all the guidelines of third-party verifiable and reliable sources that Wikipedia needs. The source was about GiveWell/Open Philanthropy writing about MIRI, and not MIRI writing about MIRI, so clearly it isn't a first party source. The material from the source is easily verifiable. GiveWell/Open Philanthropy is a fairly reliable source in my opinion. Now that we've broken down your concerns, which of these is exactly your concern?

1. An article about MIRI citing a GiveWell/Open Philanthropy source is primary source because you believe this is PR material put out by MIRI and not actually attributable to GiveWell/Open Philanthropy.

2. You're unable to verify that the quote that was removed from the article cannot be verified to belong to the source.

3. You believe GiveWell isn't a reliable source on Wikipedia and should be added to unreliable sources list on Wikipedia (provide your reasoning if this is the case).

The way the source works in this instance is similar to how we use sources in Wikipedia say to cite the Alexa rank of a website, or ranking lists from sources (e.g. list of countries by GDP say). Let's try to resolve this by laying out your concerns and addressing them specifically. --Btcgeek (talk) 14:41, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

You're still evading the question! Do you have third-party, verifiable, reliable source coverage for the claim? Yes or no? This is a simple question. Please answer it before you throw out other questions that aren't this question - David Gerard (talk) 20:00, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Why are you asking the same question so many times without reading my replies? To reiterate, the source you deleted is a. third-party, verifiable, reliable source. First, you claimed the source was puffery. Then you implicitly backed off that claim which you clearly knew was not true after I pointed this out to you. Then you claimed it's somehow first-party when I have clearly told you several times now that it's not a primary source since the source is from GiveWell/Open Philanthropy and the article is about MIRI. Then you're somehow claiming this isn't verifiable and/or not a reliable source for Wikipedia. Before we go any further please answer my questions above without further evasion. If you think the source that you deleted is a primary source, for example, explain how a GiveWell/Open Philanthropy source is a primary source for an article on MIRI. --Btcgeek (talk) 21:46, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

You're citing the claim to one of the organisations directly involved in the claim - that's a primary source. That's what the words mean. It is not a Wikipedia-meaning Reliable Source - an independent third-party source on the claim. You're making completely incorrect claims about the quality of your source - David Gerard (talk) 21:38, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I am withdrawing from this conversation. It doesn't seem like you're willing to do the right thing even when I've given you all the evidence and examples, and you continue to grossly misrepresent the sources that you deleted from the article. --Btcgeek (talk) 22:50, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

And if the fact hasn't been noted anywhere, it's not notable. Has any third-party RS even mentioned it? Surely this is not a high bar - David Gerard (talk) 20:05, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

The notability guidelines apply to whole articles, not contents of articles (see WP:NNC), and it is of obvious interest how an organisation is financed. The question here should be reliability of sources. — Charles Stewart (talk) 17:17, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

It is worth noting that (i) MIRI publishes audited accounts, and (ii) that since potential donors might be swayed by the fact of and reasoning behind the donation, claiming the donation took place when it did not would be fraudulent. We could simply ask the auditor to confirm that the donation took place. — Charles Stewart (talk) 12:09, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

References

New Open Phil grant

User:David Gerard, isn't WP:PRIMARY acceptable in this case? It can be supplemented with Open Phil's page on the grant, as well as an additional non-primary source once available. - Indefensible (talk) 16:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Unless anyone else in the world cares about it, it's likely WP:UNDUE, I'd think - or the "yes, but so what?" test. I mean, others might disagree with me, sure. But nonprofits whose WP pages are encrusted with their own blog posts about themselves, detailing things that no third parties bothered documenting, tend to be the ones that really shouldn't have that much detail in their articles - David Gerard (talk) 19:52, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Supplemented with Open Phil ref, at minimum this meets the existing 2019 grant sentence. - Indefensible (talk) 05:02, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

While it is unfortunately common to list grants in some articles, this still should be explained using neutral language. Ideally with context from better sources. Grayfell (talk) 05:40, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Eliezer has left the building

Do we have WP:RS for this yet? He mentioned it on this podcast. - Scarpy (talk) 12:12, 24 February 2023 (UTC)