“Summary of and Thoughts on the Holtz/Yudkowsky Debate” by Zvi

George Holtz and Eliezer Yudkowsky debated on YouTube for 90 minutes, with some small assists from moderator Dwarkesh Patel. It seemed worthwhile to post my notes on this on their own.

I thought this went quite well for the first half or so, then things went increasingly off the rails in the second half, and Holtz gets into questions where he didn’t have a chance to reflect and prepare, especially around cooperation and the prisoner’s dilemma.

First, some general notes, then specific notes I took while watching.

1. Holtz was allowed to drive discussion. In debate terms, he was the con side, raising challenges, while Yudkowsky was the pro side defending a fixed position.
2. These discussions often end up doing what this one did, which is meandering around a series of 10-20 metaphors and anchors and talking points, mostly repeating the same motions with variations [...]

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First published:
August 16th, 2023

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8bhp8tsdxqifA9Ass/summary-of-and-thoughts-on-the-holtz-yudkowsky-debate

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.