Amanda Askell
Philosopher at Anthropic working on finetuning and AI alignment, as of 2024; previously a research scientist on OpenAI's policy team, with a PhD in philosophy from NYU. Writes at askell.blog.
Amanda Askell did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Their wordsSo it's a mistake to assume that if we identify a pro tanto harm from an AI system, it must be the case that someone has done something wrong, something needs to be done to correct it, or the system shouldn't be deployed.
↗In AI ethics, "bad" isn't good enough (Amanda Askell's Blog)askell.blog 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsSince we can't be certain about any one moral theory and since we have to try to represent a plurality of views, coming to all things considered judgments in AI ethics will often require a fairly complex evaluation of many relevant factors.
↗In AI ethics, "bad" isn't good enough (Amanda Askell's Blog)askell.blog 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 5 months earlier
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Their wordsBeing robustly tolerable is not a particularly valuable trait when the expected costs of failure are low, but it's an extremely valuable trait when the expected costs of failure are high.
↗When robustly tolerable beats precariously optimal (Amanda Askell's Blog)askell.blog 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsI think we can undervalue the property of being robustly tolerable.
↗When robustly tolerable beats precariously optimal (Amanda Askell's Blog)askell.blog 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsA benevolent dictatorship may seem surprisingly alluring in bad times, but any political system that enables a benevolent dictatorship also puts you at much greater risk of a malevolent one.
↗When robustly tolerable beats precariously optimal (Amanda Askell's Blog)askell.blog 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 2 weeks earlier
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Their wordsif you find you’re never failing, there’s a good chance you’re being too risk averse, and being too risk averse is costly.
↗The optimal rate of failure (Amanda Askell's Blog)askell.blog 1st of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsFor anything we try to do, the optimal rate of failure often isn’t zero: in fact, sometimes it’s very, very far from zero.
↗The optimal rate of failure (Amanda Askell's Blog)askell.blog 2nd of 4 in this piece
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Our reading
Someone who can afford to be less sensitive to risk is probably either irrational or privileged.
Their wordsif you’re able to behave in a way that’s less sensitive to risks, you’re probably either pretty irrational or pretty privileged.
↗The optimal rate of failure (Amanda Askell's Blog)askell.blog 3rd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsInvesting in individuals or providing insurance against failure for those pursuing ethical careers would enable more people to take the kinds of risks that are necessary to do the most good.
↗The optimal rate of failure (Amanda Askell's Blog)askell.blog 4th of 4 in this piece