Amplifying David's point: in the era where experiments are cheap, and so new results are flying around left and right, it is extremely valuable to bring clarity to the literature.
It's also really satisfying to understand the root cause of apparently contradictory results!
It's also really satisfying to understand the root cause of apparently contradictory results!
Quick new post: I think it'd be good if people (particularly newcomers) spent more time writing up existing takes from papers, and resolving contradictory evidence in their results and experiments. I think this is on average a better use of time and builds more understanding than firing off an experiment. And if you slop out both, this is cheaper to fail on. I then give a loose example on trying to resolve if reward hacking in RL generalises to emergent misalignment.
lesswrong.com/posts/tn4WSyrq…View quoted post on X
