YouCongress
Explore About Sign up

Comment by Michael Dickens

Human avatar
Writer at Philosophical Multicore on explicit Bayesian reasoning and decision-making
Don’t give up so easily! We as a society have spent approximately 0% of our collective decision-making resources on explicit Bayesian reasoning. Just because Rootclaim used Bayesian methods and then lost a debate doesn’t mean those methods will never work. [...] I’m optimistic that we can make explicit Bayesian analysis work better. And I can already think of ways to improve on two problems with it.
AI Verified (Apr 3, 2024)
Source:
Michael Dickens, “Explicit Bayesian Reasoning: Don’t Give Up So Easily,” Philosophical Multicore, April 3, 2024.
Like Share on X 3mo ago

Policy proposals and claims

Bayesian analysis is the right framework for settling the COVID-19 origins question
votes For
Statement relation verification history AI Verified Report this

Statement relation comments

AI Verified The quote is directly about using explicit Bayesian reasoning in the COVID lab-leak/origins debate. In source context, the author is responding to claims that Bayesian methods failed on this question and argues they should not be abandoned and can be improved, which makes a pro-Bayesian stance on the complete statement substantially more likely than opposition or no-position. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago
Vote inference verification history AI Verified Report this

Vote answer comments

AI Verified The quote and source context are supportive overall. He says not to 'give up' on explicit Bayesian reasoning because Rootclaim lost one COVID-origins debate, is 'optimistic that we can make explicit Bayesian analysis work better,' and in context proposes to 'keep doing Bayesian reasoning' while fixing its flaws. That strongly implies he sees Bayesian analysis as the proper framework to use on the COVID-19 origins question, even if he thinks current implementations need improvement. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago

Quote authenticity verification history

Report this

Quote authenticity comments

AI Verified Verified. The source URL contains the quoted opening sentence verbatim at line 23 and the quoted closing sentence verbatim at line 26, with only omitted intervening text represented by [...]. The page is the article “Explicit Bayesian Reasoning: Don't Give Up So Easily” on Philosophical Multicore | Michael Dickens, and it is posted on Apr 03, 2024. ([mdickens.me](https://mdickens.me/2024/04/03/explicit_bayesian_reasoning_dont_give_up/)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 3mo ago
replying to Michael Dickens

Other opinions from Michael Dickens

See all

Other authors to follow

Jonathan Jonathan Rootclaim blog author Andrew T. Levin Andrew T. Levin Economist, Professor at Dartmouth College and NBER Research Associate OpenAI OpenAI AI research organization Scott Alexander Scott Alexander Author and psychiatrist Yoshua Bengio Yoshua Bengio AI Pioneer, Turing Award winner Demis Hassabis Demis Hassabis Nobel laureate, AI Researcher and CEO of DeepMind Anthropic Anthropic AI safety research company Richard H. Ebright Richard H. Ebright Molecular biologist, Rutgers University; Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Chris Lehane Chris Lehane OpenAI chief global affairs officer