The recent pivot by 80 000 hours to focus on AI seems (potentially) justified, but the lack of transparency and input makes me feel wary.
PS: I am young and new, please be kind and constructive with your feedback.
TLDR;
80 000 hours, a once cause-agnostic broad scope introductory resource (with career guides, career coaching, online blogs, podcasts) has decided to focus on upskilling and producing content focused on AGI risk, AI alignment and an AI-transformed world.
According to their post, they will still host the backlog of content on non AGI causes, but may not promote or feature it. They also say a rough 80% of new podcasts and content will be AGI focused, and other cause areas such as Nuclear Risk and Biosecurity may have to be scoped by other organisations.
Whilst I cannot claim to have in depth knowledge of robust norms in such shifts, or in AI specifically, I would set aside the actual claims for the shift, and instead focus on the potential friction in how the change was communicated.
To my knowledge, (please correct me), no public information or consultation was made beforehand, and I had no prewarning of this change. Organisations such as 80 000 hours may not owe this amount of openness, but since it is a value heavily emphasises in EA, it seems slightly alienating.
Furthermore, the actual change may not be so dramatic, but it has left me grappling with the thought that other mass organisations could just as quickly pivot. This isn't necessarily inherently bad, and has advantageous signalling of being 'with the times' and 'putting our money where our mouth is' in terms of cause area risks. However, in an evidence based framework, surely at least some heads up would go a long way in reducing short-term confusion or gaps.
Many introductory programs and fellowships utilise 80k resources, and sometimes as embeds rather than as standalone resources. Despite claiming the backlog content will remain, I see some potential disincentive to take on the resource-intensive linkrot and resource integrity work that they require, leading to loss of information and patchy dissemination.
I also use 80k as a cause agnostic introduction to many new EAs, especially at my university group. Career advising and resources focused on AI on impressionable young people can lead to lack of choice and autonomy, feelings of pressure, alienation and more. I can also see the very claim of 'work on AI as it's a big risk!' to be widely contested in and of itself, let alone the idea a key stakeholder in the EA community should endorse a lone cause so strongly.
The change may be positive, and has been met with some support, but the infrastructure in place to ensure the community is involved seems lacking. We may not have a duty to involve everyone, nor should we try to get total unanimity, but surely the values of EA would be supportive of at least some more shared decision making?
Some concrete pitfalls that I would appreciate discussion on:
- Is a short (mainly unseen) post enough to justify/communicate the change?
- Do they even owe justification?
- Should this have been discussed before the change?
- How can information content on non-AGI be safely preserved for linked resources?
- What resources (e.g. probably good) can take the place?
- Do they have enough runway to patch the gap?
- With sudden shifts in Bluedot (less biosec, focus on AI), Rethink Priorities, Atlas and other high school outreach, CEA and OP ceasing U18 and uni organiser funding, EA funds and EV changing main scopes etc- what safeguards (or should there even be safeguards) are in place in the community to prevent sudden upheaval
- Does this signal a further divide between longermists/X-risk rationalists and the more concrete level health/biosec/nuclear/welfare EA community?
Finally, the least knowledgable aspect I would appreciate clarification on is:
Should we actually all shift to considering direct AI alignment work over just reassessing what risks change in an AGI impacted future?
I know 80k aren't claiming direct AI work for all is the 'correct' choice, but it surely incentivises a 'norm' pro AI cause area work.
I see some issues adapted from an anecdotal reasoning. I appreciate AI may be a higher X risk and may be increasing in scale and impact, but compared to S-risks from pandemics or health/biology impacts, I see more tangible routes for good (maybe because I'm more risk averse) plus higher chance of suffering even if it is smaller in scale that leads to nearly as great overall expected risk.
E.g. multiple deaths from preventable diseases compounding to be nearly the same as entire society value lock in my misaligned AI... (in my naive view)
Plus, AI focus doesn't account for interest or personal experience, there's diminishing returns of mass career shifts and dilution of roles and zero sum grant funding to less advantageous candidates who feel forced into it... It's an extreme but also seems like 80k holds a big generalist pull and lot of norm setting power, so is something to bear in mind with how this may affect smaller entities and orgs.
I think you actually shifted me slightly to the 'announcement was handled well' side (even if not fully) with the idea that blatant honesty (since their work was mainly AI anyway for the last year or so) plus the very clear change descriptors.
I am a bit wary of such a prominent resource such as 80k endorsing a sudden cause shift without first reconstructing the gap- I know they don't owe it to anyone, especially during such a tumultous time of AI risk, and there are other orgs (Probably Good, etc) but to me, 80k seemed like a very good intro into 'EA Cause Areas' that I can't think of another current substitute for. The problem profiles for example not being featured/promoted is fine for individuals already aware of their existence, but when I first navigated to 80k, I saw the big list of problem profiles and that's how I actually started getting into them, and what led to my shift from clinical medicine to a career in biosec/pandemics.