BLUF:
* To determine whether AI is ‘improving exponentially’, ‘hitting the wall’, or any other claim which involves a quantity or magnitude (e.g. ‘This model was a big leap/small increment’). We need a good y-axis: an interval scale of AI capability which means +1 unit always represents the same degree of ‘how much better’, in the same way +1 degree Celsius is always the same amount of ‘how much hotter’.
* Yet there is no good y-axis for AI capability. All our...
Public service announcement
1. Applications are now open for our first ever round of the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program dedicated exclusively to animal welfare. Learn more about what’s different this round here and apply...
TL;DR
* The Long-Term Future Fund is closing down, and EA Funds is launching the Transformative AI Fund with a new full-time team.
* The fund's primary focus is technical AI safety and AI governance (including post-AGI governance), as well as supporting fields such as field-building and forecasting. We'll also consider non-GCR implications of transformative AI such as flourishing futures and digital...
Apropos of the "Criticism and Red Teaming Contest," I am curious about how critiques have historically shaped EA:
a. What critiques have resulted in large and tangible changes in the movement?
b. What were the means by which these critiques were "metabolized?" Eg did they require a prestigious champion? Was there a highly shared article that changed people's minds? etc
I have no proof it mattered, but a few years before the big pivot to longtermism, 80k debated some leftists who emphasised the sheer scope of systemic change and measurability bias. And we moved.