Comments
More from the author
Curated and popular this week
119
Epistemic status: Speculation from two decently informed advocates armed with anecdata.
Note on process: After having some version of this conversation several times and saying, “we should probably write about this publicly,” we took the less heroic route: we recorded one of our conversations, fed the transcript into an LLM, and then substantially revised the structure, substance, and framing ourselves. We will not be sharing the transcript, as it is in...
100
TLDR: Take the population ethics quiz here: https://mdickens.me/pop-ethics/
Population ethics is an oft-overlooked subfield within ethics. Many people hold views that they don't realize contradict each other, or that have strange implications that they wouldn't endorse if they thought about it more.
Not just that—population ethics is a BIG DEAL. A lot of ethical decisions hinge on how you think about changes in future populations....
112
Headline finding: I audited 17 AI Safety Talent programmes. Zero of 17 have published any comparison group, rejected-applicant follow-up, matched control or randomisation. Not one. Every programme that mentions a counterfactual does it by asking participants to self-report.
Background
At least $70 million...
Recent opportunities to take action
In case you missed it, EAGx Virtual is next month! https://www.eaglobal.org/events/eagxvirtual-2022/
Ha I definitely did miss it! Why are there applications though for a virtual event? That seems like an easy opportunity to be much more open like Scott is suggesting.
I'm not certain of the admissions standard for that particular event, but the description says they "welcome those at all levels of engagement" so my guess is that the admissions process is for screening purposes.
Eli mentioned in his reply to Scott that using an admissions process lets us try to screen out applicants who have caused problems at past events or who seem likely to cause problems. I'd have to check with our Community Events team to be sure that's the reason here.
Ah fair enough. That's definitely a good reason. FWIW as someone long time EA adjacent but more newly active some of the questions in the application feel more like proving one's fidelity to the EA cause rather than generally screening for problematic people or ensuring a diversity of perspectives.