Hide table of contents

I am feeling lots of feelings and I guess you are too. 

I have been frustrated that lots of the posts over the last few days have either felt emotional in a way that has to be argued around or cold.

So, how do you feel? We aren't going to discuss whether feelings are reasonable or not. We are just gonna express how we feel and listen. Feel free to write from burners.

I sense this space could become too vulnerable, so only comment if you want other people to hear how you feel. We are all adults.

I will delete comments about feelings of a sexual nature. That is not the space I want.

23

0
0

Reactions

0
0
New Answer
New Comment


5 Answers sorted by

Fine, basically. Surprised at the degree of emotional investment people seem to have in the EA community as such, above and beyond doing helpful stuff for the world personally. Sounds unpleasant. If I had feelings anywhere near as negative about a community as the ones I'm seeing routinely expressed, I think I'd just stop engaging and go do something else.

I'm shocked at how differently different people feel about the same situation. It's maybe an order of magnitude bigger of a difference than I expected. I'm unsure about what I should do to help everyone's needs be met.

I sense people feel even more strongly and broadly than they are saying fwiw. It's a real hot button complex issue.

I feel good. My personal life and work situation are simultaneously going well for the first time in a while.

As others have mentioned I’m a bit surprised at the community schisms/etc but my overall feeling is gratitude I’m learning more about EA, and staying involved. I love this movement and think it’s one of the most beautiful things the modern western world has produced. I hope we make it to the big leagues :)

Im mostly just depressed about AI progress being so rapid and the 'safety gameboard' being in such a bad state. Im angry at the people who contributed to this terrible situation (which includes a lot of longtermist orgs). 

I am stressed and annoyed and frustrated and sad and moody and self pitying and optimistic. I feel warmth towards the EA community and also a sharp resentment.

Comments2
Sorted by Click to highlight new comments since:

Thanks for posting this. It seems like a useful exercise!

There are periods when I feel kind of drained from all the community drama, plus the terrible state of the AI gameboard, but at other times I feel hopeful or optimistic.

Curated and popular this week
 ·  · 20m read
 · 
Advanced AI could unlock an era of enlightened and competent government action. But without smart, active investment, we’ll squander that opportunity and barrel blindly into danger. Executive summary See also a summary on Twitter / X. The US federal government is falling behind the private sector on AI adoption. As AI improves, a growing gap would leave the government unable to effectively respond to AI-driven existential challenges and threaten the legitimacy of its democratic institutions. A dual imperative → Government adoption of AI can’t wait. Making steady progress is critical to: * Boost the government’s capacity to effectively respond to AI-driven existential challenges * Help democratic oversight keep up with the technological power of other groups * Defuse the risk of rushed AI adoption in a crisis → But hasty AI adoption could backfire. Without care, integration of AI could: * Be exploited, subverting independent government action * Lead to unsafe deployment of AI systems * Accelerate arms races or compress safety research timelines Summary of the recommendations 1. Work with the US federal government to help it effectively adopt AI Simplistic “pro-security” or “pro-speed” attitudes miss the point. Both are important — and many interventions would help with both. We should: * Invest in win-win measures that both facilitate adoption and reduce the risks involved, e.g.: * Build technical expertise within government (invest in AI and technical talent, ensure NIST is well resourced) * Streamline procurement processes for AI products and related tech (like cloud services) * Modernize the government’s digital infrastructure and data management practices * Prioritize high-leverage interventions that have strong adoption-boosting benefits with minor security costs or vice versa, e.g.: * On the security side: investing in cyber security, pre-deployment testing of AI in high-stakes areas, and advancing research on mitigating the ris
 ·  · 15m read
 · 
In our recent strategy retreat, the GWWC Leadership Team recognised that by spreading our limited resources across too many projects, we are unable to deliver the level of excellence and impact that our mission demands. True to our value of being mission accountable, we've therefore made the difficult but necessary decision to discontinue a total of 10 initiatives. By focusing our energy on fewer, more strategically aligned initiatives, we think we’ll be more likely to ultimately achieve our Big Hairy Audacious Goal of 1 million pledgers donating $3B USD to high-impact charities annually. (See our 2025 strategy.) We’d like to be transparent about the choices we made, both to hold ourselves accountable and so other organisations can take the gaps we leave into account when planning their work. As such, this post aims to: * Inform the broader EA community about changes to projects & highlight opportunities to carry these projects forward * Provide timelines for project transitions * Explain our rationale for discontinuing certain initiatives What’s changing  We've identified 10 initiatives[1] to wind down or transition. These are: * GWWC Canada * Effective Altruism Australia funding partnership * GWWC Groups * Giving Games * Charity Elections * Effective Giving Meta evaluation and grantmaking * The Donor Lottery * Translations * Hosted Funds * New licensing of the GWWC brand  Each of these is detailed in the sections below, with timelines and transition plans where applicable. How this is relevant to you  We still believe in the impact potential of many of these projects. Our decision doesn’t necessarily reflect their lack of value, but rather our need to focus at this juncture of GWWC's development.  Thus, we are actively looking for organisations and individuals interested in taking on some of these projects. If that’s you, please do reach out: see each project's section for specific contact details. Thank you for your continued support as we
 ·  · 11m read
 · 
Our Mission: To build a multidisciplinary field around using technology—especially AI—to improve the lives of nonhumans now and in the future.  Overview Background This hybrid conference had nearly 550 participants and took place March 1-2, 2025 at UC Berkeley. It was organized by AI for Animals for $74k by volunteer core organizers Constance Li, Sankalpa Ghose, and Santeri Tani.  This conference has evolved since 2023: * The 1st conference mainly consisted of philosophers and was a single track lecture/panel. * The 2nd conference put all lectures on one day and followed it with 2 days of interactive unconference sessions happening in parallel and a week of in-person co-working. * This 3rd conference had a week of related satellite events, free shared accommodations for 50+ attendees, 2 days of parallel lectures/panels/unconferences, 80 unique sessions, of which 32 are available on Youtube, Swapcard to enable 1:1 connections, and a Slack community to continue conversations year round. We have been quickly expanding this conference in order to prepare those that are working toward the reduction of nonhuman suffering to adapt to the drastic and rapid changes that AI will bring.  Luckily, it seems like it has been working!  This year, many animal advocacy organizations attended (mostly smaller and younger ones) as well as newly formed groups focused on digital minds and funders who spanned both of these spaces. We also had more diversity of speakers and attendees which included economists, AI researchers, investors, tech companies, journalists, animal welfare researchers, and more. This was done through strategic targeted outreach and a bigger team of volunteers.  Outcomes On our feedback survey, which had 85 total responses (mainly from in-person attendees), people reported an average of 7 new connections (defined as someone they would feel comfortable reaching out to for a favor like reviewing a blog post) and of those new connections, an average of 3
Recent opportunities in Building effective altruism
47
Ivan Burduk
· · 2m read