I'm going to be a contestant on British quiz show Pointless! It's a popular quiz show which, I think, averages ~3 million views per episode - largely in the UK. I'd love to get in a promotion for EA or something EA-ish. There is a 20 second personal intro (e.g. at 3:24) and sometimes 5 seconds to talk about where your prize money would go.
Has anyone considered if there's anything effective to get across in a short time to a large general audience? Would be very interested if there are resources/previous discussions - and welcome opinions too. This isn't necessarily an elevator pitch for EA though- it may just be a brief reference in my personal intro (I'm unsure how formulaic the show is).
Initial thoughts are, I study AI so would probably talk plans to work on safe AI. Could talk about giving 10% to charity. I could also name-check CEA or 80,000 hours, or possibly someone like GovAI if I got as far as winning money.
I applied last night, had a pre-screening interview just now, and filming is on Monday (edit: now delayed to Spring 2022) - so haven't thought through much... Any advice on picking up lots of general knowledge in a weekend would be lovely too.
Brainstorming some concrete wording for a personal intro:
"Hi, I'm Patrick. I'm currently pursuing a master's degree in artificial intelligence. A startling fact that keeps me up at night is that humanity spends more on ice cream every year than on ensuring that the technologies we develop do not destroy us. I intend to help change this with my career and with the Giving What We Can pledge I've taken to give 10% of my income to whichever organisations can most effectively use it to improve the lives of others, now and in the years to come."
(The hyperlinked text is taken verbatim from the sources linked.)
The thought behind this wording is that it ensures you actually introduce yourself, but also manages to subtly fit in two plugs--the first being that if a curious viewer tries fact-checking the ice cream factoid by Googling something like "humanity spends more on ice cream than technology not destroying us" the top search results will all be about Toby Ord's The Precipice, and the second obviously being GWWC / effective giving.