All of howdoyousay?'s Comments + Replies

I've been thinking about this very thing for quite some time, and have been thinking up a concrete interventions to help the ML community / industry grasp this. DM me if you're interested to discuss further.

Now having read your reply, I think we're likely closer together than apart on views. But...

But the question of board choice is firstly a question of who should be given legal control of EA organisations.

I don't think this is how I see the question of board choice in practice. In theory yes, for the specific legal, hard mechanisms you mention. But in practice in my experience boards significantly check and challenge direction of the organisation, so the collective ability of board members to do this should be factored in appointment decisions which may tra... (read more)

Isn't the point of EA that we are responsive to new arguments? So, unlike Extinction Rebellion where belief that climate change is a real and imminent risk is essential, our "belief system" is rather more about openness and willingness to update in response to 1) evidence, and 2) reasonable arguments about other world views?

Also I think a lot of the time when people say "value alignment", they are in fact looking for signals like self-identification as EAs, or who they're friends with or have collaborated / worked with. I also notice we conflate our aesthe... (read more)

Ultimately, if you think there is enough value within EA arguments about how to do good, you should be able to find smart people from other walks of life who have: 1) enough overlap with EA thinking (because EA isn't 100% original after all) to have a reasonable starting point along with 2) more relevant leadership experience and demonstrably good judgement, and linked to the two previous 3) mature enough in their opinions and / or achievements to be less susceptible to herding.

If you think that EA orgs won't remain EA orgs if you don't appoint "value alig... (read more)

For the times when I have been done wrong to, I would have been really happy if the injuring party had been as reflective, genuinely self-critical and (from what I can see) steadfast in trying to do better as you are.

From what I can tell, you didn't have to "out" yourself for this. I respect the move to do this and to make amends and doing so (from what it seems) with the person you wronged. It's impressive that (from what it seems) they're keen to see things put right and giving you some support in this regard (if only fact checking this post).

I've more o... (read more)

I'm curious about the down-voting with out explanations as well, keen to hear why people disagree.

Why we're doing this

You can see our full reasoning here (and in the comments). In brief, we are worried about a way in which the voting structure on the Forum leads to more engagement with “Community” posts than users endorse, we’ve been hearing user feedback on related issues for a long time, and we’ve been having lots of conversations on hypotheses that we’d like to test. 

I feel mixed about this. 

On one hand, I log on to the forum and sometimes think "I'd rather not read about more drama", or indeed "I keep getting sucked in by drama rathe... (read more)

If you haven't come across it yet, worth seeing what Wellcome Leap's R3 project involves, it focuses on increasing the production capability of MRNA vaccines in globally distributed labs so that there is better responsiveness to emerging pathogens; whether another covid, ebola, a particularly bad flu etc.

https://wellcomeleap.org/r3/

I don't actually think that's necessarily messed up? That sometimes your role conflicts with a relationship you'd like to have is unfortunate, but not really avoidable:

• A company telling its managers that they can't date their reports .
• ...
• A school telling professors they can't date their students.
• A charity telling their donor services staff that they can't date major donors.

In theory, I think it makes a lot of sense  to have some clear hard lines related to some power dynamics, but even when I'm trying to write those red lines I notice myself wri... (read more)

I don't think this is a fair comment, and aspects of it reads more of a personal attack rather than an attack of ideas. This feels especially the case given the above post has significantly more substance and recommendations to it, but this one comment just focuses in on Zoe Cremer. It worries me a bit that it was upvoted as much as it was. 

For the record, I think some of Zoe's recommendations could plausibly be net negative and some are good ideas; as with everything, it requires further thinking through and then skillful implementation. But I think ... (read more)

A few disjointed challenges, basically:

1. Governance has value regardless of degree of trust
2. I find EA leadership's attitude low trust in some instances

There's a false dichotomy implied in this post; that high trust and less governance go together, and having strong governance means you have low trust. I don't think this is the case; in fact you often create high trust by having appropriate strong governance, or lack of governance destroying trust.

I also find the characterisation of governance being there to protect against bad actors narrow, even naive; ... (read more)

Strong disagree. 

I would have qualified my statements even if I was 99% confident that SBF had committed outright fraud.  I would expect more and more information to come to light which could nuance my views (if not outright change them) which would lead me to want to change my public position. 
 

Moreover, I felt Will's statement was quite strong in outright denouncing SBF, and had this qualifier as an afterthought; not in the foreground. 

I didn't take issue with Holden's post. For me the subtext was "I'm going to be giving cold tak... (read more)

I really appreciated your comment and think it's important to acknowledge and ensure neurodiverse people feel welcome, and I'm coming from a place where I agree with Maya's reflections on emotions within EA and am neurotypical.

Not sure I have time to post my thoughts in depth but I think the rational Vs. intuitive emotional intelligence tension within EA is something worth a lot more thought. It's a tension / trade-off I've picked up on in the EA professional realm: where people aren't getting on in EA organisations, where people aren't feeling heard, and... (read more)

Yeah I had the same thought too. Though when I said priors I personally did not mean updating quantifiably (i.e. 0.05 --> 0.1); more in the folk sense of priors, or base rates.  

Also the examples I gave are more about certain features of a business / company that I should be more sceptical about.

Great post, thank you for writing. Definitely makes me re-evaluate my own priors on fraud, and also think about structural risks inherent in companies where:

• there is a trading house and fund owned by the same person (as in Bernie Madoff's case)
• the nature of the business and / or investments may not be a ponzi scheme by nature or have multi-level marketing built in, but where it's growth model in effect looks a bit like that; i.e. growth seems highly driven by enthusiasm, is activated through social networks / word of mouth, and the intrinsic value of the business / commodity is subject to a lot of debate (in contrast with e.g. stock prices of minerals necessary in electronics manufacturing)

Strong upvote from me. I really appreciated the frank sharing of your experience and also that it was playfully written (and more on this forum could be!)

Particularly keen on the policy mandating anonymous donations, and building a receiving organisation to do this and (presumably) pool all different donations for cause / intervention X together and administering them? TBH, it seems like a no-brainer to me to do in the first place if governance was being prioritised. Main reason I think you would keep the close donor-adviser relationship in place would be:... (read more)

I think seeing it as "just putting two people in touch" is narrow. It's about judgement on whether to get involved in highly controversial commercial deal which was expected to significantly influence discourse norms, and therefore polarisation, in years to come. As far as I can tell, EA overall and Will specifically do not have skills / knowhow in this domain.

Introducing Elon to Sam is not just like making a casual introduction; if everything SBF was doing was based on EA, then this feels like EA wading in on the future of Twitter via the influence of SBF... (read more)

Posting quickly, haven't thought it through but guessing that one of the key benefits of having an independent investigator is that it gives routes for any evidence to be evaluated, thereby preventing a witch-hunt which could happen if no legitimate routes for recourse.

Fair! 

In case wasn't clear from my post, I'm not saying there's a clear action here yet but to still think beyond the EA community.

This seems like an obviously good thing to do, but would challenge us to think of how to take it further.

One further thought - is there something the EA community can do on mental health / helping those affected that goes wider than within the EA community? 

A lot of people will have lost a huge deal of savings, potentially worse than that. Supporting them matters no less than supporting EAs, beyond the fact that it's easier to support other EAs because of established networks. Ironically, that argument leaning into supporting just other EAs is the typ... (read more)

Yes, but a lot of EAs were those retail investors as well losing their shirts, or will likely lose their jobs now as they were funded via FTX.  Many in our community will be a subset of those affected, who indeed need lots of support, but a reasonable number nonetheless.

The announcement raises the possibility that "a bunch of this AI stuff is basically right, but we should be focusing on entirely different aspects of the problem." But it seems to me that if someone successfully argues for this position, they won't be able to win any of the offered prizes.

Thanks for clarifying this is in fact the case Nick. I get how setting a benchmark - in this case an essay's persuasiveness at shifting probabilities you assign to different AGI / extinction scenarios - makes it easier to judge across the board. But as someone who w... (read more)

Three things:

1. I'm mostly asking for any theories of victory pertaining to causes which support a long-termist vision / end-goal, such as eliminating AI risk. 

2. But also interested in a theory of victory / impact on long-termism itself, of which multiple causes interact. For example, if 

• long-termism goal = reduce all x-risk and develop technology to end suffereing, enable flourishing + colonise stars

then the composites of a theory of victory/ impact could be...:

• reduce X risk pertaining to Ai, bio, others
• research / udnerstanding around enabling

Agree there's something to your 1-3 counterarguments but I find the fourth less convincing, maybe more because of semantics than actual substantive disagreement.  Why? A difference in net effect of x-risk reduction of 0.01% Vs. 0.001% is pretty massive. These especially matter if the expected value is massive, because sometimes the same expected value holds across multiple areas. For example, preventing asteroid related X risk Vs. Ai Vs. Bio Vs. runaway climate change; (by definition) all same EV (if you take the arguments at face value). But plausibility of each approach and individual interventions within that would be pretty high variance. 

The more I reread your post, the more I feel our differences might be more nuances, but I think your contrarian / playing to an audience of cynics tone (which did amuse me) makes them seem starker? 

Before I grace you with more sappy reasons why you're wrong, and sign you up to my life-coaching platform^[1] counter-argue, I want to ask a few things...

• I am not sure whether you're saying "treating people better / worse depending on their success is good"; particularly in the paragraphs about success and worth. Or that you think that's just an immutab

I agree with this in principle... But there's a delicious irony in the idea of EA leadership (apols for singling you out in this way Ben) now realising "yes this is a risk; we should try and convince people to do the opposite of it", and not realising the risks inherent in that.

The fundamental issue is the way the community - mostly full of young people - often looks to / overrelies on EA leadership for ideas of causes to dedicate themselves to, but also ideas about how to live their life. This isn't necessarily the EA leadership fault, but it's not as if ... (read more)

I didn't down/up-vote this comment but I feel the down-votes without explanation and critical engagement are a bit harsh and unfair, to be honest.  So I'm going to try and give some feedback (though a bit rapidly, and maybe too rapidy to be helpful...)
 

It feels like just an statement of fact to say that IQ tests have a sordid history; and concepts of intelligence have been weaponised against marginalised groups historically (including women, might I add to your list ;) ). That is fair to say. 

But reading this post, it feels less interested i... (read more)

Thanks for your open and thoughtful response.

Just to emphasise, I would bet that ~all participants would get a lot less value from one / a few doom circle sessions than they would from:

• cultivating skills to ask / receive feedback that is effective (with all the elements I've written about above) which they can use across time - including after leaving a workshop, and / or;
• just a pervasive thread throughout the workshop helping people develop both these skills and also initiate some relationships at the workshops where they can keep practising this feedback

The original CFAR alumni workshop included a warning:
"be warned that the nature of this workshop means we may be pushing on folks harder than we do at most other CFAR events, so please only sign up if that sounds like something that a) you want, and b) will be good for you."

I'm struggling to understand the motivations behind this. 

Reading between the lines, was there a tacit knowledge by the organisers that this was somewhat experimental, and that it could perhaps lead to great breakthroughs and positive emotions as well as the opposite; but cou... (read more)

I'm struggling to understand why anyone would choose one big ritual like 'Doom circles' instead of just purposefully inculcating a culture of opennes to giving / receiving critique that is supportive and can help others? And I have a lot of concerns about unintended negative consequences of this approach. 

Overall, this runs counter to my experience of what good professional feedback relationships look like; 

• I suspect the formality will make it feel weirder  for people who aren't used to offering feedback / insights to start doing it in a mor

"70,000 hours back"; a monthly podcast interviewing someone who 'left EA' about what they think are some of EAs most pressing problems, and what somebody else should do about them.

Is it all a bit too convenient?

There's been lots of discussion about EA having so much money; particularly long-termist EA. Worries that that means we are losing the 'altruist' side of EA, as people get more comfortable, and work on more speculative cause areas. This post isn't about what's right / wrong or what "we should do"; it's about reconciling the inner tension this creates.

Many of us now have very well-paid jobs, which are in nice offices with perks like table-tennis. And that many people are working on things which often yield no benefit to humans... (read more)

To add to the other papers coming from the "AI safety / AGI" cluster calling for a synthesis in these views...

https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/293033

https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.06110

I think taking this forward would be awesome, and I'm potentially interested to contribute. So consider this comment an earmarking for me to come speak with you and / or Rory about this at a later date :)

Thanks for writing this, completely agree.

I'd love if the EA community was able to have increasingly sophisticated, evidence -backed conversations about e.g. mega-projects vs. prospecting for and / or investing more in low-hanging fruits.

It feels like it will help ground a lot more debates and decision making within the community, especially around prioritising projects which might plausibly benefit the long term future compared with projects we've stronger reasons to think will benefit people / animals today (albeit not an almost infinitely large number of people / animals).

But also, you know, an increasingly better understanding of what seems to work is valuable in and of itself!

Cross-post to Leftism Virtue Café's commentary on this: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bsTXHJFu3Srurbg7K/leftism-virtue-cafe-s-shortform?commentId=Q8armqnvxhAmFcrAh

Equally there's an argument to thank and reply to critical pieces made against the EA community which honestly engage with subject matter. This post (now old) making criticisms of long-termism is a good example: https://medium.com/curious/against-strong-longtermism-a-response-to-greaves-and-macaskill-cb4bb9681982

I'm sure / really hope Will's new book does engage with the points made here. And if so, it provides the rebuttal to those who come across hit-pieces and take them at face value, or those who promulgate hit-pieces because of their own ideological drives.

Thanks for this thoughtful challenge, and in particular flagging what future provocations could look like so we can prepare ourselves and let our more reactive selves come to the fore, less of the child selves.  

In fact, I think I'll reflect on this list for a long time to ensure I continue not to respond on Twitter!

Agreed, and I was going to single out that quote for the same reason. 

I think that sentence is really the crux of imposter syndrome. I think it's also, unfortunately, somewhat uniquely triggered by how EA philosophy is a maximising philosophy, which necessitates comparisons between people or 'talent' as well as cause areas. 

As well as individual actions, I think it's good for us to think more about community actions around this as any intervention targeting the individual but not changing environment rarely makes the dent needed.

Full disclosure: I'm thinking about writing up about ways in which EA's focus on impact, and the amount deference to high status people, creates cultural dynamics which are very negative for some of its members. 

I think that we should just bite the bullet here and recognise that the vast majority of smart dedicated people trying very hard to use reason and evidence to do the most good are working on improving the long run future.

It's a divisive claim, and not backed up with anything. By saying 'bite the bullet', it's like you're taunting the rea... (read more)

I do suspect there is a lot of interaction happening between social status, deference, elitism and what I'm starting to feel is more of a mental health epidemic then mental health deficit within the EA community.  I suspect it's good to talk about these together, as things going hand in hand.

What do I mean by this interaction?

Things I often hear, which exemplify it:

• younger EAs, fresh out of uni following particular career advice from a person / org, investing a lot of faith in it - probably moreso than the person of higher status expects them to. Thei

I'd add a fifth; one about individuals personally exploring ways in which an EA mindset and / or taking advice / guidance on lifestyle or career from their EA community has led to less positive results in their own lives.

Some that come to mind are:

Denise's post about "My mistakes on the path to impact": https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QFa92ZKtGp7sckRTR/my-mistakes-on-the-path-to-impact And though I can't find it the post about how hard it is to get a job in an EA organisation, and how demoralising that is (among other points)

Here's a podcast I listened to years ago which has influenced how I think about groups and what to be sceptical about; most specifically what we choose not to talk about.

This is why I'm somewhat sceptical about how EA groups would respond to an offer of an ethnography; what do people find uncomfortable to talk about with a stranger observing them, let alone with each other?

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0yKnibTpN8XaszrjP2lDha?si=2NLagAXkScmizZO8jMGBHQ&utm_source=copy-link

Yes to links of what conversations on gaming the system are happening where! 

Surely this is something that should be shared directly with all funders as well? Are there any (in)formal systems in place for this?

One way to approach this would simply be to make a hypothesis (i.e. the bar for grants is being lowered, we're throwing money at nonsense grants), and then see what evidence you can gather for and against it.

Another way would be to identify a hypothesis for which it's hard to gather evidence either way. For example, let's say you're worried that an EA org is run by a bunch of friends who use their billionaire grant money to pay each other excessive salaries and and sponsor Bahama-based "working" vacations. What sort of information would you need in order t

I'm personally concerned that horoscopes weren't taken into account in devising this scheme, when there is literally thousands of years worth of work on this, all going back to classical civilisation and aristotle or something.  Classic EAs overcomplicating things / reinventing the wheel.

Interesting, I think it's the other way round; there are tonnes of companies and academic groups who do action-oriented evaluation work which can include (and I reckon in some cases exclusively be) ethnography. But in my experience the hard part is always "what can feasibly be researched?" and "who will listen and learn from the findings?"  In the case of EA community this would translate to something like the following, which are ranked in order of hardest to simpler...:

• what exactly is the EA community? or what is a representative cross-section / gro

Yeah I'd know how to go about making this happen, including figuring out what's a decent research question for it, but not undertaking it myself.