All of michel's Comments + Replies

Helpful post! Especially liked this comment with respect to how EA is defined and what a more helpful definition can include:

Most definitions of effective altruism are unsatisfying, because their goal is primarily persuasive: their purpose is to get you to become an effective altruist [...]

This post series defines effective altruism in a way that’s anthropological. What do effective altruists believe that other people tend not to believe? Why do they believe that? What do the vegans and the kidney donors, the AI safety researchers and the randomized controlled trial lovers, have in common?

Nice post. I've been vaguely thinking in this direction so it's helpful to have a name for this idea and some early food for thought.

I think this is really fair pushback, thanks! Skeptical coverage of AI development is legitimate. I think the way I wrote this over-implied that these articles is a failing of journalism—the marketing hype claim is not baseless.

But I'm torn. I still think there's something off about current AI coverage, and this could be a valid reason to want more journalism on AI. Most articles seem to default to either full embrace of AI companies' claims or blanket skepticism, with relatively few spotlighting the strongest version of arguments on both sides of a debate... (read more)

Thank you! 

Also, I back your earlier sentiment that there's probably loads of other UI/UX improvements to be made, although of course I understand if those aren't a priority. 

It's been a few years since I worked on the opportunity board so I don't really remember the decision to add this filter. 

It's based on this database of EA orgs, which I haven't kept up to date. (I'm not sure if more recent opportunity board contributors have). I borrowed the language from a similar database Michael A made. Worth noting that both databases were made before or during summer 2022 where EA was much less politicized. 

Looking at it now, I also find this filter a bit weird and would probably advise removing it or making sure it's up to... (read more)

Thank you for taking this on! 

This project that was started by motivated university students, sustained by grant funding (thanks Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund! cc @calebp ), and now ultimately absorbed by a proper organization. 

I like that arc. I think 'find an organizational home that doesn't depend on one-off grant funding and unusually dedicated/risk-tolerant organizers' is a worthy goal for early-stage project to orient towards. (This can be done either by starting a more mature org on the basis of a good pilot project or joining an org, like the board did here). 

I’m really grateful to have worked alongside you! I admire your enthusiasm and careful thinking and am excited to see what you work on next :)

Interesting that a typical AI journalist is valued more than a typical AI technical researcher (1.2x) and typical AI policy person (1.7x). 

Just an FYI that most non-profits are often legally constrained on doing many sorts of political advocacy work, I think. 

National securitisation privileges extraordinary measures to defend the nation, often centred around military force and logics of deterrence/balance of power and defence. Humanity macrosecuritization suggests the object of security is to defend all of humanity, not just the nation, and often invokes logics of collaboration, mutual restraint and constraints on sovereignty.

I found this distinction really helpful. 

It reminds me of Holden Karnofsky's piece on How to make the best of the most important century (2021), in which he presents two contrasting f... (read more)

FYI, I was making a difficult career decision a few months ago and found this post helpful. Thanks for writing it!

Love it.

Your discussion of how ‘Green’ vibes can fall short of really looking consequences in the face reminds of a quote:

“All that blood was never once beautiful, it was always just red.” - Kait Rokowski

Thanks for sharing this! I've really been liking your forum posts recently :) 

Oh sorry, I missed this! I should have read that more closely before commenting.

Fair enough. Interesting to see people's different intuitions on this. 

Registering that this line of questioning (and volume of questions) strikes me as a bit off-putting/ too intense. 

If someone asked about what "What were the key concerns here, and how were they discussed?" [...] "what questions did you ask, and what were the key considerations/evidence?" about interactions I had years ago, I would feel like they're holding me to an unrealistic standard of memory or documentation.  

(Although I do acknowledge the mood that these were some really important interactions. Scrutiny is an appropriate reaction, but I still find this off-putting.) 

the EA community is not on track to learn the relevant lessons from its relationship with FTX. 

In case it helps, here’s some data from Meta Coordination Forum attendees on how much they think the FTX collapse should influence their work-related actions and how much it has influenced their work-related actions:

• On average, attendees thought the average MCF attendee should moderately change their work-related actions because of the FTX collapse (Mean of 4.0 where 1 = no change and 7 = very significant change; n = 39 and SD = 1.5)
• On av

Thanks! It's something very similar to the 'responsibility assignment matrix' (RACI) popularized by consultants, I think. But in this case BIRD is more about decisions (rather than tasks) and stands for Bound (set guidelines), Input (give advice), Responsible (do the bulk of thinking decision through and laying out reasoning), and Decider (make decision). 

Interesting post!

these PF basically think being EA-aligned means you have to be a major pain in the ass to your grantees.

This surprised me. I wonder why this is the case? Maybe from early GiveWell charity investigations where they made the charities do a lot of reporting? My experience with EA grantmakers is that they're at least very aware of the costs of overhead and try hard to avoid red tape.

Fwiw, I don't know anybody actively promoting 'EA has to be all-or-nothing.' Like, there's not an insider group of EA thought leaders who have decided that either you give "100% to AMF or you're not an EA." I'm not denying that that vibe can be there though; I guess it may just be more of a cultural thing, or the product of a mostly maximizing philosophy.

Context: As part of CEA events team I help organize and attend a lot of events that draw EA thought-leaders. 

I'm glad you posted this! I like it :) 

I hadn't heard of the moral saint thought experiment or the "one reason too many"—both of these are interesting.

Cool that you're doing this for such a good cause. Good luck!

I'll try to post two! 

Thank you for trying!

Bumping a previous EA forum post: Key EA decision-makers on the future of EA, reflections on the past year, and more (MCF 2023).

This post recaps a survey about EA 'meta' topics (eg., talent pipelines, community building mistakes, field-building projects, etc.) that was completed by this year's Meta Coordination Forum attendees. Meta Coordination Forum is an event for people in senior positions at community- and field-building orgs/programs, like CEA, 80K, and Open Philanthropy's Global Catastrophic Risk Capacity Building team. (The event has previously gon... (read more)

Thank you for posting this!

I find these questions and consideration really interesting, and I could see myself experiment with researching questions of this sort for 3 months. As a relatively junior person though who may end up doing this independently, I worry about none of the thinking/writing I'd do on one of these topics actually changing anything. Do you have any advice on making this type of research useful?  

Thanks for putting on this event and sharing the takeaways!

Any plans to address these would come from the individuals or orgs working in this space. (This event wasn't a collective decision-making body, and wasn't aimed at creating a cross-org plan to address these—it was more about helping individuals refine their own plans). 

Re the talent development pipeline for AI safety and governance, some relevant orgs/programs I'm aware of off the top of my head include:

• Arkrose
• SERI MATS
• Constellation
• Fellowships like AI Futures
• Blue Dot Impact
• AI safety uni groups like MAIA and WAISI
• ... and other programs mentioned on 80K

Thanks for adding these thoughts!

A quick note to say that I’m taking some time off after publishing these posts. I’ll aim to reply to any comments from 13 Nov.

A quick note to say that I’m taking some time off after publishing these posts. I’ll aim to reply to any comments from 13 Nov.

A quick note to say that I’m taking some time off after publishing these posts. I’ll aim to reply to any comments from 13 Nov.

FYI that this is the first of a few Meta Coordination Forum survey summaries. More coming in the next two weeks!

Thank you for making this page

Consider keeping a running list of people you’d like to meet at the next EAG(x)

I used to be pretty overwhelmed when using Swapcard to figure out who I should meet at EAG(x)s. I still get kinda overwhelmed, but I've found it helpful to start identifying meetings I'd like to have many weeks before the event.

I do this by creating an easy-to-add-to list in the months leading up to the event. Then when I encounter someone who wrote an interesting post, or if a friend mentions someone scoping a project I'm excited about, I add them to this list. (I use the app t... (read more)

Thanks for sharing this!

If you're willing to write up some of your on the ground perspective and it seem valuable, we'd be happy to share it with attendees!

Off the top of my head, I'm thinking things like:

• What changes in community members attitudes might 'leaders' not be tracking?
• From your engagement with 'leaders' and community members, what seem to be the biggest misunderstandings?
• What cheap actions could leaders take that might have a really positive influence on the community?

I'll DM you with info on on how to share such a write up, if you're interested.  

Random anecadata on a very specific instance: I worked with Drew to make a Most Important Century writing prize. I enjoyed our conversations and we worked well together — Drew was nice and ambitious. I heard concerns about Nonlinear at this time, but never had anything suspect come up.

Flagging EA Opportunity Board to make sure it's on your radar. It's focused mostly on more junior, non-permanent positions and pretty EA focused.

Thanks for engaging with this post! I appreciate the seriousness with which you engage with the question “is this actually good?” If it’s not, I don’t want to celebrate this donation or encourage others to do the same; the answer to that question matters.

I think your arguments are plausible, and I agree with the comment you make elsewhere that the EA Forum should be a place for such (relatively) unfiltered push back.

But in the absence of any inside view on this topic and the fair push back Nick made, I still feel solid about holding the outside view that d... (read more)

Thanks Grace! Feel free to share.

Thanks Nick! Really appreciate you flagging this. I didn't intend it that way and hope the edit helps: 

Maybe playing with their friends in the schoolyard, maybe spending time with their grandma, or maybe just kicking rocks, alone.

It totally should be. Fixed, thanks :) 

Readers may also be interested in EA Opportunities Board

Cool initiative! Heads up that I think one of the links in the TLDR is to a private forum draft (or at least it doesn't work for me)

See this post 

I'd be very curious if there are historical case studies of how much private corporations stuck to voluntary commitments they made, and how long it took for more binding regulation to replace voluntary commitments

Pulling out highlights from PDF of the voluntary commitments that AI safety orgs agreed to:

The following is a list of commitments that companies are making to promote the safe, secure, and transparent development and use of AI technology. These voluntary commitments are consistent with existing laws and regulations, and designed to advance a generative AI legal and policy regime. Companies intend these voluntary commitments to remain in effect until regulations covering substantially the same issues come into force. Individual companies may make additional

Cool initiative! I'm worried about a failure mode where these just stay in the EA blogosphere and don't reach the target audiences who we'd most like to engage with these ideas (either because they're written with language and style that isn't well-received elsewhere, or no active effort is made to share them to people who may be receptive).

Do you share this concern, and do you have a sense of mitigate it if you share the concern? 

Maybe check out VSFS internships

College students interested in this may also want to check out remote government internships via VSFS! Here are the open positions