Yeah, totally a contextual call about how to make this point in any given conversation, it can be easy to get bogged down with irrelevant context.

I do think it's true that utilitarian thought tends to push one towards centralization and central planning, despite the bad track record here. It's worth engaging with thoughtful critiques of EA vibes on this front.

Salaries are the most basic way our economy does allocation, and one possible "EA government utopia" scenario is one where the government corrects market inefficiencies such that salaries perfectly track "value added to the world." This is deeply sci-fi of course, but hey why not dream. In such a utopia world, if we really did reach the point where marginal safety researchers are not adding more value than marginal post office workers, salaries would.

I like the main point you're making.

However, I think "the government's version of 80,000 Hours" is a very command-economy vision. Command economies have a terrible track record, and if there were such a thing as an "EA world government" (which I would have many questions about regardless) I would strongly think it shouldn't try to plan and direct everyone's individual careers, and should instead leverage market forces like ~all successful large economies.

+1 on wanting a more model-based version of this.

And +1 to you vibe coding it!

Upon seeing this, I had the same thought about vibe coding a more model-based version ... so, race you to whoever gets around to it?

Very cool!

I mostly donated to democracy preservation work and did some political giving. And a little to the shrimp.

Wow awesome thanks for letting me know!

Thanks for writing this!!

This risk seems equal or greater to me than AI takeover risk. Historically the EA & AIS communities focused more on misalignment, but I'm not sure if that choice has held up.

Come 2027, I'd love for it to be the case that an order of magnitude more people are usefully working on this risk. I think it will be rough going for the first 50 people in this area; I expect there's a bunch more clarificatory and scoping work to do; this is virgin territory. We need some pioneers.

People with plans in this area should feel free to apply for career transition funding from my team at Coefficient (fka Open Phil) if they think that would be helpful to them.

I'm quite excited about EAs making videos about EA principles and their applications, and I think this is an impactful thing for people to explore. It seems quite possible to do in a way that doesn't compromise on idea fidelity; I think sincerity counts for quite a lot. In many cases I think videos and other content can be lighthearted / fun / unserious and still transmit the ideas well.

thank machine doggo

Oh woops didn't look at parent comment, haah