Hey Chana! Thanks for writing this post and thinking critically about social movements.
I agree! It's fantastic for media to direct people to concrete ways to take action. My movement org is excited to educate & empower people who want to host dinners, potlucks, and start pushing for change.
Community-building is a huge part of social change. Social events help with onboarding and retention of activists, who go on to speak publicly or put pressure on their local representatives. Change starts locally and often trickles upwards -- also, politicians may feel this issue is more salient if there's local communities consistently advocating about AGI.
We (Sapiens First) would be happy to collaborate with 80k or other media partners to get more people involved :).
Thank you for doing this work. I've been door-knocking to message-test for my advocacy organization. I very much agree there is very little "AI literacy" among most people in the US/the world.
Certain framings work well at activating people, like focusing on Big Tech & political corruption. The goal is, in my opinion, to make sure politicians/law-makers are AI-literate and the general public is directionally in support of AI safety.
You're very right that advocacy is severely neglected
Consider that taking political action for AI safety can be higher impact than a job at a technical research org, and you can work doing anything while doing that!
Hey Chana! Thanks for writing this post and thinking critically about social movements.
I agree! It's fantastic for media to direct people to concrete ways to take action. My movement org is excited to educate & empower people who want to host dinners, potlucks, and start pushing for change.
Community-building is a huge part of social change. Social events help with onboarding and retention of activists, who go on to speak publicly or put pressure on their local representatives. Change starts locally and often trickles upwards -- also, politicians may feel this issue is more salient if there's local communities consistently advocating about AGI.
We (Sapiens First) would be happy to collaborate with 80k or other media partners to get more people involved :).
Excellently put! The movement is growing slowly but surely. We have lots of work to do!
Thanks for writing this, this is super helpful when thinking about policy advocacy
Thank you for doing this work. I've been door-knocking to message-test for my advocacy organization. I very much agree there is very little "AI literacy" among most people in the US/the world.
Certain framings work well at activating people, like focusing on Big Tech & political corruption. The goal is, in my opinion, to make sure politicians/law-makers are AI-literate and the general public is directionally in support of AI safety.
You're very right that advocacy is severely neglected
Thanks for writing this up, Bruce!
Consider that taking political action for AI safety can be higher impact than a job at a technical research org, and you can work doing anything while doing that!