Tristan W
Bio
Participation6
I hope you've smiled today :)
I really want to experience and learn about as much of the world as I can, and pride myself on working to become a sort of modern day renaissance man, a bridge builder between very different people if you will. Some not-commonly-seen-in-the-same-person things: I've slaughtered pigs on my family farm and become a vegan, done HVAC (manual labor) work and academic research, been a member of both the Republican and Democratic clubs at my university.
Discovering EA has been one of the best things to happen to me in my life. I think I likely share something really important with all the people that consider themselves under this umbrella. EA can be a question, sure, but I hope more than that that EA can be a community, one that really works towards making the world a little better than it was.
Below are some random interests of mine. I'm happy to connect over any of them, and over anything EA, please feel free to book a time whenever is open on my calendly.
- Philosophy (anything Plato is up my alley, but also most interested in ethical and political texts)
- Psychology (not a big fan of psychotropic medication, also writing a paper on a interesting, niche brand of therapy called logotherapy that analyses its overlap with religion and thinking about how religion, specifically Judaism, could itself be considered a therapeutic practice)
- Music (Lastfm, Spotify, Rateyourmusic; have deep interests in all genres but especially electronic and indie, have been to Bonnaroo and have plans to attend more festivals)
- Politics (especially American)
- Drug Policy (current reading Drugs Without the Hot Air by David Nutt)
- Gaming (mostly League these days, but shamefully still Fortnight and COD from time to time)
- Cooking (have been a head chef, have experience working with vegan food too and like to cook a lot)
- Photography (recently completed a project on community with older people (just the text), arguing that the way we treat the elderly in the US is fairly alarming)
- Meditation (specifically mindfulness, which I have both practiced and looked at in my RA work, which involved trying to set forth a categorization scheme for the meditative literature)
- Home (writing a book on different conceptions of it and how relationships intertwine, with a fairly long side endeavor into what forms of relationships should be open to us)
- Speaking Spanish (Voy a Espana por un ano a dar clases de ingles, porque quiero hablar en Espanol con fluidez)
- Traveling (have hit a fair bit of Europe and the US, as well as some random other places like Morocco)
- Reading (I think I currently have over 200 books to read, and have been struggling getting through fantasy recently finding myself continually pulled to non-fiction, largely due to EA reasoning I think)
How I can help others
I don't have domain expertise by any means, but I have thought a good bit about AI policy and next best steps that I'd be happy to share about (i.e. how bad is risk from AI misinformation really?). Beyond EA related things, I have deep knowledge in Philosophy, Psychology and Meditation, and can potentially help with questions generally related to these disciplines. I would say the best thing I can offer is a strong desire to dive deeper into EA, preferably with others who are also interested. I can also offer my experience with personal cause prioritization, and help others on that journey (as well as connect with those trying to find work).
Posts 25
Comments173
I don't see many productive ways this continues so I'll keep it short.
- If someone thinks you're making poor decisions, and wants to see your downfall, silence is the best way to go about that. Engaging with you further is not, and should probably clue you in that that's not their primary motivation.
- Chalking up anything negative anyone says about your work as part of The Big Plot Against You closes the door to productive conversation quickly. You entrench yourself and flag that there's little chance you change your mind, and I then question why I'm responding.
- "PauseAI doesn't need you" takes the door you were already closing and slams it shut. I truly hoped for better.
I can actually read most of this and feel understanding, but pieces like "I think, if it survives at all, EA will" or "I’m already beating you and" strain that capacity quite a bit.
You do actually disagree with some people, and maybe making that clear and spelling it out is worth it. But you're taking further people, who could be sympathetic but are still deciding how they feel, and pushing them away by trying to paint a community they may care about as hollow and death-bound.
As far as I can tell, posts like this don't help anyone, neither you, nor Pause, nor EA. You're expecting antagonism to wake people up, but is that really an effective strategy for building support? Look at your donors, look at those who are still more aligned with EA than you are. Did they come from one of the many angry-style posts you've written recently, or one of the earlier or more substantive ones arguing for the core of Pause and why it's needed? You know your donors better, but I know where I'd be making my bet.
Still working my way through the talk and post mentioned, so pardon the tardiness, but does that mean you expect the highest quality talent will naturally find it's way to the field?
I suppose I see a tension between "outreach only to the best" and generally walking away from outreach. E.g. do the fellowships seem like a reasonable bet to you now that they're super competitive and raising their bar, or are they still too general in scope and we should instead be doing something like running an exclusive side event at NeurIPS?
Put more succinctly: should we be raising the bar for the quality of talent reached, or working to pivot outreach to those who already show strong signs of success in relevant fields?
Helpful updates though, thanks for taking the time to share them.
I'd fund Apart Research significantly less (maybe $50k?) and not fund the debate (also because I've updated away from public outreach as a valuable strategy).
What caused this update? Perhaps I just need to listen to the talk linked below it, but would be interested if you had any more pointed thoughts to share.
I make a similar point in my piece about the overfocus on research, arguing for increased focus on advocacy rather than protesting specifically.
Fair enough. Would you consider yourself one of those disillusioned EAs that's been attracted by the message?
Like Noah said, disagreement is great, closed-mindedness and antagonism is not.