Thanks for asking these! Quick reaction to the first couple of questions, I’ll get to the rest later if I can (personal opinions, I haven’t worked on the web team, no longer at 80k etc. etc.):
I don’t think it’s possible to write a single page that gives the right message to every user—having looked at the pressing problems page—the second paragraph visible on that page is entirely caveat. It also links to an FAQ, where multiple parts of the FAQ directly talk about whether people should just take the rankings as given. When you then click through to the AI problem profile, the part of the summary box that talks about whether people should work on AI reads as follows:
As a result, the possibility of AI-related catastrophe may be the world’s most pressing problem — and the best thing to work on for those who are well-placed to contribute.
Frankly, for my taste, several parts of the website already contain more caveats than I would use about ways the advice is uncertain and/or could be wrong, and I think moves in this direction could just as easily be patronising as helpful.
I don’t think it’s possible to write a single page that gives the right message to every user
My own attempt to solve this is to have the article MAINLY split up into sections that address different readers, which you can skip to.
2.
the second paragraph visible on that page is entirely caveat.
2.2. [edit: seems like you agree with this. TL;DR: too many caveat already] My own experience from reading EA material in general, and 80k material specifically, is that there is going to be lots of caveat which I didn’t (and maybe still don’t) know how to parse. it feels almost like how people are polite in the U.S (but not in Israel), or like fluff in emails, I’m never sure how to understand it, so I mostly skip it
2.3. [more important] I think there’s a difference between saying “we’re not sure” and saying “here’s a way that reading this advice might do you more harm than good” (which I personally often write in my docs (example), including something I wrote today)
I don’t think it’s worth me going back and forth on specific details, especially as I’m not on the web team (or even still at 80k), but these proposals are different to the first thing you suggested. Without taking a position on whether this structure would overall be an improvement, it’s obviously not the case that just having different sections for different possible users ensures that everyone gets the advice they need.
For what it’s worth, one of the main motivations for this being an after-hours episode, which was promoted on the EA forum and my twitter, is that I think the mistakes are much more common among people who read a lot of EA content and interact with a lot of EAs (which is a small fraction of the 80k website readership). The hope is that people who’re more likely than a typical reader to need the advice are the people most likely to come across it, so we don’t have to rely purely on self-selection.
Thanks for asking these! Quick reaction to the first couple of questions, I’ll get to the rest later if I can (personal opinions, I haven’t worked on the web team, no longer at 80k etc. etc.):
I don’t think it’s possible to write a single page that gives the right message to every user—having looked at the pressing problems page—the second paragraph visible on that page is entirely caveat. It also links to an FAQ, where multiple parts of the FAQ directly talk about whether people should just take the rankings as given. When you then click through to the AI problem profile, the part of the summary box that talks about whether people should work on AI reads as follows:
Frankly, for my taste, several parts of the website already contain more caveats than I would use about ways the advice is uncertain and/or could be wrong, and I think moves in this direction could just as easily be patronising as helpful.
Hey Alex :)
1.
My own attempt to solve this is to have the article MAINLY split up into sections that address different readers, which you can skip to.
2.
2.2. [edit: seems like you agree with this. TL;DR: too many caveat already] My own experience from reading EA material in general, and 80k material specifically, is that there is going to be lots of caveat which I didn’t (and maybe still don’t) know how to parse. it feels almost like how people are polite in the U.S (but not in Israel), or like fluff in emails, I’m never sure how to understand it, so I mostly skip it
2.3. [more important] I think there’s a difference between saying “we’re not sure” and saying “here’s a way that reading this advice might do you more harm than good” (which I personally often write in my docs (example), including something I wrote today)
I don’t think it’s worth me going back and forth on specific details, especially as I’m not on the web team (or even still at 80k), but these proposals are different to the first thing you suggested. Without taking a position on whether this structure would overall be an improvement, it’s obviously not the case that just having different sections for different possible users ensures that everyone gets the advice they need.
For what it’s worth, one of the main motivations for this being an after-hours episode, which was promoted on the EA forum and my twitter, is that I think the mistakes are much more common among people who read a lot of EA content and interact with a lot of EAs (which is a small fraction of the 80k website readership). The hope is that people who’re more likely than a typical reader to need the advice are the people most likely to come across it, so we don’t have to rely purely on self-selection.