Thanks for sharing this post, this is a really positive step forward in transparency, I especially appreciated the list of attendees and description of the structure of the Forum. I like that there will be assigned owners of different projects, and I hope that outcomes of the Forum and information on initiatives that came out of it will also be shared with the community.
TL:DR;
I think that ultimately, issues pertinent to the community need to have meaningful, two way, sustained engagement with the community. Iâd like to see participation from more âregularâ community members as well who will add necessary and valuable perspectives to understand our community better and help improve it.
I believe there is a need for two different spacesâone for leaders to coordinate with each other, and one for a dialogue to be had. But I think the latter is essential to informing the agenda of the former. Iâd love for the community survey to be a first step towards creating that second space. Perhaps something like what Iâm describing could even be the kind of thing thatâs discussed during the Forum.
To elaborate:
Often I think the term âEA communityâ or âcommunity buildingâ can be used to mean different things. I think thereâs a difference between efforts towards âEA the movementâ vs those (perhaps more internally facing) âEA the community. For example, funding a new organization to target policy professionals for AI governance would âEA the movementâ decision (even though itâs community building), while improving sexual misconduct practices would be âEA the communityâ.
From the post, I understand that the forumâs remit is both âmovementâ and âcommunityâ(emphasis mine):
only focused on the âmetaâ/âcommunity-building space rather than object-level decisions in any cause area.
and is
aimed at improving the trajectories of EA and related communitiesâ
They are of course very intertwined, and from the events of the past year it is likely that community concerns will be an important topic of conversation.
For such issues, I think itâs essential for there to be meaningful dialogue between (regular, representative) community members and EA decision-makers and leaders, and more mechanisms by which community members can systematically raise concerns that are directly relevant to them (e.g. a place to see current issues, how much support there is for addressing those issues, potential solutions being considered & worked on, etc.)
I think that in any community, leaders will likely not always be aware of what is happening âon-the-groundâ, and that there are many systemic, power-differential related reasons that they wonât always be getting the information they need. I wouldnât be surprised if this has improved post-FTX, but Iâm pretty sure we have a ways to go in this regard.
Up until now, leaders havenât prioritized this very highly (even if they believe itâs important). I think this is because there has historically been a lack of clarity as to whose responsibility managing the community is. The community itself has grown faster than the community infrastructure could keep up.
I donât think setting up the infrastructure to allow for this dialogue to occur is trivial or easy. Itâs costly to do well. It requires investment from leaders and others who would work on these issues full time. The work is (often emotionally) hard, unrewarding, and sometimes itâs not clear if youâve had an impact. That being said, I believe it is essential infrastructure to make this community sustainable and health (and allow it to grow).
A suggestion of a minimal viable way to do this might be to have a small group of randomly chosen EAs who attend part of events like this. That would probably make it easier to empathise with the community as it currently is.
Yeah, dunno if this would be good but, if people are interested in exploring it further, I can recommend this report from the OECD.
Amongst other things, it gathers close to 300 representative deliberative practices to explore trends in such processes, identify different models, and analyse the trade-offs among different design choices as well as the benefits and limits of public deliberation.
It divides these processes into four different types:
Informed citizen recommendations on policy questions: These processes require more time (on average a minimum of four days, and often longer) to allow citizens adequate time and resources to develop considered and detailed collective recommendations. They are particularly useful for complex policy problems that involve many trade-offs, or where there is entrenched political deadlock on an issue.
Citizen opinion on policy questions: These processes require less time than those in the first category, though still respect the principles of representativeness and deliberation, to provide decision makers with more considered citizen opinions on a policy issue. Due to the time constraints, their results are less detailed than those of the processes designed for informed citizen recommendations.
Informed citizen evaluation of ballot measures: This process allows for a representative group of citizens to identify the pro and con arguments for both sides of a ballot issue to be distributed to voters ahead of the vote.
Permanent representative deliberative bodies: These new institutional arrangements allow for representative citizen deliberation to inform public decision making on an ongoing basis.
Up until now, leaders havenât prioritized this very highly
Hmm, this doesnât feel true of my experience. Iâm mentally running through a list of recent large-ish CEA projects, and they all involved user interviews, surveys, or both.
Itâs possible that you mean something else by âmeaningful dialogueâ? (Or are referring to non-CEA projects?)
I suppose you could think of it as a manner of degree, right? Submitting feedback, doing interviews etc. are a good start, but involve people having less of a say than either 1. being part of the conversation or 2. having decision-making power, eg through a vote. People like to feel their concerns are heardânot just in EA, but in generalâand when eg. a company says âplease send in this feedback formâ Iâm not sure many people feel as heard as if someone (important) from that company listens to you live and publicly responds.
Thanks for sharing this post, this is a really positive step forward in transparency, I especially appreciated the list of attendees and description of the structure of the Forum. I like that there will be assigned owners of different projects, and I hope that outcomes of the Forum and information on initiatives that came out of it will also be shared with the community.
TL:DR;
I think that ultimately, issues pertinent to the community need to have meaningful, two way, sustained engagement with the community. Iâd like to see participation from more âregularâ community members as well who will add necessary and valuable perspectives to understand our community better and help improve it.
I believe there is a need for two different spacesâone for leaders to coordinate with each other, and one for a dialogue to be had. But I think the latter is essential to informing the agenda of the former. Iâd love for the community survey to be a first step towards creating that second space. Perhaps something like what Iâm describing could even be the kind of thing thatâs discussed during the Forum.
To elaborate:
Often I think the term âEA communityâ or âcommunity buildingâ can be used to mean different things. I think thereâs a difference between efforts towards âEA the movementâ vs those (perhaps more internally facing) âEA the community. For example, funding a new organization to target policy professionals for AI governance would âEA the movementâ decision (even though itâs community building), while improving sexual misconduct practices would be âEA the communityâ.
From the post, I understand that the forumâs remit is both âmovementâ and âcommunityâ(emphasis mine):
and is
They are of course very intertwined, and from the events of the past year it is likely that community concerns will be an important topic of conversation.
For such issues, I think itâs essential for there to be meaningful dialogue between (regular, representative) community members and EA decision-makers and leaders, and more mechanisms by which community members can systematically raise concerns that are directly relevant to them (e.g. a place to see current issues, how much support there is for addressing those issues, potential solutions being considered & worked on, etc.)
I think that in any community, leaders will likely not always be aware of what is happening âon-the-groundâ, and that there are many systemic, power-differential related reasons that they wonât always be getting the information they need. I wouldnât be surprised if this has improved post-FTX, but Iâm pretty sure we have a ways to go in this regard.
Up until now, leaders havenât prioritized this very highly (even if they believe itâs important). I think this is because there has historically been a lack of clarity as to whose responsibility managing the community is. The community itself has grown faster than the community infrastructure could keep up.
I donât think setting up the infrastructure to allow for this dialogue to occur is trivial or easy. Itâs costly to do well. It requires investment from leaders and others who would work on these issues full time. The work is (often emotionally) hard, unrewarding, and sometimes itâs not clear if youâve had an impact. That being said, I believe it is essential infrastructure to make this community sustainable and health (and allow it to grow).
A suggestion of a minimal viable way to do this might be to have a small group of randomly chosen EAs who attend part of events like this. That would probably make it easier to empathise with the community as it currently is.
I am pretty uncertain if I endorse this idea.
Yeah, dunno if this would be good but, if people are interested in exploring it further, I can recommend this report from the OECD.
Amongst other things, it gathers close to 300 representative deliberative practices to explore trends in such processes, identify different models, and analyse the trade-offs among different design choices as well as the benefits and limits of public deliberation.
It divides these processes into four different types:
Informed citizen recommendations on policy questions: These processes require more time (on average a minimum of four days, and often longer) to allow citizens adequate time and resources to develop considered and detailed collective recommendations. They are particularly useful for complex policy problems that involve many trade-offs, or where there is entrenched political deadlock on an issue.
Citizen opinion on policy questions: These processes require less time than those in the first category, though still respect the principles of representativeness and deliberation, to provide decision makers with more considered citizen opinions on a policy issue. Due to the time constraints, their results are less detailed than those of the processes designed for informed citizen recommendations.
Informed citizen evaluation of ballot measures: This process allows for a representative group of citizens to identify the pro and con arguments for both sides of a ballot issue to be distributed to voters ahead of the vote.
Permanent representative deliberative bodies: These new institutional arrangements allow for representative citizen deliberation to inform public decision making on an ongoing basis.
Yeah this looks great. Thanks so much. Exactly the kind of thing I wanted.
Hmm, this doesnât feel true of my experience. Iâm mentally running through a list of recent large-ish CEA projects, and they all involved user interviews, surveys, or both.
Itâs possible that you mean something else by âmeaningful dialogueâ? (Or are referring to non-CEA projects?)
I suppose you could think of it as a manner of degree, right? Submitting feedback, doing interviews etc. are a good start, but involve people having less of a say than either 1. being part of the conversation or 2. having decision-making power, eg through a vote. People like to feel their concerns are heardânot just in EA, but in generalâand when eg. a company says âplease send in this feedback formâ Iâm not sure many people feel as heard as if someone (important) from that company listens to you live and publicly responds.