Benjamin Todd: And so now in this third stage [of the effective altruism movement], we’re a bit less constrained by kind of generally interested, talented people, and a bit more constrained by either people who have very particular skills that are needed, such as we used the AI technical safety example earlier, or grantmaker skill sets, the kinds of things we list on our priority problems. Or maybe we’re more constrained now by what you might want to call an organizational bottleneck, which is ability to figure out who’s interested. So there’s a kind of searching/vetting bottleneck, and figure out who would be able to contribute and then train them, manage them. And even just have things that lots of people could do.
[...]
Arden Koehler: So yeah, I guess maybe one complication here is that it feels most easy to imagine this organizational capacity bottleneck or something, in the case of like, “Well, organizations that have the effective altruism label, aren’t big enough and don’t have enough managers to basically be able to hire these people.” But then I guess since we think so many people can make such a big, positive difference working in areas besides effective altruism organizations, in government, in research, what’s the equivalent of this capacity bottleneck for those cases?
Benjamin Todd: Well, I was almost wondering if I should emphasize now that what I’ve been talking about is always just a matter of degree about which bottleneck seems like the very most pressing right now, but always additional organizational capacity, talented people, funding, they’re always useful and there’s always good things to do with those things. So I’m not saying that all those other things are just not useful at all. And you’re giving some really good examples of, “Well, if you are just a generally talented person, maybe it’s a bit harder to get some of these jobs, particularly at the nonprofits that are most central to the community right now than it was, say, in 2015.”
Benjamin Todd: But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing useful to do. You can go and train up in academia or start focusing on some kind of research there. There’s many, many hundreds or even thousands of people could go and work in government and policy positions. Yeah, you could go and work at some other nonprofits that are relevant to these issues, but not labeled as effective altruist organizations. And so yeah, having extra talented people is still really useful. It’s just, exactly what you might focus on, would be a bit different.
Arden Koehler: Yeah. I was thinking maybe one answer to the question of, what’s the analog of organizational capacity for those other areas, it might be guidance or something. Of course, this is something that 80,000 Hours is trying to provide, but figuring out what are the best roles in those other institutions and people having support or community when they’re in those other institutions so that they feel good about it and feel motivated for the long haul. Those could be sort of the equivalent. And if we got those, then it’d be easier for people to put their skills to work.
Benjamin Todd: Yes. And I think one thing that does make it hard to go and do those other things is it often requires more independence, because you might be going out alone or it might feel like that. And so yeah, in a sense that’s like another type of organizational bottleneck, is like, could someone form a really good community of people that are all trying to work in a certain area of policy together, and that would help them all do that more easily.
Arden Koehler: Yeah. I mean, I think working at an effective altruist organization, you and I are super lucky because we get to talk to people about the things that we care about all day, and talk to people who share our values. I think it’s really hard for people who are like, “I really care about these things, but I’m going to go out into the wild and work in a department of a government where nobody else will care about the same things I care about.” But I guess, if there was some way to make that less true and make those communities more supportive, then that would make it a bit more attractive and easier for people.
Benjamin Todd: Yes. And I mean, this is starting to change a bit. There are lots of other people interested in these ideas, doing those things, who will be up for chatting to you.
(I’d heard that episode back in November 2020, so it may have been one of many influences informing my comment.)
I also made a tag this morning for posts relevant to Working at EA vs Non-EA Orgs (and tagged this post), so readers interested in this topic may be interested in those posts as well.
I was just re-reading the transcript of the 80k interview with Ben Todd from November 2020 and saw that that includes a section that’s relevant to what I was saying here, which I’ll quote below in case it’s of interest to any future readers:
(I’d heard that episode back in November 2020, so it may have been one of many influences informing my comment.)
I also made a tag this morning for posts relevant to Working at EA vs Non-EA Orgs (and tagged this post), so readers interested in this topic may be interested in those posts as well.