Thanks for sharing these concerns. These are really hard decisions we face, and I think you’re pointing to some really tricky trade-offs.
We’ve definitely grappled with the question of whether it would make sense to spin up a separate website that focused more on AI. It’s possible that could still be a direction we take at some point.
But the key decision we’re facing is what to do with our existing resources — our staff time, the website we’ve built up, our other programmes and connections. And we’ve been struggling with the fact that the website doesn’t really fully reflect the urgency we believe is warranted around rapidly advancing AI. Whether we launch another site or not, we want to honestly communicate about how we’re thinking about the top problem in the world and how it will affect people’s careers. To do that, we need to make a lot of updates in the direction this post is discussing.
That said, I’ve always really valued the fact that 80k can be useful to people who don’t agree with all our views. If you’re sceptical about AI having a big impact in the next few decades, our content on pandemics, nuclear weapons, factory farming — or our general career advice — can still be really useful. I think that will remain true even with our strategy shift.
I also think this is a really important point:
If transformative AI is just five years away, then we need people who have spent their careers reducing nuclear risks to be doing their most effective work right now—even if they’re not fully bought into AGI timelines. We need biosecurity experts building robust systems to mitigate accidental or deliberate pandemics—whether or not they view that work as directly linked to AI.
I think we’re mostly in agreement here — work on nuclear risks and biorisks remain really important, and last year we made efforts to make sure our bio and nuclear content was more up to date. We recently made an update about mirror bio risks, because they seem especially pressing.
As the post above says: “When deciding what to work on, we’re asking ourselves ‘How much does this work help make AI go better?’, rather than ‘How AI-related is it?’” So to the extent that other work has a key role to play in the risks that surround a world with rapidly advancing AI, it’s clearly in scope of the new strategy.
But I think it probably is helpful for people doing work in areas like nuclear safety and bio to recognise the way short AI timelines could affect their work. So if 80k can communicate that to our audience more clearly, and help people figure out what that means they should do for their careers, it could be really valuable.
And if we are truly on the brink of catastrophe, we still need people focused on minimizing human and nonhuman suffering in the time we have left.
I do think we should be absolutely clear that we agree with this — it’s incredibly valuable that work to minimise existing suffering continues. I support that happening and am incredibly thankful to those who do it. This strategy doesn’t change that a bit. It just means 80k thinks our next marginal efforts are best focused on the risks arising from AI.
On the broader issue of what this means for the rest of the EA ecosystem, I think the risks you describe are real and are important to weigh. One reason we wanted to communicate this strategy publicly is so others could assess it for themselves and better coordinate on their paths forward. And as Conor said, we really wish we didn’t have to live in a world where these issues seem as urgent as they do.
But I think I see the costs of the shift as less stark. We still plan to have our career guide up as a central piece of content, which has been a valuable resource to many people; it explains our views on AI, but also guides people through thinking about cause prioritisation for themselves. And as the post notes, we plan to publish and promote a version of the career guide with a professional publisher in the near future. At the same time, for many years 80k has also made it clear that we prioritise risks from AI as the world’s most pressing problem. So I don’t think I see this as clearly a break from the past as you might.
At the highest level, though, we do face a decision about whether to focus more on AI and the plausibly short timelines to AGI, or to spend time on a wider range of problem areas and take less of a stance on timelines. Focusing more does have the risk that we won’t reach our traditional audience as well, which might even reduce our impact on AI; but declining to focus more has the risk of missing out on other audiences we previously haven’t reached, failing to faithfully communicate our views about the world, and missing out on big opportunities to positively work on what we think is the most pressing problem we face.
As the post notes, while we are committed to making the strategic shift, we’re open to changing our minds if we get important updates about our work. We’ll assess how we’re performing on the new strategy, whether there are any unexpected downsides, and whether developments in the world are matching our expectations. And we definitely continue to be open to feedback from you and others who have a different perspective on the effects 80k is having in the world, and we welcome input about what we can do better.
Hey Rocky —
Thanks for sharing these concerns. These are really hard decisions we face, and I think you’re pointing to some really tricky trade-offs.
We’ve definitely grappled with the question of whether it would make sense to spin up a separate website that focused more on AI. It’s possible that could still be a direction we take at some point.
But the key decision we’re facing is what to do with our existing resources — our staff time, the website we’ve built up, our other programmes and connections. And we’ve been struggling with the fact that the website doesn’t really fully reflect the urgency we believe is warranted around rapidly advancing AI. Whether we launch another site or not, we want to honestly communicate about how we’re thinking about the top problem in the world and how it will affect people’s careers. To do that, we need to make a lot of updates in the direction this post is discussing.
That said, I’ve always really valued the fact that 80k can be useful to people who don’t agree with all our views. If you’re sceptical about AI having a big impact in the next few decades, our content on pandemics, nuclear weapons, factory farming — or our general career advice — can still be really useful. I think that will remain true even with our strategy shift.
I also think this is a really important point:
I think we’re mostly in agreement here — work on nuclear risks and biorisks remain really important, and last year we made efforts to make sure our bio and nuclear content was more up to date. We recently made an update about mirror bio risks, because they seem especially pressing.
As the post above says: “When deciding what to work on, we’re asking ourselves ‘How much does this work help make AI go better?’, rather than ‘How AI-related is it?’” So to the extent that other work has a key role to play in the risks that surround a world with rapidly advancing AI, it’s clearly in scope of the new strategy.
But I think it probably is helpful for people doing work in areas like nuclear safety and bio to recognise the way short AI timelines could affect their work. So if 80k can communicate that to our audience more clearly, and help people figure out what that means they should do for their careers, it could be really valuable.
I do think we should be absolutely clear that we agree with this — it’s incredibly valuable that work to minimise existing suffering continues. I support that happening and am incredibly thankful to those who do it. This strategy doesn’t change that a bit. It just means 80k thinks our next marginal efforts are best focused on the risks arising from AI.
On the broader issue of what this means for the rest of the EA ecosystem, I think the risks you describe are real and are important to weigh. One reason we wanted to communicate this strategy publicly is so others could assess it for themselves and better coordinate on their paths forward. And as Conor said, we really wish we didn’t have to live in a world where these issues seem as urgent as they do.
But I think I see the costs of the shift as less stark. We still plan to have our career guide up as a central piece of content, which has been a valuable resource to many people; it explains our views on AI, but also guides people through thinking about cause prioritisation for themselves. And as the post notes, we plan to publish and promote a version of the career guide with a professional publisher in the near future. At the same time, for many years 80k has also made it clear that we prioritise risks from AI as the world’s most pressing problem. So I don’t think I see this as clearly a break from the past as you might.
At the highest level, though, we do face a decision about whether to focus more on AI and the plausibly short timelines to AGI, or to spend time on a wider range of problem areas and take less of a stance on timelines. Focusing more does have the risk that we won’t reach our traditional audience as well, which might even reduce our impact on AI; but declining to focus more has the risk of missing out on other audiences we previously haven’t reached, failing to faithfully communicate our views about the world, and missing out on big opportunities to positively work on what we think is the most pressing problem we face.
As the post notes, while we are committed to making the strategic shift, we’re open to changing our minds if we get important updates about our work. We’ll assess how we’re performing on the new strategy, whether there are any unexpected downsides, and whether developments in the world are matching our expectations. And we definitely continue to be open to feedback from you and others who have a different perspective on the effects 80k is having in the world, and we welcome input about what we can do better.