[Question] Please help me sense-check my assumptions about the needs of the AI Safety community and related career plans

For background and context, see my related series of posts on an approach for AI Safety Movement Building. This is a quick and concise rewrite of the main points in the hope that it will attract better engagement and feedback.

Which of the following assumptions do you agree or disagree with? Follow the links to see some of the related content from my posts.

Assumptions about the needs of the AI Safety community

  1. A lack of people, inputs, and coordination is (one of several issues) holding back progress in AI Safety. Only a small portion of potential contributors are focused on AI Safety, and current contributors face issues such as limited support, resources, and guidance.

  2. We need more (effective) movement builders to accelerate progress in AI Safety. Utilising diverse professions and skills, effective movement builders can increase contributors, contributions, and coordination within the AI Safety community, by starting, sustaining, and scaling useful projects. They can do so while getting supervision and support from those doing direct work and/​or doing direct work themselves.

  3. To increase the number of effective AI Safety movement builders we need to reduce movement building uncertainty. Presently, it’s unclear who should do what to help the AI Safety Community or how to prioritise between options for movement building. There is considerable disagreement between knowledgeable individuals in our diverse community. Most people are occupied with urgent object-level work, leaving no one responsible for understanding and communicating the community’s needs.

  4. To reduce movement building uncertainty we need more shared understanding. Potential and current movement builders need a sufficiently good grasp of key variables such as contexts, processes, outcomes, and priorities to be able to work confidently and effectively.

  5. To achieve more shared understanding we need shared language. Inconsistencies in vocabulary and conceptualisations hinder our ability to survey and understand the AI Safety community’s goals and priorities.

Assumption about the contribution of my series of posts

I couldn’t find any foundation of shared language or understanding in AI Safety Movement building to work from, so I created this series of posts to share and sense-check mine as it developed and evolved. Based on this, I now assume:

Assumption about career paths to explore

If the above assumptions are valid then I have a good understanding of i) the AI Safety Community and what it needs, and ii) a basic foundation for shared language and understanding in AI Safety Movement building that I can build on. Given my experience with entrepreneurship, community building, and research, I therefore assume:

Feedback/​Sense-checking

Do you agree or disagree with any of the above assumptions? If you disagree then please explain why.

Your feedback will be greatly valued and will help with my career plans.

To encourage feedback I am offering a bounty. I will pay up to 200USD in Amazon vouchers, shared via email, to up to 10 people who give helpful feedback on this post or my previous posts in the series by 15/​4/​2023. I will also consider rewarding anonymous feedback left here (but you will need to give me an email address). I will likely share anonymous feedback if it seems constructive, and I think other people will benefit from seeing it.

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