My guess is that when you factor in lead times on writing a book, this starts to feel a lot more plausible. The book could easily have been finished nine months before it came out. It could easily have been started a year before that. And its basic shape could have been mostly settled six months before that. So I think we could easily be talking about a book the shape of which should be dated to sometime in 2013.
Which isn’t to say none of those threads were starting to emerge in 2013 (or, indeed, quite a lot earlier), but my sense is that they lacked anything like the prominence they have now.
Thanks, this is a useful clarification. I think my original claim was unclear. Read as “very few people were thinking about these topics at the time when DGB came out”, then you are correct.
(I think) I had in mind something like “at the time when DGB came out it wasn’t the case that, say, > 25% of either funding, person-hours, or general discussion squarely within effective altruism concerned the topics I mentioned, but now it is”.
I’m actually not fully confident in that second claim, but it does seem true to me.
AI alignment and existential risks have been key components from the very beginning. Remember, Toby worked for FHI before founding GWWC, and even from the earliest days MIRI was seen as an acceptable donation target to fulfill the pledge. The downweighting of AI in DGB was a deliberate choice for an introductory text.
Feels false, from quick googling:
book come out in mid-2015, [Good Done Right](https://www.stafforini.com/blog/good-done-right/) held in mid-2014 featured Nick Beckstead and Nick Bostrom as speakers,
[MIRI participated in EA Summit in 2014](https://intelligence.org/2014/08/11/miris-recent-effective-altruism-talks/),
in 2014 [CEA
worked with the Future of Humanity Institute to form the Global Priorities Project](https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/history).
My guess is that when you factor in lead times on writing a book, this starts to feel a lot more plausible. The book could easily have been finished nine months before it came out. It could easily have been started a year before that. And its basic shape could have been mostly settled six months before that. So I think we could easily be talking about a book the shape of which should be dated to sometime in 2013.
Which isn’t to say none of those threads were starting to emerge in 2013 (or, indeed, quite a lot earlier), but my sense is that they lacked anything like the prominence they have now.
Thanks, this is a useful clarification. I think my original claim was unclear. Read as “very few people were thinking about these topics at the time when DGB came out”, then you are correct.
(I think) I had in mind something like “at the time when DGB came out it wasn’t the case that, say, > 25% of either funding, person-hours, or general discussion squarely within effective altruism concerned the topics I mentioned, but now it is”.
I’m actually not fully confident in that second claim, but it does seem true to me.
AI alignment and existential risks have been key components from the very beginning. Remember, Toby worked for FHI before founding GWWC, and even from the earliest days MIRI was seen as an acceptable donation target to fulfill the pledge. The downweighting of AI in DGB was a deliberate choice for an introductory text.
Thanks, that’s useful to know.