I doubt EA can change because it prizes itself on being an ideological bubble and takes pride in having views that are heterodox. One of the first criticisms of EA that I was exposed to when I took the EA intro course did talk about the problem of diverting people to engage in morally ambiguous work in the finance industry (I just looked at the curriculum of the latest intro course and didn’t see these criticisms linked anymore). I’m sure there are lots of criticisms that have been produced over the years about the kind of extreme utilitarianism that EA ostensibly promotes so I’m a little bit surprised that people are shocked that a concern highlighted in some of these criticisms has materialized. I guess that it maybe proves that EA criticism is more of an intellectual exercise rather than something that is truly digested and taken into account. The only thing that can burst an ideological bubble is when a catastrophe makes it clear that the ideology in question does not match reality. If EA survives the ensuing media fire storm (and probably a Netflix show that will be produced as a result of this conflagration) then I expect it will go back into an ideological bubble until the next time it pops. My bet on the next pop is when it becomes painfully clear that the ideological thinking behind imminent AI catastrophe doesn’t match the facts on the ground but hopefully that will have less collateral damage on people outside of EA circles.
If this forum too survives longterm, Sara’s idea to sort commentary by controversiality, or a sort of red-teaming seach engine sounds like something I would love to test out, even beyond the confines here, and a very necessary innovation for a heterodox community. Especially one that would want to avoid self-censoring at certain moments even if not all the time, and where interesting voices like SaraAzubuike or even anonymous ones can be heard, at least for now.
Anonymity and pseudonimity may be more common around here than one would initially suppose. Even that Voldemort fellow or the other billionaire founders may occasionally express their views around here, as too may a mosquito net recipient such as myself.
It is unclear to me that when controversy hits an effective entity it should be perturbed as much as I observe it to be. Perhaps we mosquito net recipients should make our voices heard louder as money seems to have been flowing mostly endogamously very effectively.
I doubt EA can change because it prizes itself on being an ideological bubble and takes pride in having views that are heterodox. One of the first criticisms of EA that I was exposed to when I took the EA intro course did talk about the problem of diverting people to engage in morally ambiguous work in the finance industry (I just looked at the curriculum of the latest intro course and didn’t see these criticisms linked anymore). I’m sure there are lots of criticisms that have been produced over the years about the kind of extreme utilitarianism that EA ostensibly promotes so I’m a little bit surprised that people are shocked that a concern highlighted in some of these criticisms has materialized. I guess that it maybe proves that EA criticism is more of an intellectual exercise rather than something that is truly digested and taken into account. The only thing that can burst an ideological bubble is when a catastrophe makes it clear that the ideology in question does not match reality. If EA survives the ensuing media fire storm (and probably a Netflix show that will be produced as a result of this conflagration) then I expect it will go back into an ideological bubble until the next time it pops. My bet on the next pop is when it becomes painfully clear that the ideological thinking behind imminent AI catastrophe doesn’t match the facts on the ground but hopefully that will have less collateral damage on people outside of EA circles.
If this forum too survives longterm, Sara’s idea to sort commentary by controversiality, or a sort of red-teaming seach engine sounds like something I would love to test out, even beyond the confines here, and a very necessary innovation for a heterodox community. Especially one that would want to avoid self-censoring at certain moments even if not all the time, and where interesting voices like SaraAzubuike or even anonymous ones can be heard, at least for now.
Anonymity and pseudonimity may be more common around here than one would initially suppose. Even that Voldemort fellow or the other billionaire founders may occasionally express their views around here, as too may a mosquito net recipient such as myself.
It is unclear to me that when controversy hits an effective entity it should be perturbed as much as I observe it to be. Perhaps we mosquito net recipients should make our voices heard louder as money seems to have been flowing mostly endogamously very effectively.