Short answer: Yes. FWIW, Partha is the Chair of CSER (Centre for the Study of Existential Risk) which has, or has had, quite a few EA-sympathetic people in it. I have no idea how widely he is known across EA more broadly.
I was under the impression CSER was pretty “core EA”! Certainly I’d expect most highly engaged EAs to have heard of them, and there aren’t that many people working on x-risk anywhere.
(Disclaimer: am co-director of CSER): EA is a strong influence at CSER, but one of a number. At a guess, I’d say maybe a third to a half of people actively engage with EA/EA-led projects (some ambiguity based on how you define), but a lot are coming from other academic backgrounds relevant to GCR and working in broader GCR contexts, and there’s no expectation or requirement to be invoved with EA. We aim to be a broad church in this regard.
Among our senior advisers/board, folks like Martin Rees and Jaan Tallinn engage more actively with EA. There’s been little Partha/EA engagement to my knowledge. (At least some of the conversations that would ultimately lead to there being a CSER predated EA’s existence). I think I’d agree with comments elsewhere that Partha’s work on biodiversity loss might be considered a lower priority through an EA lens than through some other lenses (e.g. ones that place ‘intrinsic value of biological diversity/ecosystem preservation’ more highly, or ones that place higher weight on sub-existential catastrophes or systemic vulnerabilities) although I’m glad to see it considered through an EA lens and will be interested to see EA perspectives on it.
I’m not sure how to assess what counts as ‘core EA’! But I don’t think the org bills itself as EA, or that the overwhelming majority of its staff self-identify as EAs (cf. the way the staff at, um, CEA probably do...)
Short answer: Yes. FWIW, Partha is the Chair of CSER (Centre for the Study of Existential Risk) which has, or has had, quite a few EA-sympathetic people in it. I have no idea how widely he is known across EA more broadly.
I was under the impression CSER was pretty “core EA”! Certainly I’d expect most highly engaged EAs to have heard of them, and there aren’t that many people working on x-risk anywhere.
(Disclaimer: am co-director of CSER): EA is a strong influence at CSER, but one of a number. At a guess, I’d say maybe a third to a half of people actively engage with EA/EA-led projects (some ambiguity based on how you define), but a lot are coming from other academic backgrounds relevant to GCR and working in broader GCR contexts, and there’s no expectation or requirement to be invoved with EA. We aim to be a broad church in this regard.
Among our senior advisers/board, folks like Martin Rees and Jaan Tallinn engage more actively with EA. There’s been little Partha/EA engagement to my knowledge. (At least some of the conversations that would ultimately lead to there being a CSER predated EA’s existence). I think I’d agree with comments elsewhere that Partha’s work on biodiversity loss might be considered a lower priority through an EA lens than through some other lenses (e.g. ones that place ‘intrinsic value of biological diversity/ecosystem preservation’ more highly, or ones that place higher weight on sub-existential catastrophes or systemic vulnerabilities) although I’m glad to see it considered through an EA lens and will be interested to see EA perspectives on it.
I’m not sure how to assess what counts as ‘core EA’! But I don’t think the org bills itself as EA, or that the overwhelming majority of its staff self-identify as EAs (cf. the way the staff at, um, CEA probably do...)
Interesting, thanks!