Very interesting, looking forward to seeing what else comes up from the research and the new organization(s) that will hopefully result from this! I have some questions if you are willing to clarify:
Is the raised potential issue about infohazards discouraging open communication only relevant to discussions about dangers from new technologies (AI-risk, GCBRs,..)?
I don’t think that I understand “EAs helping each other vs people outside of their group”. Is it that people in EA are focused more on helping other EAs that they know than EAs they don’t, or work on projects that seem important in their close circles but not important globally?
Is the polarization in “Intercommunity coordination and connection” obviously related to some other factor? Say interviewees with a focus on research vs community? (Similarly about “EA community member improvement”)
The people skeptical about “Evaluation and Prioritization” thought that “it was hard to do prioritization well and lots of orgs naturally do this even if it was not their stated goal”. These two statements seem to be somewhat contradictory unless the first statement claims something like “our best efforts to prioritize well are not that much better (don’t produce better results or aren’t more cost-effective) than what orgs are usually doing in their internal prioritization using common best practice. Does this capture the sentiment you have heard?
It tended to come from people focused on that area but the concerns were not exclusive to technologies (or even xrisk more broadly).
To put it another way, people were concerned that “EAs tended to help their friends and others in their adjacent peer-group disproportionality to the impact it would cause.”
Regarding polarization in “Intercommunity coordination and connection,” my sense is this came from different perceptions about how past projects had gone. No clear trend as to why for “community member improvement”
I think the way this is reconciled is the view that “current organizations are highly capable and do prioritization research themselves when determining where they should work.” But prioritization including that type is hard to do right and others would struggle to do an equally good job.
P.s. reminder these are not my or CE’s views just describing what some interviewees thought.
Very interesting, looking forward to seeing what else comes up from the research and the new organization(s) that will hopefully result from this! I have some questions if you are willing to clarify:
Is the raised potential issue about infohazards discouraging open communication only relevant to discussions about dangers from new technologies (AI-risk, GCBRs,..)?
I don’t think that I understand “EAs helping each other vs people outside of their group”. Is it that people in EA are focused more on helping other EAs that they know than EAs they don’t, or work on projects that seem important in their close circles but not important globally?
Is the polarization in “Intercommunity coordination and connection” obviously related to some other factor? Say interviewees with a focus on research vs community? (Similarly about “EA community member improvement”)
The people skeptical about “Evaluation and Prioritization” thought that “it was hard to do prioritization well and lots of orgs naturally do this even if it was not their stated goal”. These two statements seem to be somewhat contradictory unless the first statement claims something like “our best efforts to prioritize well are not that much better (don’t produce better results or aren’t more cost-effective) than what orgs are usually doing in their internal prioritization using common best practice. Does this capture the sentiment you have heard?
Glad you found it interesting!
It tended to come from people focused on that area but the concerns were not exclusive to technologies (or even xrisk more broadly).
To put it another way, people were concerned that “EAs tended to help their friends and others in their adjacent peer-group disproportionality to the impact it would cause.”
Regarding polarization in “Intercommunity coordination and connection,” my sense is this came from different perceptions about how past projects had gone. No clear trend as to why for “community member improvement”
I think the way this is reconciled is the view that “current organizations are highly capable and do prioritization research themselves when determining where they should work.” But prioritization including that type is hard to do right and others would struggle to do an equally good job.
P.s. reminder these are not my or CE’s views just describing what some interviewees thought.
Thanks!