As far as I know, there haven’t. I think within the community it likely bolstered people’s connection to it. Many of my friends work at Charity Science. Attending EA Global yielded at least one new hire for Charity Science, and probably securing additional funding for expanded operations, due to how they’ve two other permanent staff since EA Global. I’m guessing this is the same for other organizations which attended EA Global.
Additionally, EA Global likely exposed some effective altruists to new causes or projects they hadn’t considered before, chaging their minds about cause selection, or presenting them with new opportunities. This seemed to be the outcome of the 2014 EA Summit, which I attended. I think effective altruism conferences tend to improve the value of existing ties, but maybe in subtle ways which don’t show their first-order effects for maybe several months. So, it’s difficult to quantify the impact EA Global.
There was some negative coverage of EA Global, such as the Vox article which made A.I. risk seem weird. This doesn’t seem to have left a lasting negative impression of A.I. risk reduction, or its proponents, based on my observations in the news it’s not perceived as any less seriously than before EA Global. I know there were some gaffes in planning EA Global which offended some animal advocates, such as the event being promised to be vegan up until the day before the conference, but with people showing up to EA Global with there being some meat offered. Additionally, there is an annual animal rights conference planned in the U.S., which EA Global was scheduled on the same weekend as. I’m not sure which date was set first. Anyway, I’m aware some animal advocates felt snubbed, or that effective altruism only pays lip service to the cause. So, a lot of animal advocates in effective altruism felt EA Global was problematic, and I’ve heard rumors a few newer effective animal altruists left the community. I don’t know how many folks that numbers as.
Despite the above problems with EA Global, I wrote about them more in detail so you know what they’re about. The mistakes of EA Global aren’t necessarily more pronounced or bigger than the wins from it. I think it’s net positive. However, since EA Global, I don’t perceive any changes in the community which have empowered it. Like last year, there seems to be some hubbub, both positive and negative, and then the community regresses to the mean of things as usual, without any dramatic changes which we might expect from an event as big as EA Global.
Overall, I think conferences like EA Global indicate a failure to capitalize on a lot of good will and enthusiasm from the community leading up to it. It’s not so much what was definitely done wrong, so much as what wasn’t done right. The opportunity costs of subpar execution of the event are worthy of criticism. These opinions of mine apply to the EA Global event held in Mountain View, California, at the Google headquarters, and not the events in Oxford or Melbourne.
I’m thinking of publishing a post on the Forum critical of the planning and/or execution of EA Global 2015, in the vein of what they did right, but also pointing out their mistakes which to repeat would not be excusable.
Has their been an evaluation of the impact of EA Global yet? Do we have any indication of any wins it yielded?
As far as I know, there haven’t. I think within the community it likely bolstered people’s connection to it. Many of my friends work at Charity Science. Attending EA Global yielded at least one new hire for Charity Science, and probably securing additional funding for expanded operations, due to how they’ve two other permanent staff since EA Global. I’m guessing this is the same for other organizations which attended EA Global.
Additionally, EA Global likely exposed some effective altruists to new causes or projects they hadn’t considered before, chaging their minds about cause selection, or presenting them with new opportunities. This seemed to be the outcome of the 2014 EA Summit, which I attended. I think effective altruism conferences tend to improve the value of existing ties, but maybe in subtle ways which don’t show their first-order effects for maybe several months. So, it’s difficult to quantify the impact EA Global.
There was some negative coverage of EA Global, such as the Vox article which made A.I. risk seem weird. This doesn’t seem to have left a lasting negative impression of A.I. risk reduction, or its proponents, based on my observations in the news it’s not perceived as any less seriously than before EA Global. I know there were some gaffes in planning EA Global which offended some animal advocates, such as the event being promised to be vegan up until the day before the conference, but with people showing up to EA Global with there being some meat offered. Additionally, there is an annual animal rights conference planned in the U.S., which EA Global was scheduled on the same weekend as. I’m not sure which date was set first. Anyway, I’m aware some animal advocates felt snubbed, or that effective altruism only pays lip service to the cause. So, a lot of animal advocates in effective altruism felt EA Global was problematic, and I’ve heard rumors a few newer effective animal altruists left the community. I don’t know how many folks that numbers as.
Despite the above problems with EA Global, I wrote about them more in detail so you know what they’re about. The mistakes of EA Global aren’t necessarily more pronounced or bigger than the wins from it. I think it’s net positive. However, since EA Global, I don’t perceive any changes in the community which have empowered it. Like last year, there seems to be some hubbub, both positive and negative, and then the community regresses to the mean of things as usual, without any dramatic changes which we might expect from an event as big as EA Global.
Overall, I think conferences like EA Global indicate a failure to capitalize on a lot of good will and enthusiasm from the community leading up to it. It’s not so much what was definitely done wrong, so much as what wasn’t done right. The opportunity costs of subpar execution of the event are worthy of criticism. These opinions of mine apply to the EA Global event held in Mountain View, California, at the Google headquarters, and not the events in Oxford or Melbourne.
I’m thinking of publishing a post on the Forum critical of the planning and/or execution of EA Global 2015, in the vein of what they did right, but also pointing out their mistakes which to repeat would not be excusable.