What was the primary route to value of this retreat in your opinion? I’d be curious to know whether it was mainly about providing community and thus making participants more motivated, or if there were concrete new collaborations or significant individual updates derived from interactions at this retreat.
participants made 6.7 new connections on average (Question in the feedback form was “How many additional people working on AI safety would you feel comfortable asking for a small professional favor after this retreat? E.g. having a call to discuss research ideas, giving feedback on a draft, or other tasks that take around 30 minutes...”).
18 people mentioned their plans to reach out to people from the retreat for feedback on posts or career plans, for research discussions or for collaborations.
motivation boost
projects/collaborations started
9 people mentioned projects (Writing posts, doing experiments, and field building projects) they would start as a result of the retreat.
participants getting a better map of the space
which people exist, what kinds of things they are good at, what they have worked on, what you can ask them about.
What projects and what research exist.
A general sense of “getting more pieces of the puzzle”.
I think this is hard to measure, but really valuable.
I find it hard to say which of these is most important, and they are also highly entangled with each other
This seems cool, thanks for running it!
What was the primary route to value of this retreat in your opinion? I’d be curious to know whether it was mainly about providing community and thus making participants more motivated, or if there were concrete new collaborations or significant individual updates derived from interactions at this retreat.
I think the value comes from:
connections made
participants made 6.7 new connections on average (Question in the feedback form was “How many additional people working on AI safety would you feel comfortable asking for a small professional favor after this retreat? E.g. having a call to discuss research ideas, giving feedback on a draft, or other tasks that take around 30 minutes...”).
18 people mentioned their plans to reach out to people from the retreat for feedback on posts or career plans, for research discussions or for collaborations.
motivation boost
projects/collaborations started
9 people mentioned projects (Writing posts, doing experiments, and field building projects) they would start as a result of the retreat.
participants getting a better map of the space
which people exist, what kinds of things they are good at, what they have worked on, what you can ask them about.
What projects and what research exist.
A general sense of “getting more pieces of the puzzle”.
I think this is hard to measure, but really valuable.
I find it hard to say which of these is most important, and they are also highly entangled with each other