I think the question is not ‘whether there should be EA efforts and attention devoted to AGI’ but whether the scale of these efforts is justified—and more importantly, how do we reach that conclusion.
You say no one else is doing effective work on AI and AGI preparedness but what I see in the world suggests the opposite. Given the amount of attention and investment of individuals, states, universities, etc in AI, statistically there’s bound to be a lot of excellent people working on it, and that number is set to increase as AI becomes even more mainstream.
Teenagers nowadays have bought in to the idea that ‘AI is the future’ and go to study it at university, because working in AI is fashionable and well-paid. This is regardless of whether they’ve had deep exposure to Effective Altruism. If EA wanted this issue to become mainstream, well… it has undoubtedly succeeded. I would tend to agree that at this moment in time, a redistribution of resources and ‘hype’ towards other issues would be justified and welcome (but again, crucially, we have to agree on a transparent method to decide whether this is the case, as OP I think importantly calls for).
I think the question is not ‘whether there should be EA efforts and attention devoted to AGI’ but whether the scale of these efforts is justified—and more importantly, how do we reach that conclusion.
You say no one else is doing effective work on AI and AGI preparedness but what I see in the world suggests the opposite. Given the amount of attention and investment of individuals, states, universities, etc in AI, statistically there’s bound to be a lot of excellent people working on it, and that number is set to increase as AI becomes even more mainstream.
Teenagers nowadays have bought in to the idea that ‘AI is the future’ and go to study it at university, because working in AI is fashionable and well-paid. This is regardless of whether they’ve had deep exposure to Effective Altruism. If EA wanted this issue to become mainstream, well… it has undoubtedly succeeded. I would tend to agree that at this moment in time, a redistribution of resources and ‘hype’ towards other issues would be justified and welcome (but again, crucially, we have to agree on a transparent method to decide whether this is the case, as OP I think importantly calls for).