Thanks for these thoughts! I agree that advocacy and communications is an important part of the story here, and I’m glad for you to have added some detail on that with your comment. I’m also sympathetic to the claim that serious thought about “ambitious comms/advocacy” is especially neglected within the community, though I think it’s far from clear that the effort that went into the policy research that identified these solutions or work on the ground in Brussels should have been shifted at the margin to the kinds of public communications you mention.
I also think Open Phil’s strategy is pretty bullish on supporting comms and advocacy work, but it has taken us a while to acquire the staff capacity to gain context on those opportunities and begin funding them, and perhaps there are specific opportunities that you’re more excited about than we are.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t seek significant outside input while writing this post and think that’s fine (given the alternative of writing it quickly, posting it here, disclaiming my non-expertise, and getting additional perspectives and context from commenters like yourself). However, I have spoken with about a dozen people working on AI policy in Europe over the last couple months (including one of the people whose public comms efforts are linked in your comment) and would love to chat with more people with experience doing policy/politics/comms work in the EU.
We could definitely use more help thinking about this stuff, and I encourage readers who are interested in contributing to OP’s thinking on advocacy and comms to do any of the following:
Write up these critiques (we do read the forums!);
Join our team (our latest hiring round specifically mentioned US policy advocacy as a specialization we’d be excited about, but people with advocacy/politics/comms backgrounds more generally could also be very useful, and while the round is now closed, we may still review general applications); and/or
I appreciate the comment, though I think there’s a lack of specificity that makes it hard to figure out where we agree/disagree (or more generally what you believe).
If you want to engage further, here are some things I’d be excited to hear from you:
What are a few specific comms/advocacy opportunities you’re excited about//have funded?
What are a few specific comms/advocacy opportunities you view as net negative//have actively decided not to fund?
What are a few examples of hypothetical comms/advocacy opportunities you’ve been excited about?
What do you think about EG Max Tegmark/FLI, Andrea Miotti/Control AI, The Future Society, the Center for AI Policy, Holly Elmore, PauseAI, and other specific individuals or groups that are engaging in AI comms or advocacy?
I think if you (and others at OP) are interested in receiving more critiques or overall feedback on your approach, one thing that would be helpful is writing up your current models/reasoning on comms/advocacy topics.
In the absence of this, people simply notice that OP doesn’t seem to be funding some of the main existing examples of comms/advocacy efforts, but they don’t really know why, and they don’t really know what kinds of comms/advocacy efforts you’d be excited about.
(Cross-posting from LW)
Thanks for these thoughts! I agree that advocacy and communications is an important part of the story here, and I’m glad for you to have added some detail on that with your comment. I’m also sympathetic to the claim that serious thought about “ambitious comms/advocacy” is especially neglected within the community, though I think it’s far from clear that the effort that went into the policy research that identified these solutions or work on the ground in Brussels should have been shifted at the margin to the kinds of public communications you mention.
I also think Open Phil’s strategy is pretty bullish on supporting comms and advocacy work, but it has taken us a while to acquire the staff capacity to gain context on those opportunities and begin funding them, and perhaps there are specific opportunities that you’re more excited about than we are.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t seek significant outside input while writing this post and think that’s fine (given the alternative of writing it quickly, posting it here, disclaiming my non-expertise, and getting additional perspectives and context from commenters like yourself). However, I have spoken with about a dozen people working on AI policy in Europe over the last couple months (including one of the people whose public comms efforts are linked in your comment) and would love to chat with more people with experience doing policy/politics/comms work in the EU.
We could definitely use more help thinking about this stuff, and I encourage readers who are interested in contributing to OP’s thinking on advocacy and comms to do any of the following:
Write up these critiques (we do read the forums!);
Join our team (our latest hiring round specifically mentioned US policy advocacy as a specialization we’d be excited about, but people with advocacy/politics/comms backgrounds more generally could also be very useful, and while the round is now closed, we may still review general applications); and/or
Introduce yourself via the form mentioned in this post.
I appreciate the comment, though I think there’s a lack of specificity that makes it hard to figure out where we agree/disagree (or more generally what you believe).
If you want to engage further, here are some things I’d be excited to hear from you:
What are a few specific comms/advocacy opportunities you’re excited about//have funded?
What are a few specific comms/advocacy opportunities you view as net negative//have actively decided not to fund?
What are a few examples of hypothetical comms/advocacy opportunities you’ve been excited about?
What do you think about EG Max Tegmark/FLI, Andrea Miotti/Control AI, The Future Society, the Center for AI Policy, Holly Elmore, PauseAI, and other specific individuals or groups that are engaging in AI comms or advocacy?
I think if you (and others at OP) are interested in receiving more critiques or overall feedback on your approach, one thing that would be helpful is writing up your current models/reasoning on comms/advocacy topics.
In the absence of this, people simply notice that OP doesn’t seem to be funding some of the main existing examples of comms/advocacy efforts, but they don’t really know why, and they don’t really know what kinds of comms/advocacy efforts you’d be excited about.