Congrats to the CEA Events Team for their hard work and for organising such a good event! 👏
The vibe was really positive! Anecdotally I had heard that the last EAG SF was gloom central, but this event felt much more cheery. I’m not entirely sure why, but it might have had something to do with the open venue, the good weather, or there being more places to touch grass in London compared to the Bay.
I left the conference intellectually energised (though physically exhausted). I’m ready to start drafting some more Forum Post ideas that I will vastly overestimate my ability to finish and publish 😌
AI was (unsurprisingly) the talk of the town. But I found that quite a few people,[2] myself included, were actually more optimistic on AI because of the speed of the social response to AI progress and how pro-safety it seems to be, along with low polarisation along partisan lines.
Related to the above, I came away with the impression that AI Governance may be as if not more important than Technical Alignment in the next 6-12 months. The window for signficiant political opportunity is open now but may not stay open forever, so the AI Governance Space is probably where the most impactful opportunties might be at the moment.
My main negative takeaway was that there seemed to be so little reflection on the difficult last ~6 months for the EA movement. There was 1 session on the FTX, but none at all on the other problems we’ve faced as a community such as Sexual Abuse and Harassment, Trust in EA Leadership, Community Epistemic Health, and whether EA Institutions ought to be reformed. In the opening talk, the only reference was that the ship of EA feels like it’s been ‘going through a storm’, and the ideas presented weren’t really accompanied by a route to embed them in the movement. To me it felt like another missed opportunity after Toby Ord’s speech, and I don’t feel like we as a community have fully grasped or reckoned with the consequences of the last 6 months. I think this was also a common sentiment among people I talked to[3] regardless of whether they agreed with me on proposed solutions.
Shrimp Welfare is now post-meme and part of the orthodoxy, and the Shrimp Welfare Project is unironically an S(hrimp)-Tier Charity. 🦐🥰
EA Conference Food continues to be good to me. I don’t know why it seems to get consistently low ratings in the feedback surveys 🤷 I’d happily tile the universe with those red velvet desserts.
Some personal reflections on EAG London:[1]
Congrats to the CEA Events Team for their hard work and for organising such a good event! 👏
The vibe was really positive! Anecdotally I had heard that the last EAG SF was gloom central, but this event felt much more cheery. I’m not entirely sure why, but it might have had something to do with the open venue, the good weather, or there being more places to touch grass in London compared to the Bay.
I left the conference intellectually energised (though physically exhausted). I’m ready to start drafting some more Forum Post ideas that I will vastly overestimate my ability to finish and publish 😌
AI was (unsurprisingly) the talk of the town. But I found that quite a few people,[2] myself included, were actually more optimistic on AI because of the speed of the social response to AI progress and how pro-safety it seems to be, along with low polarisation along partisan lines.
Related to the above, I came away with the impression that AI Governance may be as if not more important than Technical Alignment in the next 6-12 months. The window for signficiant political opportunity is open now but may not stay open forever, so the AI Governance Space is probably where the most impactful opportunties might be at the moment.
My main negative takeaway was that there seemed to be so little reflection on the difficult last ~6 months for the EA movement. There was 1 session on the FTX, but none at all on the other problems we’ve faced as a community such as Sexual Abuse and Harassment, Trust in EA Leadership, Community Epistemic Health, and whether EA Institutions ought to be reformed. In the opening talk, the only reference was that the ship of EA feels like it’s been ‘going through a storm’, and the ideas presented weren’t really accompanied by a route to embed them in the movement. To me it felt like another missed opportunity after Toby Ord’s speech, and I don’t feel like we as a community have fully grasped or reckoned with the consequences of the last 6 months. I think this was also a common sentiment among people I talked to[3] regardless of whether they agreed with me on proposed solutions.
Shrimp Welfare is now post-meme and part of the orthodoxy, and the Shrimp Welfare Project is unironically an S(hrimp)-Tier Charity. 🦐🥰
EA Conference Food continues to be good to me. I don’t know why it seems to get consistently low ratings in the feedback surveys 🤷 I’d happily tile the universe with those red velvet desserts.
Feel free to add your own thoughts and responses, I’d love to hear them :)
{warning! sampling bias alert!}
{warning! sampling bias alert!}
I assume any event in SF gets a higher proportion of AI doomers than one in London.