(Post 4/N with some rough notes on AI governance field-building strategy. Posting here for ease of future reference, and in case anyone else thinking about similar stuff finds this helpful.)
Some exercises for developing good judgement
I’ve spent a bit of time over the last year trying to form better judgement. Dumping some notes here on things I tried or considered trying, for future reference.
Jump into the mindset of “the buck stops at me” for working out whether some project takes place, as if you were the grantmaker having to make the decision. Ask yourself: “wait, should this actually happen?”[1]
(Rather than “does anything jump out as incorrect” or “do I have any random comments/ideas”—which are often helpful mindsets to be in when giving feedback to people, but don’t really train the core skill of good judgement.)
I think forecasting trains a similar skill to this. I got some value from making some forecasts in the Metaculus Beginners’ Tournament.
Find Google Docs where people (whose judgement you respect) have left comments and an overall take on the promisingness of the idea. Hide their comments and form your own take. Compare. (To make this a faster process, pick a doc/idea where you have enough background knowledge to answer without looking up loads of things).
Ask people/orgs for things along the lines of [minimal trust investigations | grant reports | etc.] that they’ve written up. Do it yourself. Compare.
Do any of the above with a friend; write your timeboxed answers then compare reasoning.
Find Google Docs where people (whose judgement you respect) have left comments and an overall take on the promisingness of the idea. Hide their comments and form your own take. Compare. (To make this a faster process, pick a doc/idea where you have enough background knowledge to answer without looking up loads of things)
(Post 4/N with some rough notes on AI governance field-building strategy. Posting here for ease of future reference, and in case anyone else thinking about similar stuff finds this helpful.)
Some exercises for developing good judgement
I’ve spent a bit of time over the last year trying to form better judgement. Dumping some notes here on things I tried or considered trying, for future reference.
Jump into the mindset of “the buck stops at me” for working out whether some project takes place, as if you were the grantmaker having to make the decision. Ask yourself: “wait, should this actually happen?”[1]
(Rather than “does anything jump out as incorrect” or “do I have any random comments/ideas”—which are often helpful mindsets to be in when giving feedback to people, but don’t really train the core skill of good judgement.)
I think forecasting trains a similar skill to this. I got some value from making some forecasts in the Metaculus Beginners’ Tournament.
Find Google Docs where people (whose judgement you respect) have left comments and an overall take on the promisingness of the idea. Hide their comments and form your own take. Compare. (To make this a faster process, pick a doc/idea where you have enough background knowledge to answer without looking up loads of things).
Ask people/orgs for things along the lines of [minimal trust investigations | grant reports | etc.] that they’ve written up. Do it yourself. Compare.
Do any of the above with a friend; write your timeboxed answers then compare reasoning.
I think this framing of the exercise might have been mentioned to me by Michael Aird.
This is a good tip! Hadn’t thought of this.