Question: I’ve noticed CE is investing in tobacco regulation. This has made me wonder if alcohol regulation been considered as a cause area? In some ways its externalities are worse (e.g. domestic violence). I’m very uncertain about its tractability and neglectedness compared to tobacco though.
GiveWell has funded Vital Strategy’s alcohol work, OP has their global health policy focus area (inclusive of alcohol) and CE has incubated the Centre for Alcohol Policy Solutions (though I have limited visibility on their success since incubation a few years ago).
Check out CE’s report on alcohol and tobacco for a short primer; you can also compare their assessment of success rates and neglectedness.
I think it would be great to have the option to listen to comments on the forum (i.e. audio comments).
The ea forum has some very long comments. Sometimes longer than the original post. This is a good thing, but for reasons I think are obvious (LMK if they aren’t) I think it would be good to be able to listen to them.
I subscribe to naturalreaders.com (best $90 I ever spent FYI), and it plugs into the desktop version of chatGPT like the below. I am suggesting something similar for the forum.
I’m not sure of an org that deals with ultra-high net worth individuals (longview?), but someone should reach out to Bryan Johnson. I think he could be persuaded to invest in AI Safety (skip to 1:07:15)
Interesting goal, but the initial plan being recording and playing back animal audio doesn’t inspire confidence they’ll make much progress anytime soon
It’s unclear to me how to integrate that theory with our decisions today given how much the strategic situation is likely to have shifted in that time.
Which public. Each country in this AI race has a different view on this, and some do not consult their public as much as others. The EA community ideally should take this into account. If the other countries aren’t going to pause, and they will not, what should the USA do?
(The historical action would be AI progress stops being publicly discussed and all the current experts get drafted into secret labs with the goal of AGI first)
What are the animal welfare interventions that (1) have potential for high impact and (2) are very short term [i.e. if they work, they work within 10 years]? Basically, my AGI timelines are something like 40% ≤ 10 years and 40% ≤ 15 years. And I believe there isn’t much point worrying about much after these timelines.
I think there is an argument that animal welfare intervention prioritisation should consider an AGI timeline of ~ 5 years, but not put too much stock in it.
This idea bombed, so here is another to chew over. When you next apply for a job, consider asking the hiring manager these two questions:
Do you regularly (e.g. half-yearly, yearly) receive formal feedback on your performance from managers and direct reports?
Can I see this feedback?
If they don’t get feedback, this is revealing. If they do, but they don’t share it, this is revealing. If they do get feedback AND they share it with you, that is optimal.
Well I agree this is a better idea than that one, but I suspect it is still a bad one. For most orgs internal feedback will probably be confidential (e.g. “your project is now behind schedule, but that was mainly due to legal” clearly has information that would be potentially valuable to competitors).
But again, my primary question is the same: how often have you actually asked a hiring manager to send you their feedback? How often did they share it? What did it contain?
The problem is you are framing these ideas as advice you’re giving to others—that if they took seriously could affect something important (i.e. a job interview). If you’re going to presume to advise others, you should be more confident the advice is true/helpful.
Remember—you can request hiring managers complete work tasks for you as part of a job application.
If work tasks are so good at filtering for quality applicants, it should work in reverse. Set the hiring manager a time-bound task and gauge based on their responses whether you think they’re a good fit for you.
Think of all the things that are important to you as an employee and bake those into the test.
If they don’t do the test, then you probably shouldn’t work for them.
How many times have you requested a hiring manager do a work test for you? For what types of roles? Did you compensate them for their time?
The basic employment relationship is:
Firm pays wages.
Employee does work.
This is asymmetric because the firm’s obligations are typically very fixed: they have to pay exactly $X every two weeks or they will get in a lot of trouble very quickly. In contrast, what is demanded from employees is typically a lot more nebulous. The firm can’t easily know how talented the candidates are, or how hard they will work. If the perform badly it is costly to replace them. So a work test provides them useful information.
This isn’t the complete analysis. The interview process is often two-way, especially for positions where the employees success will depend on the success of the team. But asking the hiring manager to do a two hour task is probably not going to give you very much useful information about that.
This is as simple as, employers have more power than employees. Customers have more power than suppliers. Granters have more power than grantees. And so forth. Not in every case, but in almost all cases.
Is this unjust? Could we imagine a world where things were otherwise? Perhaps. But there are many injustices in the world, and we have to prioritize.
“employers have more power than employees”—I think what this is revealing is that I’m operating from a position of extreme priviledge, as I don’t feel this way at all.
It’s not that people don’t like it, it’s that they don’t think it’s true—you’re asserting something about how the world already works which seems clearly false
Interesting. So you’re saying you don’t think it is true that you could ask your next prospective employer to do a task for you as part of the interview process?
Not if you want the interview process to actually continue (or the “task” is “can we have a 5 minute chat so I can prepare for Wednesday’s interview”)
And if I was such a strong candidate for a particular job that employers were willing to devote lots of extra time to keeping me in the process, I think I’d rather use that to negotiate more money, responsibility or better working arrangements than set my future line manager a writing assignment...
Question: I’ve noticed CE is investing in tobacco regulation. This has made me wonder if alcohol regulation been considered as a cause area? In some ways its externalities are worse (e.g. domestic violence). I’m very uncertain about its tractability and neglectedness compared to tobacco though.
They have: https://www.charityentrepreneurship.com/center-for-alcohol-policy-solutions#:~:text=The Center for Alcohol Policy,thus saving millions of lives.
Nice! Thanks
GiveWell has funded Vital Strategy’s alcohol work, OP has their global health policy focus area (inclusive of alcohol) and CE has incubated the Centre for Alcohol Policy Solutions (though I have limited visibility on their success since incubation a few years ago).
Check out CE’s report on alcohol and tobacco for a short primer; you can also compare their assessment of success rates and neglectedness.
https://www.charityentrepreneurship.com/health-reports
I think it would be great to have the option to listen to comments on the forum (i.e. audio comments).
The ea forum has some very long comments. Sometimes longer than the original post. This is a good thing, but for reasons I think are obvious (LMK if they aren’t) I think it would be good to be able to listen to them.
I subscribe to naturalreaders.com (best $90 I ever spent FYI), and it plugs into the desktop version of chatGPT like the below. I am suggesting something similar for the forum.
I’m not sure of an org that deals with ultra-high net worth individuals (longview?), but someone should reach out to Bryan Johnson. I think he could be persuaded to invest in AI Safety (skip to 1:07:15)
Would it be interesting to gather a representative sample of EA’s personalities?
The ClearerThinking team has released a new tool: “The Ultimate Personality Test”.
We believe it is important to understand diversity in EA across a variety of dimensions, why not this one?
https://programs.clearerthinking.org/personality.html?_gl=1%2Afx9cfe%2A_ga%2ANDIwMjkxNjY3LjE2ODI0NjI3NjM.%2A_ga_58RPQ2D860%2AMTcwMTMxMTc4NS40MS4xLjE3MDEzMTMzMTguMjcuMC4w
Would people eat factory farmed animals if they knew what they were
screamingsaying?Interesting goal, but the initial plan being recording and playing back animal audio doesn’t inspire confidence they’ll make much progress anytime soon
Should We Push For An AI Pause Might Be The Wrong Question
A quick thought on the recent discussion on whether pushing for a pause on frontier AI models is a good idea or not.
It seems obvious to me that within the next 3 years the top AI labs will be producing AI that causes large swaths of the public to push for a pause.
Is it therefore more prudent to ask the following question: when much of the public wants a pause, what should our (the EA community) response be?
Interesting framing.
It’s unclear to me how to integrate that theory with our decisions today given how much the strategic situation is likely to have shifted in that time.
Which public. Each country in this AI race has a different view on this, and some do not consult their public as much as others. The EA community ideally should take this into account. If the other countries aren’t going to pause, and they will not, what should the USA do?
(The historical action would be AI progress stops being publicly discussed and all the current experts get drafted into secret labs with the goal of AGI first)
What are the animal welfare interventions that (1) have potential for high impact and (2) are very short term [i.e. if they work, they work within 10 years]? Basically, my AGI timelines are something like 40% ≤ 10 years and 40% ≤ 15 years. And I believe there isn’t much point worrying about much after these timelines.
I think there is an argument that animal welfare intervention prioritisation should consider an AGI timeline of ~ 5 years, but not put too much stock in it.
This idea bombed, so here is another to chew over. When you next apply for a job, consider asking the hiring manager these two questions:
Do you regularly (e.g. half-yearly, yearly) receive formal feedback on your performance from managers and direct reports?
Can I see this feedback?
If they don’t get feedback, this is revealing. If they do, but they don’t share it, this is revealing. If they do get feedback AND they share it with you, that is optimal.
Well I agree this is a better idea than that one, but I suspect it is still a bad one. For most orgs internal feedback will probably be confidential (e.g. “your project is now behind schedule, but that was mainly due to legal” clearly has information that would be potentially valuable to competitors).
But again, my primary question is the same: how often have you actually asked a hiring manager to send you their feedback? How often did they share it? What did it contain?
Only done it once, didn’t have it available. But believe you me, the day will come where I have an idea you like. You just wait.
You might consider testing your ideas a few times to see if they would be effective before you suggest them.
I suppose I consider this a test :)
(obviously I don’t mind my ideas not being refined before publishing)
The problem is you are framing these ideas as advice you’re giving to others—that if they took seriously could affect something important (i.e. a job interview). If you’re going to presume to advise others, you should be more confident the advice is true/helpful.
This is good feedback! I’ll make it clearer that this is something to consider, not to do without consideration 👍
Remember—you can request hiring managers complete work tasks for you as part of a job application.
If work tasks are so good at filtering for quality applicants, it should work in reverse. Set the hiring manager a time-bound task and gauge based on their responses whether you think they’re a good fit for you.
Think of all the things that are important to you as an employee and bake those into the test.
If they don’t do the test, then you probably shouldn’t work for them.
How many times have you requested a hiring manager do a work test for you? For what types of roles? Did you compensate them for their time?
The basic employment relationship is:
Firm pays wages.
Employee does work.
This is asymmetric because the firm’s obligations are typically very fixed: they have to pay exactly $X every two weeks or they will get in a lot of trouble very quickly. In contrast, what is demanded from employees is typically a lot more nebulous. The firm can’t easily know how talented the candidates are, or how hard they will work. If the perform badly it is costly to replace them. So a work test provides them useful information.
This isn’t the complete analysis. The interview process is often two-way, especially for positions where the employees success will depend on the success of the team. But asking the hiring manager to do a two hour task is probably not going to give you very much useful information about that.
I’ve not done it before, but if I was hiring and a strong candidate asked me to do it, I would!
This is as simple as, employers have more power than employees. Customers have more power than suppliers. Granters have more power than grantees. And so forth. Not in every case, but in almost all cases.
Is this unjust? Could we imagine a world where things were otherwise? Perhaps. But there are many injustices in the world, and we have to prioritize.
“employers have more power than employees”—I think what this is revealing is that I’m operating from a position of extreme priviledge, as I don’t feel this way at all.
I’d be very interested in why people don’t like this idea!
It’s not that people don’t like it, it’s that they don’t think it’s true—you’re asserting something about how the world already works which seems clearly false
Interesting. So you’re saying you don’t think it is true that you could ask your next prospective employer to do a task for you as part of the interview process?
Not if you want the interview process to actually continue (or the “task” is “can we have a 5 minute chat so I can prepare for Wednesday’s interview”)
And if I was such a strong candidate for a particular job that employers were willing to devote lots of extra time to keeping me in the process, I think I’d rather use that to negotiate more money, responsibility or better working arrangements than set my future line manager a writing assignment...
That’s correct