One thing with explicit CEAs is that they seem to me that they might be useless at the beginning, until they are refined, shared, criticized, tested, etc. E.g., I don’t know what the time-to-beat-intuition is.
There is a super-category for the “reputational issues”, but I don’t really know what to call it. Maybe “effects on others.” Other members of that category might be:
Explicit probabilities might hurt community building because they put off people who don’t like them.
Explicit probabilities might show that previous undertakings which people thought were worth it are not, but stopping those undertakings would be bad for movement-building/people’s egos.
E.g., it turns out that the pathway to impact of giving out EA books is on keeping the movement builders motivated, but they don’t end up being very motivated if they think that it otherwise has ~0 impact.
One danger with explicit models might be that they end up being fetishized or implemented in a cargo-cult kind way, where they are done without understanding the purpose of their existence.
Hey Michael, thanks for having written this post.
Some other downsides and thoughts:
One thing with explicit CEAs is that they seem to me that they might be useless at the beginning, until they are refined, shared, criticized, tested, etc. E.g., I don’t know what the time-to-beat-intuition is.
There is a super-category for the “reputational issues”, but I don’t really know what to call it. Maybe “effects on others.” Other members of that category might be:
Explicit probabilities might hurt community building because they put off people who don’t like them.
Explicit probabilities might show that previous undertakings which people thought were worth it are not, but stopping those undertakings would be bad for movement-building/people’s egos.
E.g., it turns out that the pathway to impact of giving out EA books is on keeping the movement builders motivated, but they don’t end up being very motivated if they think that it otherwise has ~0 impact.
One danger with explicit models might be that they end up being fetishized or implemented in a cargo-cult kind way, where they are done without understanding the purpose of their existence.