Hi Rebecca I do take seriously your points especially as you have first hand experience navigating EA as a woman. And I really do want you to be correct. However, i can’t shake the feeling that EA is not a safe place for women, especially in the bay area/in ai safety. I feel left with 2 choices: warn women or just don’t encourage women to engage with ea. I believe the former is better as they can then choose and I placed more agency with the women i talk with.
Also, i have heard too many first hand accounts of really sub standard behaviour and have even once been subject to inappropriate comments about body size from strangers at an ea social. I am about 80% confident we have a major issue with inappropriate behaviour in EA. If there was an alternative community just without the bad behaviour I would switch in an instant. But because there is not i am determined to do what I can to fix things.
And I know I’m not responding directly to the post, but I feel really upset about all these posts on abuse and aggressions and maybe I am just venting. But hopefully I am also showing others who feel like me that they are not alone and maybe hopefully building some marginal amount of momentum towards change.
Thanks! I felt pretty bad and left the event but compared to what other people go through in EA it was peanuts. But it makes me update towards thinking there is something that is holding the EA movement back as too many people have these negative experiences—when my own experience to some degree match that of the way too many posts here on the EAF about inappropriate behavior and the toll that takes on people who are subject to it.
Hi Rebecca I do take seriously your points especially as you have first hand experience navigating EA as a woman. And I really do want you to be correct. However, i can’t shake the feeling that EA is not a safe place for women, especially in the bay area/in ai safety. I feel left with 2 choices: warn women or just don’t encourage women to engage with ea. I believe the former is better as they can then choose and I placed more agency with the women i talk with.
Also, i have heard too many first hand accounts of really sub standard behaviour and have even once been subject to inappropriate comments about body size from strangers at an ea social. I am about 80% confident we have a major issue with inappropriate behaviour in EA. If there was an alternative community just without the bad behaviour I would switch in an instant. But because there is not i am determined to do what I can to fix things.
And I know I’m not responding directly to the post, but I feel really upset about all these posts on abuse and aggressions and maybe I am just venting. But hopefully I am also showing others who feel like me that they are not alone and maybe hopefully building some marginal amount of momentum towards change.
I’m sorry that had to be subject to those inappropriate comments
Thanks! I felt pretty bad and left the event but compared to what other people go through in EA it was peanuts. But it makes me update towards thinking there is something that is holding the EA movement back as too many people have these negative experiences—when my own experience to some degree match that of the way too many posts here on the EAF about inappropriate behavior and the toll that takes on people who are subject to it.