Iâve been running EA events in San Francisco every other month, and often I will meet a recent graduate, and as part of their introduction they will explain to me why they are or arenât working on AI stuff.
The other day, I had my first conversation ever where someone explained why they werenât sure about going into AI, unprompted. I said something like âno need to justify yourself, EA is a big tentâ, which felt like the obvious thing to say (given all my experiences in the movement, meeting people who work on a dozen different problems). If some groups have atmospheres where AI self-justification feels important, that seems bad.
(Though I think âexplaining why you work on Xâ is very different than âexplaining why you donât work on X, not so muchâ; the former seems fine/ânatural.)
*****
Related: an old post of mine on why being world-class at some arbitrary thing could be more impactful than being just okay at a high-priority career.
That post is way too long, but in short, benefits to having a diverse set of world-class people in EA include:
Wide-ranging connections to many different groups of people (including skilled people who can contribute to valuable work and successful people who have strong networks/âinfluence)
EA being a more interesting movement for the people in it + people who might join
The other day, I had my first conversation ever where someone explained why they werenât sure about going into AI, unprompted. I said something like âno need to justify yourself, EA is a big tentâ, which felt like the obvious thing to say (given all my experiences in the movement, meeting people who work on a dozen different problems). If some groups have atmospheres where AI self-justification feels important, that seems bad.
(Though I think âexplaining why you work on Xâ is very different than âexplaining why you donât work on X, not so muchâ; the former seems fine/ânatural.)
*****
Related: an old post of mine on why being world-class at some arbitrary thing could be more impactful than being just okay at a high-priority career.
That post is way too long, but in short, benefits to having a diverse set of world-class people in EA include:
Wide-ranging connections to many different groups of people (including skilled people who can contribute to valuable work and successful people who have strong networks/âinfluence)
EA being a more interesting movement for the people in it + people who might join