Iâd say that a âcauseâ is something analogous to an academic field (like âmachine learning theoryâ or âmarine biologyâ) or an industry (like âcar manufacturingâ or âcorporate lawâ), organized around a problem or opportunity to improve the world. The motivating problem or opportunity needs to be specific enough and clear enough that it pays off to specialize in it by developing particular skills, reading up on a body of work related to the problem, trying to join particular organizations that also work on the problem, etc.
Like fields and industries, the boundaries around what exactly a âcauseâ is can be fuzzy, and a cause can have sub-causes (e.g. âmarine biologyâ is a sub-field of âbiologyâ and âcar manufacturingâ is a sub-industry within âmanufacturingâ). But some things are clearly too broad to be a cause: âdoing goodâ is not a cause in the same way that âlearning stuffâ is not an academic field and âmaking moneyâ is not an industry. Right now, the cause areas that long-termist EAs support are in their infancy, so theyâre pretty broad and âgeneralistâ; over time I expect sub-causes to become more clearly defined and deeper specialized expertise to develop within them (e.g. I think itâs fairly recently that most people in the community started thinking of âAI governance and policyâ as a distinct sub-cause within âAI risk reductionâ).
Both within Open Phil and outside it, I think âcause prioritizationâ is a type of intellectual inquiry trying to figure out how many resources (often money but sometimes time /â human resources) we would want going into different causes within some set, given some normative assumptions (e.g. utilitarianism of some kind).
How would you define a âcause areaâ and âcause prioritizationâ, in a way which extends beyond Open Phil?
Iâd say that a âcauseâ is something analogous to an academic field (like âmachine learning theoryâ or âmarine biologyâ) or an industry (like âcar manufacturingâ or âcorporate lawâ), organized around a problem or opportunity to improve the world. The motivating problem or opportunity needs to be specific enough and clear enough that it pays off to specialize in it by developing particular skills, reading up on a body of work related to the problem, trying to join particular organizations that also work on the problem, etc.
Like fields and industries, the boundaries around what exactly a âcauseâ is can be fuzzy, and a cause can have sub-causes (e.g. âmarine biologyâ is a sub-field of âbiologyâ and âcar manufacturingâ is a sub-industry within âmanufacturingâ). But some things are clearly too broad to be a cause: âdoing goodâ is not a cause in the same way that âlearning stuffâ is not an academic field and âmaking moneyâ is not an industry. Right now, the cause areas that long-termist EAs support are in their infancy, so theyâre pretty broad and âgeneralistâ; over time I expect sub-causes to become more clearly defined and deeper specialized expertise to develop within them (e.g. I think itâs fairly recently that most people in the community started thinking of âAI governance and policyâ as a distinct sub-cause within âAI risk reductionâ).
Both within Open Phil and outside it, I think âcause prioritizationâ is a type of intellectual inquiry trying to figure out how many resources (often money but sometimes time /â human resources) we would want going into different causes within some set, given some normative assumptions (e.g. utilitarianism of some kind).