By putting an answer (reduce AI risk) ahead of the question (how can we do the most good?) we would be selling ourselves short.
Some people, maybe a lot of people, should probably choose to focus fully on AI safety and stop worrying about cause prioritization. But nobody should feel like they’re being pushed into that or like other causes are worthless. EA should be a big tent. I don’t agree that it’s easier to rally people around a narrow cause; on the contrary, single minded focus on AI would drive away all but a small fraction of potential supporters, and have an evaporative cooling effect on the current community too.
I don’t have time for a long reply, but I think the perspective in this post would be good to keep in mind: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FpjQMYQmS3rWewZ83/effective-altruism-is-a-question-not-an-ideology
By putting an answer (reduce AI risk) ahead of the question (how can we do the most good?) we would be selling ourselves short.
Some people, maybe a lot of people, should probably choose to focus fully on AI safety and stop worrying about cause prioritization. But nobody should feel like they’re being pushed into that or like other causes are worthless. EA should be a big tent. I don’t agree that it’s easier to rally people around a narrow cause; on the contrary, single minded focus on AI would drive away all but a small fraction of potential supporters, and have an evaporative cooling effect on the current community too.
18 years is a marathon, not a sprint.