tldr: Another way to signal-boost this competition might be through prestige and not just money, by including some well-known people as judges, such as Elon Musk, Vitalik Buterin, or Steven Pinker.
One premise here is that big money prizes can be highly motivating, and can provoke a lot of attention, including from researchers/critics who might not normally take AI alignment very seriously. I agree.
But, if Future Fund really wants maximum excitement, appeal, and publicity (so that the maximum number of smart people work hard to write great stuff), then apart from the monetary prize, it might be helpful to maximize the prestige of the competition, e.g. by including a few ‘STEM celebrities’ as judges.
For example, this could entail recruiting a few judges like tech billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Tim Cook, Ma Huateng, Ding Lei, or Jack Ma, crypto leaders such as Vitalik Buterin or Charles Hoskinson, and/or well-known popular science writers, science fiction writers/directors, science-savvy political leaders, etc. And maybe, for an adversarial perspective, some well-known AI X-risk skeptics such as Steven Pinker, Gary Marcus, etc.
Since these folks are mostly not EAs or AI alignment experts, they shouldn’t have a strong influence over who wins, but their perspectives might be valuable, and their involvement would create a lot of buzz around the competition.
I guess the ideal ‘STEM celebrity’ judge would be very smart, rational, open-minded, and highly respected among the kinds of people who could write good essays, but not necessarily super famous among the general public (so the competition doesn’t get flooded by low-quality entries.)
We should also try to maximize international appeal by including people well-known in China, India, Japan, etc. -- not just the usual EA centers in US, UK, EU, etc.
(This could also be a good tactic for getting these ‘STEM celebrity’ judges more involved in EA, whether as donors, influencers, or engineers.)
This might be a very silly idea, but I just thought I’d throw it out there...
I also wonder if it would be cost-effective to spend some part of the contest’s budget on outreach to high-potential contributors.
Rough/vague example:
pay someone to…
research which individuals would likely have especially compelling arguments to contribute
determine which people in EA’s network are best positioned to make (personal) contact with those individuals
spend money to increase the likelihood that these individuals are successfully contacted and encouraged to submit something to the contest (e.g. arrange a dinner or meeting that they deem worthwhile to attend, where the contest is outlined to them)
tldr: Another way to signal-boost this competition might be through prestige and not just money, by including some well-known people as judges, such as Elon Musk, Vitalik Buterin, or Steven Pinker.
One premise here is that big money prizes can be highly motivating, and can provoke a lot of attention, including from researchers/critics who might not normally take AI alignment very seriously. I agree.
But, if Future Fund really wants maximum excitement, appeal, and publicity (so that the maximum number of smart people work hard to write great stuff), then apart from the monetary prize, it might be helpful to maximize the prestige of the competition, e.g. by including a few ‘STEM celebrities’ as judges.
For example, this could entail recruiting a few judges like tech billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Tim Cook, Ma Huateng, Ding Lei, or Jack Ma, crypto leaders such as Vitalik Buterin or Charles Hoskinson, and/or well-known popular science writers, science fiction writers/directors, science-savvy political leaders, etc. And maybe, for an adversarial perspective, some well-known AI X-risk skeptics such as Steven Pinker, Gary Marcus, etc.
Since these folks are mostly not EAs or AI alignment experts, they shouldn’t have a strong influence over who wins, but their perspectives might be valuable, and their involvement would create a lot of buzz around the competition.
I guess the ideal ‘STEM celebrity’ judge would be very smart, rational, open-minded, and highly respected among the kinds of people who could write good essays, but not necessarily super famous among the general public (so the competition doesn’t get flooded by low-quality entries.)
We should also try to maximize international appeal by including people well-known in China, India, Japan, etc. -- not just the usual EA centers in US, UK, EU, etc.
(This could also be a good tactic for getting these ‘STEM celebrity’ judges more involved in EA, whether as donors, influencers, or engineers.)
This might be a very silly idea, but I just thought I’d throw it out there...
I also wonder if it would be cost-effective to spend some part of the contest’s budget on outreach to high-potential contributors.
Rough/vague example: pay someone to…
research which individuals would likely have especially compelling arguments to contribute
determine which people in EA’s network are best positioned to make (personal) contact with those individuals
spend money to increase the likelihood that these individuals are successfully contacted and encouraged to submit something to the contest (e.g. arrange a dinner or meeting that they deem worthwhile to attend, where the contest is outlined to them)