Considering the reverse sharpens the point further:
“If a Chinese think tank, funded by a founder of Tencent (or Huawei, etc.), convened a consortium of AI practitioners & policy wonks (almost all of whom were racially & nationally Chinese), and this consortium produced recommendations on how to distribute the benefits of AI for the common good, what would the EA community think of that work?”
If a Chinese think tank, funded by a founder of Tencent (or Huawei, etc.), convened a consortium of AI practitioners & policy wonks (almost all of whom were racially & nationally Chinese), and this consortium produced recommendations on how to distribute the benefits of AI for the common good, what would the EA community think of that work?
It is totally to be expected for a Chinese think tank to be primarily made of Chinese people, and I would both hope and expect the EA community would engage rationally and logically with their arguments and positions, rather than dismissing or discounting them because of their race.
How do you think cohorts like the self-identified conservatives in western democracies or the US intelligence community would view ideas coming from that hypothetical think tank? I’m pretty sure there’d be some skepticism, and that that skepticism would make it harder for the think tank to accomplish its goals. (I’m not arguing that they should be skeptical; I’m arguing that they would be skeptical.)
I agree we should expect a Chinese think tank to be largely staffed with Chinese people because of the talent pool it would be drawing from. I’ve provided a variety of possible reference classes for the Longtermist community; do you have views on what the appropriate benchmark should be?
How do you think cohorts like the self-identified conservatives in western democracies or the US intelligence community would view ideas coming from that hypothetical think tank?
I suggest this is a bad example; I imagine they’d be sceptical but more because of the involvement of a Chinese state actor (see e.g. concerns over Chinese government influence over Huawei) than because of their race.
I’d also add that this concern applies in a domestic context as well. Efforts to influence US policy will require broad coalitions, including the 23 congressional districts that are majority black. The representatives of those districts (among others) may well be skeptical of ideas coming from a community where just 3 of the 459 people in my sample (.7%) are black (as far as I can tell). And if you exclude Morgan Freeman (who is on the Future of Life Institute’s scientific advisory board but isn’t exactly an active member of the Longtermist ecoystem), black representation is under half of a percent.
I think percentages are misleading. In terms of influencing demographic X, what matters isn’t so much how many people of demographic X there are in these organisations, but how well-respected they are.
Considering the reverse sharpens the point further:
“If a Chinese think tank, funded by a founder of Tencent (or Huawei, etc.), convened a consortium of AI practitioners & policy wonks (almost all of whom were racially & nationally Chinese), and this consortium produced recommendations on how to distribute the benefits of AI for the common good, what would the EA community think of that work?”
It is totally to be expected for a Chinese think tank to be primarily made of Chinese people, and I would both hope and expect the EA community would engage rationally and logically with their arguments and positions, rather than dismissing or discounting them because of their race.
How do you think cohorts like the self-identified conservatives in western democracies or the US intelligence community would view ideas coming from that hypothetical think tank? I’m pretty sure there’d be some skepticism, and that that skepticism would make it harder for the think tank to accomplish its goals. (I’m not arguing that they should be skeptical; I’m arguing that they would be skeptical.)
I agree we should expect a Chinese think tank to be largely staffed with Chinese people because of the talent pool it would be drawing from. I’ve provided a variety of possible reference classes for the Longtermist community; do you have views on what the appropriate benchmark should be?
I suggest this is a bad example; I imagine they’d be sceptical but more because of the involvement of a Chinese state actor (see e.g. concerns over Chinese government influence over Huawei) than because of their race.
I would also hope for this!
It feels fraught though – Chinese leadership seems to have a very different view of what constitutes the good, and a very different vision for the future.
Whether we assume conflict theory or mistake theory is also relevant here.
Thanks Milan!
I’d also add that this concern applies in a domestic context as well. Efforts to influence US policy will require broad coalitions, including the 23 congressional districts that are majority black. The representatives of those districts (among others) may well be skeptical of ideas coming from a community where just 3 of the 459 people in my sample (.7%) are black (as far as I can tell). And if you exclude Morgan Freeman (who is on the Future of Life Institute’s scientific advisory board but isn’t exactly an active member of the Longtermist ecoystem), black representation is under half of a percent.
I think percentages are misleading. In terms of influencing demographic X, what matters isn’t so much how many people of demographic X there are in these organisations, but how well-respected they are.