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.
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.