That might be part of the effect, but I would think it would apply more strongly to EA community building than AI (which has been around for several decades with vastly more money flowing into it) - and the community projects were maybe slightly better over all? At least not substantially worse.
I don’t really buy that concrete steps are hard to come up with for good AI or even general longtermism projects—one could for e.g. aim to show or disprove some proposition in a research program, aim to reach some number of views, aim to produce x media every y days (which IIRC one project did), or write x-thousand words or interview x industry experts, or use some tool for some effect, or any one of countless ways of just breaking down what your physical interactions will be with the world between now and your envisioned success.
That might be part of the effect, but I would think it would apply more strongly to EA community building than AI (which has been around for several decades with vastly more money flowing into it) - and the community projects were maybe slightly better over all? At least not substantially worse.
I don’t really buy that concrete steps are hard to come up with for good AI or even general longtermism projects—one could for e.g. aim to show or disprove some proposition in a research program, aim to reach some number of views, aim to produce x media every y days (which IIRC one project did), or write x-thousand words or interview x industry experts, or use some tool for some effect, or any one of countless ways of just breaking down what your physical interactions will be with the world between now and your envisioned success.