There’s an interesting question related to this which is: Suppose Alice will work well as an EA as long as she believes she is fighting for global poverty now. Alice’s emotions are tuned to her long term goal of decreasing poverty. It is also the case that if Alice believed X-risk was more important, she would not be as motivated to work (emotionally, or due to not feeling she has relative advantage in X-risk reduction). Should Bob try to persuade Alice of the importance of X-risk?
I say no. If there is strong reason to suggest that Alice is more effective at reaching the instrumental goals of all EA’s while believing something that she will be convinced against in the future, at least for the time being, we should let her be.
Giving What We Can might not have started if Toby Ord didn’t think poverty alleviation was the outstanding cause of our age. IF he is convinced now that actually Superintelligence is more important, the benefit that he created for poverty alleviation will still thrive. Also due to the propensity to having minds changed of EA’s, the creation of GWWC may well increase the number of people studying and working in Superintelligence.
There’s an interesting question related to this which is: Suppose Alice will work well as an EA as long as she believes she is fighting for global poverty now. Alice’s emotions are tuned to her long term goal of decreasing poverty. It is also the case that if Alice believed X-risk was more important, she would not be as motivated to work (emotionally, or due to not feeling she has relative advantage in X-risk reduction). Should Bob try to persuade Alice of the importance of X-risk? I say no. If there is strong reason to suggest that Alice is more effective at reaching the instrumental goals of all EA’s while believing something that she will be convinced against in the future, at least for the time being, we should let her be.
Giving What We Can might not have started if Toby Ord didn’t think poverty alleviation was the outstanding cause of our age. IF he is convinced now that actually Superintelligence is more important, the benefit that he created for poverty alleviation will still thrive. Also due to the propensity to having minds changed of EA’s, the creation of GWWC may well increase the number of people studying and working in Superintelligence.