Provably successful near-term work could drive the growth of the EA movement, benefitting the long term. I’d guess that more people join EA because of GiveWell and AMF than because of AI Safety and biorisk. That’s because (a) near-term work is more popular in the mainstream, and (b) near-term work can better prove success. More obvious successes will probably drive more EA growth. On the other hand, if EA makes a big bet on AI Safety and 30 years from now we’re no closer to AGI or seeing the effects of AI risks, the EA movement could sputter. It’s hard to imagine demonstrably failing like that in near-term work. Maybe the best gift we can give the future isn’t direct work on longtermism, but is rather enabling the EA movement of the future.
I’m not actually sure I buy this argument. If we’re at the Hinge of History and we have more leverage over the expected value of the future than anyone in the future will, maybe some longtermist direct work now is more important than enabling more longtermist direct work in the future. Also, maybe EA’s best sales pitch is that we don’t do sales pitches, we follow the evidence even to less popular conclusions like longtermism.
I think the natural response to your Hinge of History response is that perhaps we’re not currently at the Hinge of History, but we may be in ~10-20 years, and so the key is about building the EA movement so that it is best prepared for the actual (theoretical/hypothetical) Hinge of History period.
Provably successful near-term work could drive the growth of the EA movement, benefitting the long term. I’d guess that more people join EA because of GiveWell and AMF than because of AI Safety and biorisk. That’s because (a) near-term work is more popular in the mainstream, and (b) near-term work can better prove success. More obvious successes will probably drive more EA growth. On the other hand, if EA makes a big bet on AI Safety and 30 years from now we’re no closer to AGI or seeing the effects of AI risks, the EA movement could sputter. It’s hard to imagine demonstrably failing like that in near-term work. Maybe the best gift we can give the future isn’t direct work on longtermism, but is rather enabling the EA movement of the future.
I’m not actually sure I buy this argument. If we’re at the Hinge of History and we have more leverage over the expected value of the future than anyone in the future will, maybe some longtermist direct work now is more important than enabling more longtermist direct work in the future. Also, maybe EA’s best sales pitch is that we don’t do sales pitches, we follow the evidence even to less popular conclusions like longtermism.
I think the natural response to your Hinge of History response is that perhaps we’re not currently at the Hinge of History, but we may be in ~10-20 years, and so the key is about building the EA movement so that it is best prepared for the actual (theoretical/hypothetical) Hinge of History period.