First, ageism. Lots of young people are simply biased against older people—assuming that we’re closed-minded, incapable of learning, ornery, hard to collaborate with, etc. I’ve encountered this often in EA.
I’m not sure what age group you’re referring to, but as someone who just turned 50, I can’t relate. I did have to upskill not only on subject matter expertise (as mentioned in the post) but also on ways that people of the age group and the community are communicating, but this didn’t seem much different than switching fields. The field emphasizes open-minded truth-seeking, and my experience has shown that people are receptive to my ideas if I am open to theirs.
Second, political bias. In my experience, ‘signaling value-alignment’ in EA organizations and AI safety groups isn’t just a matter of showing familiarity with EA and AI concepts, people, strategies, etc. It’s also a matter of signaling left-leaning political values, atheism, globalism, etc—values which have no intrinsic or logical connection to EA or AI safety, but which are simply the water in which younger Millennials and Gen Z swim.
The EA community as a whole is indeed more left-leaning, but I feel that this is less the case in AI safety nonprofits than in other nonprofit fields. It took me some time to realize that my discomfort about being the only person with different views in the room didn’t mean that I was unwelcome. At least I was with people who were more engaged in EA or who were working in this field.
At the same time, organizations that are not aware of their own biases sometimes end up hiring people who are very similar to their founders or are unable to integrate more experienced professionals. This is something to be aware of.
I’m not sure what age group you’re referring to, but as someone who just turned 50, I can’t relate. I did have to upskill not only on subject matter expertise (as mentioned in the post) but also on ways that people of the age group and the community are communicating, but this didn’t seem much different than switching fields. The field emphasizes open-minded truth-seeking, and my experience has shown that people are receptive to my ideas if I am open to theirs.
The EA community as a whole is indeed more left-leaning, but I feel that this is less the case in AI safety nonprofits than in other nonprofit fields. It took me some time to realize that my discomfort about being the only person with different views in the room didn’t mean that I was unwelcome. At least I was with people who were more engaged in EA or who were working in this field.
At the same time, organizations that are not aware of their own biases sometimes end up hiring people who are very similar to their founders or are unable to integrate more experienced professionals. This is something to be aware of.