This is an unfair caricature/ lampoon of parts of the ‘EA mindset’ or maybe in particular, my mindset towards EA.
Importance: Literally everything is at stake, the whole future lightcone astronomical utility suffering and happiness. Imagine the most important thing you can think of, then times that by a really large number with billions of zeros on the end. That’s a fraction of a fraction of what’s at stake.
Special: You are in a special time upon which the whole of everything depends. You are also one of the special chosen few who understands how important everything is. Also you understand the importance of rationality and evidence which everyone else fails to get (you even have the suspicion that some of the people within the chosen few don’t actually ‘really get it’).
Heroic responsiblity:“You could call it heroic responsibility, maybe,” Harry Potter said. “Not like the usual sort. It means that whatever happens, no matter what, it’s always your fault. Even if you tell Professor McGonagall, she’s not responsible for what happens, you are. Following the school rules isn’t an excuse, someone else being in charge isn’t an excuse, even trying your best isn’t an excuse. There just aren’t any excuses, you’ve got to get the job done no matter what.”
Fortunately, you’re in a group of chosen few. Unfortunately, there’s actually only one player character, that’s you, and everyone else is basically a robot. Relying on a robot is not an excuse for failing to ensure that everything ever goes well (specifically, goes in the best possible way).
Deference: The thing is though, a lot of this business seems really complicated. Like, maximising the whole of the impact universe long term happiness… where do you even start? Luckily some of the chosen few have been thinking about this for a while, and it turns out the answer is AI safety. Obviously you wouldn’t trust just anyone on this, everything is at stake after all. But the chosen few have concluded this based on reason and evidence and they also drink huel like you. And someone knows someone who knows Elon Musk, and we have $10 trillion now so we can’t be wrong.
(You’d quite like to have some of that $10 trillion so you can stop eating supernoodles, but probably it’s being used on more important stuff...)
(also remember, there isn’t really a ‘we’, everyone else is a NPC, so if it turns out the answer was actually animals and not AI safety after all, that’s your fault for not doing enough independent thinking).
Position to do good: You still feel kinda confused about what’s going on and how to effectively maximise everything. But the people at EA orgs seem to know what’s going on and some of them go to conferences like the leaderscone forum. So if you can just get into an EA org then probably they’ll let you know all the secrets and give you access to the private google docs and stuff.
Also, everyone listens to people at EA orgs, and so you’ll be in a much better position to do good afterwards. You might even get to influence some of that $10 trillion dollars that everyone talks about. Maybe Elon Musk will let you have a go on one of his rockets.
Career capital: EA orgs are looking for talented, impressive ambitious, high potential, promising people. You think you might be one of those, but sometimes you have your doubts, as you sometimes fail at basic things like having enough clean clothes. If you had enough career capital, you could prove to yourself and others that you in fact did have high potential, and would get a job at an EA org. You’re considering getting enough career capital by starting a gigaproject or independently solving AI safety.
This things seem kind of challenging, but you can just use self improvement to make yourself the kind of person that could do these things.
The EA Mindset
This is an unfair caricature/ lampoon of parts of the ‘EA mindset’ or maybe in particular, my mindset towards EA.
Importance: Literally everything is at stake, the whole future lightcone astronomical utility suffering and happiness. Imagine the most important thing you can think of, then times that by a really large number with billions of zeros on the end. That’s a fraction of a fraction of what’s at stake.
Special: You are in a special time upon which the whole of everything depends. You are also one of the special chosen few who understands how important everything is. Also you understand the importance of rationality and evidence which everyone else fails to get (you even have the suspicion that some of the people within the chosen few don’t actually ‘really get it’).
Heroic responsiblity: “You could call it heroic responsibility, maybe,” Harry Potter said. “Not like the usual sort. It means that whatever happens, no matter what, it’s always your fault. Even if you tell Professor McGonagall, she’s not responsible for what happens, you are. Following the school rules isn’t an excuse, someone else being in charge isn’t an excuse, even trying your best isn’t an excuse. There just aren’t any excuses, you’ve got to get the job done no matter what.”
Fortunately, you’re in a group of chosen few. Unfortunately, there’s actually only one player character, that’s you, and everyone else is basically a robot. Relying on a robot is not an excuse for failing to ensure that everything ever goes well (specifically, goes in the best possible way).
Deference: The thing is though, a lot of this business seems really complicated. Like, maximising the whole of the impact universe long term happiness… where do you even start? Luckily some of the chosen few have been thinking about this for a while, and it turns out the answer is AI safety. Obviously you wouldn’t trust just anyone on this, everything is at stake after all. But the chosen few have concluded this based on reason and evidence and they also drink huel like you. And someone knows someone who knows Elon Musk, and we have $10 trillion now so we can’t be wrong.
(You’d quite like to have some of that $10 trillion so you can stop eating supernoodles, but probably it’s being used on more important stuff...)
(also remember, there isn’t really a ‘we’, everyone else is a NPC, so if it turns out the answer was actually animals and not AI safety after all, that’s your fault for not doing enough independent thinking).
Position to do good: You still feel kinda confused about what’s going on and how to effectively maximise everything. But the people at EA orgs seem to know what’s going on and some of them go to conferences like the leaderscone forum. So if you can just get into an EA org then probably they’ll let you know all the secrets and give you access to the private google docs and stuff.
Also, everyone listens to people at EA orgs, and so you’ll be in a much better position to do good afterwards. You might even get to influence some of that $10 trillion dollars that everyone talks about. Maybe Elon Musk will let you have a go on one of his rockets.
Career capital: EA orgs are looking for talented, impressive ambitious, high potential, promising people. You think you might be one of those, but sometimes you have your doubts, as you sometimes fail at basic things like having enough clean clothes. If you had enough career capital, you could prove to yourself and others that you in fact did have high potential, and would get a job at an EA org. You’re considering getting enough career capital by starting a gigaproject or independently solving AI safety.
This things seem kind of challenging, but you can just use self improvement to make yourself the kind of person that could do these things.