I’m curious what you (and others) think about the following aptitude.
(I don’t have a particular reason to think my intuition that this is “a thing” is right, and know barely anything about the careers I’m talking about, so I advise not taking this seriously at all as actual advice for now.)
“Negotiation and navigating conflicting interests” aptitude.
This involves things like:
Knowing what your own interests regarding some contested issue are.
Understanding where other people are coming from when approaching some issue, including in ways that go beyond what they are able to state explicitly.
Helping others understand what their interests regarding some contested issue are, and helping them to communicate them well to others, and/or being good at that kind communication oneself. This includes the ability to translate between different vocabularies and cultural codes.
Coming up with creative and original options for how to settle a conflict.
Examples [??]:
US top politicians who have a track record at getting bipartisan policies passed, e.g., Joe Biden
“Sherpas” and other political staffers involved in the nitty-gritty of international agreements
Top executives and lawyers dealing with mergers and acquisitions
Some aspects of what HR departments to in companies
Machiavelli [???]
Robert Moses [???]
How to try to develop this aptitude [?]:
Embark on and become conventionally successful in one of the above careers
Constructively contribute to the resolution of conflicts that happen around you (there usually is an abundance of them …)
Model United Nations conferences and similar things [???]
On track [???]:
You find neither being directly involved in, nor helping to mediate conflicts, stressful or unpleasant, and there are several examples of when you’ve clearly contributed to finding significant Pareto improvements.
You are respected by a wide range of different people, and you often find yourself in situations where two people or groups can’t have a good conversation with each other, but you get along will with both, pass their “Ideological Turing Tests”, and can “talk in their language”.
If you’re doing this professionally, your achievements are recognized by your peers and bosses, you get promoted, and you take on “bigger” cases involving more responsibility etc.
Why do I think this might be important?
Depending on the path, I think there are significant synergies with the “organization building etc.”, political/bureaucratic, community building, and entrepreneur aptitudes.
However, I think there may also be a case for viewing this as a potential ‘central’ aptitude in its own rights. Here’s a straw argument for why:
Suppose that in 2050, longtermist-aligned MyAICompany makes a research breakthrough that makes them think they would have a decent shot at building a ‘transformative AI system’ if they had access to 10x-100x their current resources (e.g. compute). They’re wondering if and how to talk about this to their main investors, the US government, the Chinese government, big tech companies, etc.
The aptitudes from the OP cover: MyAICompany being founded; it being run well operationally; it having good software infrastructure; it having access to sound bottom-line conclusions on relevant research questions; a good supply of longtermist-aligned talent; various other actors (e.g., parts of the US government) being more sympathetic to, or at least having a better understanding of, its goals; no-one stealing their AI research, or being able to undesirably eavesdrop on their subsequent negotations.
However, the aptitudes from the OP conspicuously do not cover (at least not centrally—the relevant capabilities don’t seem to be emphasized in any of the other aptitudes): How to structure the conversations with these other actors? How to achieve a good outcome even though there will be a bunch of conflicting interests?
(Secondarily, and anecdotally, I think that a lack of this aptitude has also contributed to at least some EA organizations not always having been “well run” in a generic sense.)
I am concerned that due to founder effects and skewed intellectual foundations (e.g. commitment to philosophical views that hide the relevance of de-facto conflicting interests by instead emphasizing how ideal reasoners would converge to shared beliefs and goals) the current prevalence of this aptitude in the EA community is low, and that it is underappreciated.
I like this; I agree with most of what you say about this kind of work.
I’ve tried to mostly list aptitudes that one can try out early on, stick with if they’re going well, and pretty reliably build careers (though not necessarily direct-work longtermist careers) around. I think the aptitude you’re describing here might be more of later-career/”secondary” aptitude that often develops as someone moves up along an “organization building/running/boosting” or “political/bureaucratic” track. But I agree it seems like a cluster of skills that can be intentionally developed to some degree and used in a lot of different contexts.
I’m curious what you (and others) think about the following aptitude.
(I don’t have a particular reason to think my intuition that this is “a thing” is right, and know barely anything about the careers I’m talking about, so I advise not taking this seriously at all as actual advice for now.)
“Negotiation and navigating conflicting interests” aptitude.
This involves things like:
Knowing what your own interests regarding some contested issue are.
Understanding where other people are coming from when approaching some issue, including in ways that go beyond what they are able to state explicitly.
Helping others understand what their interests regarding some contested issue are, and helping them to communicate them well to others, and/or being good at that kind communication oneself. This includes the ability to translate between different vocabularies and cultural codes.
Coming up with creative and original options for how to settle a conflict.
Examples [??]:
US top politicians who have a track record at getting bipartisan policies passed, e.g., Joe Biden
“Sherpas” and other political staffers involved in the nitty-gritty of international agreements
Roger Fisher and William L. Ury
Top executives and lawyers dealing with mergers and acquisitions
Some aspects of what HR departments to in companies
Machiavelli [???]
Robert Moses [???]
How to try to develop this aptitude [?]:
Embark on and become conventionally successful in one of the above careers
Constructively contribute to the resolution of conflicts that happen around you (there usually is an abundance of them …)
Model United Nations conferences and similar things [???]
On track [???]:
You find neither being directly involved in, nor helping to mediate conflicts, stressful or unpleasant, and there are several examples of when you’ve clearly contributed to finding significant Pareto improvements.
You are respected by a wide range of different people, and you often find yourself in situations where two people or groups can’t have a good conversation with each other, but you get along will with both, pass their “Ideological Turing Tests”, and can “talk in their language”.
If you’re doing this professionally, your achievements are recognized by your peers and bosses, you get promoted, and you take on “bigger” cases involving more responsibility etc.
Why do I think this might be important?
Depending on the path, I think there are significant synergies with the “organization building etc.”, political/bureaucratic, community building, and entrepreneur aptitudes.
However, I think there may also be a case for viewing this as a potential ‘central’ aptitude in its own rights. Here’s a straw argument for why:
Suppose that in 2050, longtermist-aligned MyAICompany makes a research breakthrough that makes them think they would have a decent shot at building a ‘transformative AI system’ if they had access to 10x-100x their current resources (e.g. compute). They’re wondering if and how to talk about this to their main investors, the US government, the Chinese government, big tech companies, etc.
The aptitudes from the OP cover: MyAICompany being founded; it being run well operationally; it having good software infrastructure; it having access to sound bottom-line conclusions on relevant research questions; a good supply of longtermist-aligned talent; various other actors (e.g., parts of the US government) being more sympathetic to, or at least having a better understanding of, its goals; no-one stealing their AI research, or being able to undesirably eavesdrop on their subsequent negotations.
However, the aptitudes from the OP conspicuously do not cover (at least not centrally—the relevant capabilities don’t seem to be emphasized in any of the other aptitudes): How to structure the conversations with these other actors? How to achieve a good outcome even though there will be a bunch of conflicting interests?
(Secondarily, and anecdotally, I think that a lack of this aptitude has also contributed to at least some EA organizations not always having been “well run” in a generic sense.)
I am concerned that due to founder effects and skewed intellectual foundations (e.g. commitment to philosophical views that hide the relevance of de-facto conflicting interests by instead emphasizing how ideal reasoners would converge to shared beliefs and goals) the current prevalence of this aptitude in the EA community is low, and that it is underappreciated.
I like this; I agree with most of what you say about this kind of work.
I’ve tried to mostly list aptitudes that one can try out early on, stick with if they’re going well, and pretty reliably build careers (though not necessarily direct-work longtermist careers) around. I think the aptitude you’re describing here might be more of later-career/”secondary” aptitude that often develops as someone moves up along an “organization building/running/boosting” or “political/bureaucratic” track. But I agree it seems like a cluster of skills that can be intentionally developed to some degree and used in a lot of different contexts.