I think the extent to which âmember of the EA communityâ comes along with a certain way of thinking (i.e. âa lot of useful framesâ) is exaggerated by many people Iâve heard talk about this sort of thing. I think ~50% of the perceived similarity is better described as similar ways of speaking and knowledge of jargon. I think that there actually not that many people who have fully internalized new ways of thinking that are 1.) very rare outside of EA, and 2.) shared across most EA hiring managers.
Another way to put this would be: I think EA hiring managers often weight âmembership in the EA communityâ significantly more highly than it should be weighted. I think our disagreement is mostly about how much this factor should be weighted.
Fair point on the fast changing thing. I have some thoughts, but theyâre not very clear and I think what you said is reasonable. One very rough take: Yes youâd still the people you know, but you might go from, âI know 50% of the people in AI alignmentâ to âI know 10% of the people in AI Alignmentâ in 3 months, which could be disorienting and demoralizing. So itâs more of a relative thing than the absolute number of people you know.
I think the extent to which âmember of the EA communityâ comes along with a certain way of thinking (i.e. âa lot of useful framesâ) is exaggerated by many people Iâve heard talk about this sort of thing. I think ~50% of the perceived similarity is better described as similar ways of speaking and knowledge of jargon. I think that there actually not that many people who have fully internalized new ways of thinking that are 1.) very rare outside of EA, and 2.) shared across most EA hiring managers.
Another way to put this would be: I think EA hiring managers often weight âmembership in the EA communityâ significantly more highly than it should be weighted. I think our disagreement is mostly about how much this factor should be weighted.
Fair point on the fast changing thing. I have some thoughts, but theyâre not very clear and I think what you said is reasonable. One very rough take: Yes youâd still the people you know, but you might go from, âI know 50% of the people in AI alignmentâ to âI know 10% of the people in AI Alignmentâ in 3 months, which could be disorienting and demoralizing. So itâs more of a relative thing than the absolute number of people you know.