For what it’s worth, I run an EA university group outside of the U.S (at the University of Waterloo in Canada). I haven’t observed any of the points you mentioned in my experience with the EA group:
We don’t run intro to EA fellowships because we’re a smaller group. We’re not trying to convert more students to be ‘EA’. We more so focus on supporting whoever’s interested in working on EA-relevant projects (ex: a cheap air purifier, a donations advisory site, a cybersecurity algorithm, etc.). Whether they identify with the EA movement or not.
Since we’re not trying to get people to become EA members, we’re not hosting any discussions where a group organiser could convince people to work on AI safety over all else.
No one’s getting paid here. We have grant money that we’ve used for things like hosting an AI governance hackathon. But that money gets used for things like marketing, catering, prizes, etc. - not salaries.
Which university EA groups specifically did you talk to before proclaiming “University EA Groups Need Fixing”? Based only on what I read in your article, a more accurate title seems to be “Columbia EA Needs Fixing”
...we’re not hosting any discussions where a group organiser could convince people to work on AI safety over all else.
I feel it is important to mention that this isn’t supposed to happen during introductory fellowship discussions. CEA and other group organizers have compiled recommendations for facilitators (here is one, for example), and all the ones I have read quite clearly state that the role of the facilitator is to help guide the conversation, not overly opine or convince participants to believe in x over y.
For what it’s worth, I run an EA university group outside of the U.S (at the University of Waterloo in Canada). I haven’t observed any of the points you mentioned in my experience with the EA group:
We don’t run intro to EA fellowships because we’re a smaller group. We’re not trying to convert more students to be ‘EA’. We more so focus on supporting whoever’s interested in working on EA-relevant projects (ex: a cheap air purifier, a donations advisory site, a cybersecurity algorithm, etc.). Whether they identify with the EA movement or not.
Since we’re not trying to get people to become EA members, we’re not hosting any discussions where a group organiser could convince people to work on AI safety over all else.
No one’s getting paid here. We have grant money that we’ve used for things like hosting an AI governance hackathon. But that money gets used for things like marketing, catering, prizes, etc. - not salaries.
Which university EA groups specifically did you talk to before proclaiming “University EA Groups Need Fixing”? Based only on what I read in your article, a more accurate title seems to be “Columbia EA Needs Fixing”
I feel it is important to mention that this isn’t supposed to happen during introductory fellowship discussions. CEA and other group organizers have compiled recommendations for facilitators (here is one, for example), and all the ones I have read quite clearly state that the role of the facilitator is to help guide the conversation, not overly opine or convince participants to believe in x over y.