I don’t know how to say this in a way that won’t come off harsh, but I’ve had meetings with > 100 people in the last 6 months in AI Safety and I’ve been surprised how poor the industry standard is for people:
- Planning meetings (writing emails that communicate what the meeting will be about, it’s purpose, my role) - Turning up to scheduled meetings (like literally, showing up at all) - Turning up on time - Turning up prepared (i.e. with informed opinions on what we’re going to discuss) - Turning up with clear agendas (if they’ve organised the meeting) - Running the meetings - Following up after the meeting (clear communication about next steps)
I do not have an explanation for what is going on here but it concerns me about the movement interfacing with government and industry. My background is in industry and these just seem to be things people take for granted?
It is possible I give off a chill vibe, leading to people thinking these things aren’t necessary, and they’d switch gears for more important meetings!
My 2 cents is that I think this is a really important observation (I think it’s helpful) and I would be interested to see what other peoples feedback is on this front.
hypothesis that springs to mind, might or might not be useful for engaging with it productively. might be wrong depending on what class of people you have been having meetings with.
when you select for people working on AI risks, you select for people who are generally less respective of status quo and social norms. you select for the kind of person who will generally do something less, because of the reason that its a social norm. in order for this reference class of person to do a thing, they kind of who through their personal reasoning methods reaches the conclusion “It would be worth the effort for me to change myself to become the kind of person who shows up on time consistently, compared to other things I could be spending my effort on”. they might just figure its a better use of their effort to think about their research all day.
I would guess that most people on this earth don’t show up on time because they reasoned it through that this is a good idea, they do it because it has been drilled into them through social norms, and they valued those social norms higher.
(note: this comment is not intended to be an argument that showing up on time is a waste of time)
I don’t know how to say this in a way that won’t come off harsh, but I’ve had meetings with > 100 people in the last 6 months in AI Safety and I’ve been surprised how poor the industry standard is for people:
- Planning meetings (writing emails that communicate what the meeting will be about, it’s purpose, my role)
- Turning up to scheduled meetings (like literally, showing up at all)
- Turning up on time
- Turning up prepared (i.e. with informed opinions on what we’re going to discuss)
- Turning up with clear agendas (if they’ve organised the meeting)
- Running the meetings
- Following up after the meeting (clear communication about next steps)
I do not have an explanation for what is going on here but it concerns me about the movement interfacing with government and industry. My background is in industry and these just seem to be things people take for granted?
It is possible I give off a chill vibe, leading to people thinking these things aren’t necessary, and they’d switch gears for more important meetings!
My 2 cents is that I think this is a really important observation (I think it’s helpful) and I would be interested to see what other peoples feedback is on this front.
hypothesis that springs to mind, might or might not be useful for engaging with it productively. might be wrong depending on what class of people you have been having meetings with.
when you select for people working on AI risks, you select for people who are generally less respective of status quo and social norms. you select for the kind of person who will generally do something less, because of the reason that its a social norm. in order for this reference class of person to do a thing, they kind of who through their personal reasoning methods reaches the conclusion “It would be worth the effort for me to change myself to become the kind of person who shows up on time consistently, compared to other things I could be spending my effort on”. they might just figure its a better use of their effort to think about their research all day.
I would guess that most people on this earth don’t show up on time because they reasoned it through that this is a good idea, they do it because it has been drilled into them through social norms, and they valued those social norms higher.
(note: this comment is not intended to be an argument that showing up on time is a waste of time)
It just occurred to me that maybe posting this isn’t helpful. And maybe net negative. If I get enough feedback saying it is then I’ll happily delete.