Hello Ben, good to see such a passionate approach to education in EA. It seems like we are in similar positions in our careers (I have about 7 years of teaching at the University, 9 in High School, and 5 in management of teachers, with one school launch under my belt, that unfortunately due to COVID 19 did not pan out) and I have for the past four months been working with Heye Gross on an EA-university, starting from doing reaserch into progress studies and how we can get academics to be more productive, before trying to teach. If you wish to bounce ideas, do let me know.
My concerns here, which were not voiced by other commenters, are that it seems like this is a project you already wanted to start, and has had an “EA” sticker added to it. It seems to me that a curriculum aimed at teaching EA would be teaching more foundational things such as empiricism and research, instead of tech-entrepreneur skills. You may want to start your thing, and you may want to start an EA project, but these need not be the same.
The branding issue is then even more compounded, calling it an EA university and being only tangentially related feels like hijacking a brand—which may be what the other commenters were also feeling when they mentioned reputational risk.
I agree that having a place for education on EA ideas is important, having it be digital can help, having it give certifications will make it more attractive for sure, but it must be much more carefully done. My emotional response is that having a curriculum 80% done without consulting with the broader EA field feels like going against the EA epistemic approach. I understand for certification you need some more standardized things, but is certification so important as to jeopardize the thing being taught?
Education has several purposes, teaching philosophy and forming character being one side, and teaching work skills and issuing certificates that facilitate employment being another (the difference between Socratic education and getting a Microsoft office course on LinkedIn). I understand that some institutions try to do both, although these two goals are often in conflict. However, having an EA University aim only at the second, and not focus on the top priorities (AI Alignment or such) is a strange choice.
It seems like your project is so far along as to be hard to course-correct (pun not intended), is that accurate? If not, how much are you willing to adjust your idea based on the feedback of the EA community?
first thing: thank you a lot for your feedback, would love to bounce Ideas around with you! Just mail me at mail@benjamineidam.com please :)
“it seems like this is a project you already wanted to start, and has had an “EA” sticker added to it”
Actually, I wanted to start something EA way before I even had a thought about a project like this. But I can get it. Right now I choose to start with something that I have tested a lot and that works great in the “real world” with ~10%-20% EA in it. But I learned in my Intro-Fellowship, that there are a lot of intersections, plus my plan is to teach the content but constantly watch it through the perspective of EA. In the same way, the botanist looks at a forest in this example:
When a botanist looks at a forest they may focus on the ecosystem, an environmentalist sees the impact of climate change, a forestry engineer the state of the tree growth, a business person the value of the land. None are wrong, but neither are any of them able to describe the full scope of the forest. Sharing knowledge, or learning the basics of the other disciplines, would lead to a more well-rounded understanding that would allow for better initial decisions about managing the forest.
So in short: I think the content itself is relatively optimal between enabling students optimally for fulfilling their “Digikai” while the “meta-perspective” of EA frames all of it perfectly.
But this is just my point of view as I teach it, and it works “wonders” for my students right now. Like literally changing their view of the world.
I don’t know if this will work on scale.
Again: Only one way to find out :)
“My emotional response is that having a curriculum 80% done without consulting with the broader EA field feels like going against the EA epistemic approach.”
I 100% agree. That is why I share it now, that I’m more or less can see clearly a path how it could work. I think now it is a lot of fine-tuning, but i don’t know how this will look like. I also don’t want just chain hours of talking and chatting to each other without doing, but I really want to get more EAs involved and feedbacking this before really going “online”.
I am really open to Ideas and just kick ~80% out of the sea if necessary. I just know technology and “love” the mental model of EA and have the “talent” to be an exciting teacher. So I want to use that.
But if it changes on the way, I’m ok with it. It really depends on the arguments.
Hello Ben, good to see such a passionate approach to education in EA. It seems like we are in similar positions in our careers (I have about 7 years of teaching at the University, 9 in High School, and 5 in management of teachers, with one school launch under my belt, that unfortunately due to COVID 19 did not pan out) and I have for the past four months been working with Heye Gross on an EA-university, starting from doing reaserch into progress studies and how we can get academics to be more productive, before trying to teach. If you wish to bounce ideas, do let me know.
My concerns here, which were not voiced by other commenters, are that it seems like this is a project you already wanted to start, and has had an “EA” sticker added to it. It seems to me that a curriculum aimed at teaching EA would be teaching more foundational things such as empiricism and research, instead of tech-entrepreneur skills. You may want to start your thing, and you may want to start an EA project, but these need not be the same.
The branding issue is then even more compounded, calling it an EA university and being only tangentially related feels like hijacking a brand—which may be what the other commenters were also feeling when they mentioned reputational risk.
I agree that having a place for education on EA ideas is important, having it be digital can help, having it give certifications will make it more attractive for sure, but it must be much more carefully done. My emotional response is that having a curriculum 80% done without consulting with the broader EA field feels like going against the EA epistemic approach. I understand for certification you need some more standardized things, but is certification so important as to jeopardize the thing being taught?
Education has several purposes, teaching philosophy and forming character being one side, and teaching work skills and issuing certificates that facilitate employment being another (the difference between Socratic education and getting a Microsoft office course on LinkedIn). I understand that some institutions try to do both, although these two goals are often in conflict. However, having an EA University aim only at the second, and not focus on the top priorities (AI Alignment or such) is a strange choice.
It seems like your project is so far along as to be hard to course-correct (pun not intended), is that accurate? If not, how much are you willing to adjust your idea based on the feedback of the EA community?
Hi Dusan,
first thing: thank you a lot for your feedback, would love to bounce Ideas around with you! Just mail me at mail@benjamineidam.com please :)
“it seems like this is a project you already wanted to start, and has had an “EA” sticker added to it”
Actually, I wanted to start something EA way before I even had a thought about a project like this. But I can get it. Right now I choose to start with something that I have tested a lot and that works great in the “real world” with ~10%-20% EA in it. But I learned in my Intro-Fellowship, that there are a lot of intersections, plus my plan is to teach the content but constantly watch it through the perspective of EA. In the same way, the botanist looks at a forest in this example:
So in short: I think the content itself is relatively optimal between enabling students optimally for fulfilling their “Digikai” while the “meta-perspective” of EA frames all of it perfectly.
But this is just my point of view as I teach it, and it works “wonders” for my students right now. Like literally changing their view of the world.
I don’t know if this will work on scale.
Again: Only one way to find out :)
“My emotional response is that having a curriculum 80% done without consulting with the broader EA field feels like going against the EA epistemic approach.”
I 100% agree. That is why I share it now, that I’m more or less can see clearly a path how it could work. I think now it is a lot of fine-tuning, but i don’t know how this will look like. I also don’t want just chain hours of talking and chatting to each other without doing, but I really want to get more EAs involved and feedbacking this before really going “online”.
I am really open to Ideas and just kick ~80% out of the sea if necessary. I just know technology and “love” the mental model of EA and have the “talent” to be an exciting teacher. So I want to use that.
But if it changes on the way, I’m ok with it. It really depends on the arguments.
Cheers
Ben