Thanks for engaging on this as well! I do feel the responsibility involved in setting event topics, and itâs great to get constructive criticism like this.
To respond to the points a bit (and this is just my view- quite quickly written because Iâve got a busy day today and Iâm happy to come back and clarify/âchange my mind in another reply):
(a) - maybe, but I think the actual content of the events almost always contains some scepticism of the question itself, discussion of adjacent debates etc⊠The actual topic of the event doesnât seem like a useful place to look for evidence on the communityâs priorities. Also, I generally run events about topics I think people arenât prioritising. However, I think this is the point I disagree with the leastâI can see that if you are looking at the forum in a pretty low-res way, or hearing about the event from a friend, you might get an impression that âEA cares about X nowâ.
(b) - The Forum does appear in EA-critical pieces, but I personally donât think those pieces distinguish much between what one post on the Forum says and what the Forum team puts in a banner (and I donât think readers who lack context would distinguish between those things either). So, I donât worry too much about what Iâm saying in the eyes of a very adversarial journalist (there are enough words on the forum that they can probably find whatever theyâd like to find anyway).
To clarifyâfor readers and adversarial journalistsâI still have the rule of âI donât post anything I wouldnât want to see my name attached to in publicâ (and think others should too), but thatâs a more general rule, not just for the Forum.
(c)- Iâm sure that it isnât the optimum Forum week. However (1) I do think this topic is important and potentially action-relevantâthere is increasing focus on âAI Safetyâ, but AI Safety is a possibly vast field with a range of challenges that a career or funding could address, and the topic of this debate is potentially an important distinction to have a take on when you are making those decisions. And (2) Iâm pretty bullish on forum events, and Iâd like to run more, and get the community involved more, so any suggestions for future events are always welcome.
I think ultimately we seem to have quite different intuitions on the trade-offs, but that seems unresolvable. Most of my intuitions there come from advising non-EA HNWs (and from spending time around advisors specialized in advising these), so this is quite different from mostly advising EAs.
Thanks for engaging on this as well! I do feel the responsibility involved in setting event topics, and itâs great to get constructive criticism like this.
To respond to the points a bit (and this is just my view- quite quickly written because Iâve got a busy day today and Iâm happy to come back and clarify/âchange my mind in another reply):
(a) - maybe, but I think the actual content of the events almost always contains some scepticism of the question itself, discussion of adjacent debates etc⊠The actual topic of the event doesnât seem like a useful place to look for evidence on the communityâs priorities. Also, I generally run events about topics I think people arenât prioritising. However, I think this is the point I disagree with the leastâI can see that if you are looking at the forum in a pretty low-res way, or hearing about the event from a friend, you might get an impression that âEA cares about X nowâ.
(b) - The Forum does appear in EA-critical pieces, but I personally donât think those pieces distinguish much between what one post on the Forum says and what the Forum team puts in a banner (and I donât think readers who lack context would distinguish between those things either). So, I donât worry too much about what Iâm saying in the eyes of a very adversarial journalist (there are enough words on the forum that they can probably find whatever theyâd like to find anyway).
To clarifyâfor readers and adversarial journalistsâI still have the rule of âI donât post anything I wouldnât want to see my name attached to in publicâ (and think others should too), but thatâs a more general rule, not just for the Forum.
(c)- Iâm sure that it isnât the optimum Forum week. However (1) I do think this topic is important and potentially action-relevantâthere is increasing focus on âAI Safetyâ, but AI Safety is a possibly vast field with a range of challenges that a career or funding could address, and the topic of this debate is potentially an important distinction to have a take on when you are making those decisions. And (2) Iâm pretty bullish on forum events, and Iâd like to run more, and get the community involved more, so any suggestions for future events are always welcome.
Thanks for clarifying this!
I think ultimately we seem to have quite different intuitions on the trade-offs, but that seems unresolvable. Most of my intuitions there come from advising non-EA HNWs (and from spending time around advisors specialized in advising these), so this is quite different from mostly advising EAs.