Personally, I just don’t believe that the marginal dollar or hour I spend on anything to do with AGI has any expected impact on it (in particular not on its capability to solve other problems down the line). Meanwhile, I can spend money or time productively on many other causes (eg global health).
That’s fair and I don’t have a good answer for what the average effective altruist can do to help ensure AI alignment, but there are definitely concrete approaches like career changes to AI policy that can help address this.
Clearly people will have a wide range of views how much impact eg a career change to such fields can have, even when considering a specific (non-average) person. This probably answers a good portion of your question regarding why people focus on other areas.
Personally, I just don’t believe that the marginal dollar or hour I spend on anything to do with AGI has any expected impact on it (in particular not on its capability to solve other problems down the line).
Meanwhile, I can spend money or time productively on many other causes (eg global health).
That’s fair and I don’t have a good answer for what the average effective altruist can do to help ensure AI alignment, but there are definitely concrete approaches like career changes to AI policy that can help address this.
Clearly people will have a wide range of views how much impact eg a career change to such fields can have, even when considering a specific (non-average) person. This probably answers a good portion of your question regarding why people focus on other areas.