One of my gripes with the community has long been that maximization is core to EA and we’re still really clueless about what it implies and most of the community (outside RP, QURI, etc. and some researchers) seems to have given up on figuring it out.
I feel like we’re like this one computer science professor I had who seemed a bit senile and only taught the sort of things that haven’t lost relevance in the last 30 years because he hadn’t kept up with anything that happened since the 80s. He probably had good personal and neurological reasons for that, but we don’t, right?
I haven’t read any EA introductory materials in a few years, but I hope they contain articles about expected value maximization along with articles on how EV is usually largely unknowable due to cluelessness and often undefined due to Pasadena games. That stochastic dominance is arguably a much better approach to prioritization but that Christian Tarsney is so far more or less the only one who has bothered to look into it. That there is perhaps a way forward to figure out what’s the best thing to do if we funded some big world-modeling efforts based on software like Squiggle but that hardly anyone outside RP and QURI (and Convergence?) currently bothers to do anything about it. (I’ve dabbled a bit in these fields but my personal fit doesn’t seem to be great.)
Maybe there’s even a way to scalably adjust for personal fit whatever recommendations this big model effort might yield. Maybe there are some common archetypes/personas plus quizzes that tell people which ones they are closest to.
Arguably this can wait until this whole AI thing is under control (if that’s even possible), but few people will want to work on AI safety, so maybe it doesn’t have to wait?
My takeaway has been mostly that I don’t have a clue and so will go with some sort of momentary best guess gives me enough fulfillment, enjoyment, and safety. I’ve written more about it here.
That said, EA has had a great effect on my mental health.
I used to be a crying wreck because of all the suffering in the world. I spread myself thin trying to help everyone. I felt guilty about the majority of terrible things in the world that I was powerless to prevent. (Suicidal too, except that would’ve been self-defeating.)
Then EA came along and gave me an excuse to “pick my battles,” i.e. focus on a few things where I could make a big difference, taking into account my skills and temperament. Now, if someone went, “Hey, you should become a politician to prevent X and Y,” I could go, “No, I wouldn’t be good at that and hate every second of it and it would come at a great cost to A, which I’m already doing.” EA, for the first time, allowed me to set boundaries.
EA also gave me an appreciation for the (perhaps, plausibly, who knows really) great absolute impact that I can have despite the minimal impact that I have (perhaps, plausibly, who knows really) relative to the totality of the suffering in the world. That made it much easier to find fulfillment.
Thanks for writing all of this up in one place!
One of my gripes with the community has long been that maximization is core to EA and we’re still really clueless about what it implies and most of the community (outside RP, QURI, etc. and some researchers) seems to have given up on figuring it out.
I feel like we’re like this one computer science professor I had who seemed a bit senile and only taught the sort of things that haven’t lost relevance in the last 30 years because he hadn’t kept up with anything that happened since the 80s. He probably had good personal and neurological reasons for that, but we don’t, right?
I haven’t read any EA introductory materials in a few years, but I hope they contain articles about expected value maximization along with articles on how EV is usually largely unknowable due to cluelessness and often undefined due to Pasadena games. That stochastic dominance is arguably a much better approach to prioritization but that Christian Tarsney is so far more or less the only one who has bothered to look into it. That there is perhaps a way forward to figure out what’s the best thing to do if we funded some big world-modeling efforts based on software like Squiggle but that hardly anyone outside RP and QURI (and Convergence?) currently bothers to do anything about it. (I’ve dabbled a bit in these fields but my personal fit doesn’t seem to be great.)
Maybe there’s even a way to scalably adjust for personal fit whatever recommendations this big model effort might yield. Maybe there are some common archetypes/personas plus quizzes that tell people which ones they are closest to.
Arguably this can wait until this whole AI thing is under control (if that’s even possible), but few people will want to work on AI safety, so maybe it doesn’t have to wait?
My takeaway has been mostly that I don’t have a clue and so will go with some sort of momentary best guess gives me enough fulfillment, enjoyment, and safety. I’ve written more about it here.
That said, EA has had a great effect on my mental health.
I used to be a crying wreck because of all the suffering in the world. I spread myself thin trying to help everyone. I felt guilty about the majority of terrible things in the world that I was powerless to prevent. (Suicidal too, except that would’ve been self-defeating.)
Then EA came along and gave me an excuse to “pick my battles,” i.e. focus on a few things where I could make a big difference, taking into account my skills and temperament. Now, if someone went, “Hey, you should become a politician to prevent X and Y,” I could go, “No, I wouldn’t be good at that and hate every second of it and it would come at a great cost to A, which I’m already doing.” EA, for the first time, allowed me to set boundaries.
EA also gave me an appreciation for the (perhaps, plausibly, who knows really) great absolute impact that I can have despite the minimal impact that I have (perhaps, plausibly, who knows really) relative to the totality of the suffering in the world. That made it much easier to find fulfillment.