I haven’t heard about any specific effort by the EA community to create / advise / support this new school.
The worldview that comes across from the school’s website and writing seems more like “scattered list of buzzwords that might appeal to idealistic high-school kids” than the kind of clear thinking and willingness to acknowledge tradeoffs that is a hallmark of EA. They do mention things like the “ethics of AI”, but this seems to be in a context of worries like algorithmic racial bias, rather than anything related to existential risk.
Personally, I think the ESG-like worldview of this new university is pretty uninspiring. However, in general I’m a huge fan of anybody who tries to start new universities and new education models (including things like the libertarian-themes University of Austin, or intensive coding bootcamps like Lambda School / Bloom), since I think the world stands to benefit immensely from more experimentation in the space. So I’d be interested in LIS’s experiments into structuring majors differently (not based on traditional academic fields) and structuring classes / assignments differently.
I am a big fan of the idea of creating an EA-aligned university (or of buying EA influence at an existing prestigious university), but this new program doesn’t seem particularly EA-aligned to me:
I haven’t heard about any specific effort by the EA community to create / advise / support this new school.
The worldview that comes across from the school’s website and writing seems more like “scattered list of buzzwords that might appeal to idealistic high-school kids” than the kind of clear thinking and willingness to acknowledge tradeoffs that is a hallmark of EA. They do mention things like the “ethics of AI”, but this seems to be in a context of worries like algorithmic racial bias, rather than anything related to existential risk.
Causes like climate change and poverty are mentioned, but only as part of a long litany including also “obesity, mental health, ethical nature of supply chains, ethics of fashion and how clothes are sourced...” I think it would be fairer to say that the London Interdisciplinary School might be the first ESG-aligned university!
Personally, I think the ESG-like worldview of this new university is pretty uninspiring. However, in general I’m a huge fan of anybody who tries to start new universities and new education models (including things like the libertarian-themes University of Austin, or intensive coding bootcamps like Lambda School / Bloom), since I think the world stands to benefit immensely from more experimentation in the space. So I’d be interested in LIS’s experiments into structuring majors differently (not based on traditional academic fields) and structuring classes / assignments differently.