I love all of these decisions and reasoning and think that you should go into this direction even further. I think it might be both cheaper and more effective to mostly abandon EAGs and run smaller, more specialised events instead.
My hypothesis is that people from different cause areas don’t get much out of interacting with each other at EAGs. This hypothesis can be tested with questions on post-EAG surveys. I believe the hypothesis because I just stick to other animal advocates at EAGs since these are the people I have the most productive and work-relevant conversations. I see other animal advocates doing the same.
Currently, I see EAGs as three or four barely related conferences running in the same building at the same time. This has drawbacks. Attendees have to navigate a bigger venue to find talks and 1-1s. More importantly, attendees are less likely to start chats with random strangers or join a random group of people talking because there are fewer common things to talk about. You’re less likely to randomly bump into the people you’d have the most productive conversations with. Or you might bump into them later in the conference which would give you less time to spend with them.
I sometimes do talk with people from other cause areas but it often goes something like this:
“What do you work on?”
“Animals, you?”
“AI”
We might part ways after that, or we might talk about food, how we got into EA, or our jobs.[1] But in whichever case, I’m unlikely to change my mind on something work-relevant or to find a new collaborator in that conversation. While it’s nice to make friends with random people, it’s not a good use of time on a weekend that costs “around $1.5k–2.5k per person.” If all EAG was like that, even providing a guide dog to a blind person for $50k seems like a better use of charity money. So these are not the interactions you want to foster.
I do think that a productive cross-pollination of ideas from different EA cause areas is possible. But smaller events that are dedicated to a specific type of interplay between cause areas might be much better at this. I and the person working on AI mentioned above might find a productive conversation topic much easier at an event like the AI, Animals, and Digital Minds conference because we will be prompted by talks and the theme to think about relevant topics. Although we might also be prompted to have a similar conversation by a talk at an EAG about it.
For other types of cross-pollination, local EA events might be better and cheaper. It’s not like I need a specific AI safety specialist who needs to fly in so I could ask them my beginner questions about AI safety (or debate prioritising animals vs AI). My local EA interested in AI would do. Making local EA friends might also be better because it can be more helpful for sustaining motivation. Also, when I was thinking about switching from animals to AI, I didn’t have time at an EAG to grab a random AI safety person and ask them beginner questions because I was busy meeting animal advocates and they were probably busy too. And I didn’t know which AI safety person to grab.
I think it’s useful to ask “did people from all around the world need to fly for this?” when considering what conversations we want to encourage at global conferences. Examples that satisfy this criterion include (1) people working on similar things in different countries learning from each other, (2) meeting the few other people in the world who work on your niche topic, (3) meeting your colleagues in person. More specialised conferences would likely make all of such conversations easier.
We could also try to find out why we chose to prioritize different cause areas. And the first few such conversations can be very productive but in my experience, most people who have been in EA for a while have had too many such conversations already. I’m open to the possibility that I’m wrong about this but in that case, I’d rather organise separate smaller local events for people who are interested in cause area battles.
I love all of these decisions and reasoning and think that you should go into this direction even further. I think it might be both cheaper and more effective to mostly abandon EAGs and run smaller, more specialised events instead.
My hypothesis is that people from different cause areas don’t get much out of interacting with each other at EAGs. This hypothesis can be tested with questions on post-EAG surveys. I believe the hypothesis because I just stick to other animal advocates at EAGs since these are the people I have the most productive and work-relevant conversations. I see other animal advocates doing the same.
Currently, I see EAGs as three or four barely related conferences running in the same building at the same time. This has drawbacks. Attendees have to navigate a bigger venue to find talks and 1-1s. More importantly, attendees are less likely to start chats with random strangers or join a random group of people talking because there are fewer common things to talk about. You’re less likely to randomly bump into the people you’d have the most productive conversations with. Or you might bump into them later in the conference which would give you less time to spend with them.
I sometimes do talk with people from other cause areas but it often goes something like this:
“What do you work on?”
“Animals, you?”
“AI”
We might part ways after that, or we might talk about food, how we got into EA, or our jobs.[1] But in whichever case, I’m unlikely to change my mind on something work-relevant or to find a new collaborator in that conversation. While it’s nice to make friends with random people, it’s not a good use of time on a weekend that costs “around $1.5k–2.5k per person.” If all EAG was like that, even providing a guide dog to a blind person for $50k seems like a better use of charity money. So these are not the interactions you want to foster.
I do think that a productive cross-pollination of ideas from different EA cause areas is possible. But smaller events that are dedicated to a specific type of interplay between cause areas might be much better at this. I and the person working on AI mentioned above might find a productive conversation topic much easier at an event like the AI, Animals, and Digital Minds conference because we will be prompted by talks and the theme to think about relevant topics. Although we might also be prompted to have a similar conversation by a talk at an EAG about it.
For other types of cross-pollination, local EA events might be better and cheaper. It’s not like I need a specific AI safety specialist who needs to fly in so I could ask them my beginner questions about AI safety (or debate prioritising animals vs AI). My local EA interested in AI would do. Making local EA friends might also be better because it can be more helpful for sustaining motivation. Also, when I was thinking about switching from animals to AI, I didn’t have time at an EAG to grab a random AI safety person and ask them beginner questions because I was busy meeting animal advocates and they were probably busy too. And I didn’t know which AI safety person to grab.
I think it’s useful to ask “did people from all around the world need to fly for this?” when considering what conversations we want to encourage at global conferences. Examples that satisfy this criterion include (1) people working on similar things in different countries learning from each other, (2) meeting the few other people in the world who work on your niche topic, (3) meeting your colleagues in person. More specialised conferences would likely make all of such conversations easier.
We could also try to find out why we chose to prioritize different cause areas. And the first few such conversations can be very productive but in my experience, most people who have been in EA for a while have had too many such conversations already. I’m open to the possibility that I’m wrong about this but in that case, I’d rather organise separate smaller local events for people who are interested in cause area battles.