Thank you for posting this! Iāve been frustrated with the EA movementās cautiousness around media outreach for a while. I think that the overwhelmingly negative press coverage in recent weeks can be attributed in part to us not doing enough media outreach prior to the FTX collapse. And it was pointed out back in July that the top Google Search result for ālongtermismā was a Torres hit piece.
I understand and agree with the view that media outreach should be done by specialistsāideally, people who deeply understand EA and know how to talk to the media. But Will MacAskill and Toby Ord arenāt the only people with those qualifications! Thereās no reason they need to be the public face of all of EAāthey represent one faction out of at least three. EA is a general concept thatās compatible with a range of moral and empirical worldviewsāwe should be showcasing that epistemic diversity, and one way to do that is by empowering an ideologically diverse group of public figures and media specialists to speak on the movementās behalf. It would be harder for people to criticize EA as a concept if they knew how broad it was.
Perhaps more EA orgsālike GiveWell, ACE, and FHIāshould have their own publicity arms that operate independently of CEA and promote their views to the public, instead of expecting CEA or a handful of public figures like MacAskill to do the heavy lifting.
Perhaps more EA orgsālike GiveWell, ACE, and FHIāshould have their own publicity arms that operate independently of CEA
I think GiveWell (at least, and maybe ACE too) is already very independent of CEA. The fact that they also havenāt done mass media outreach is probably a result of an independent assessment that it isnāt particularly in their interests to do so. They do have significant marketing and media outreach, e.g. Iāve seen YouTube sponsorships, and I know theyāre on podcasts sometimes, so I feel safe guessing that media exposure they havenāt had is because they havenāt pursued it rather than because they donāt have the expertise to do so.
Thereās an unfortunate dynamic which has occurred around discussions of longtermism outside EA. Within EA, we have a debate about whether itās better to donate to nearterm vs longterm charities. A lot of critical outsider discussion on longtermism ends up taking the nearterm side of our internal debate: āThose terrible longtermists want you to fund speculative Silicon Valley projects instead of giving to the worldās poorest!ā
But for people outside EA, nearterm charity vs longterm charity is generally the wrong counterfactual. Most people outside EA donāt give 10% of their earnings to any effective charity. Most AI work outside EA is focused on making money or producing ācoolā results, not mitigating disaster or planning for the long-term benefit of humanity.
Practically all EAs agree people should give 10% of their earnings to effective developing-world charities instead of 1% to ineffective developed-world ones. And practically all EAs agree that AI development should be done with significantly more thought and care. (I think even Ćmile Torres may agree on that! Could someone ask?)
Itās unfortunate that the internal nearterm vs longterm debate gets so much coverage, given that what we agree on is way more action-relevant to outsiders.
In any case, I mention this because it could play into your āideologically diverse group of public figuresā point somehow. Your idea seems interesting, but I also donāt like the idea of amplifying internal debates further. I would love to see public statements like āEven though I have cause prioritization disagreements with Person X, yāall should really do as they suggest!ā And acquiring a norm of using the media to gain leverage in internal debates seems pretty bad.
Yeah, itās the narcissism of small differences. If weāre gonna emphasize our diversity more, we should also emphasize our unity. The narrative could be āEA is a framework for how to apply morality, and itās compatible with several moral systems.ā
Perhaps more EA orgsālike GiveWell, ACE, and FHIāshould have their own publicity arms that operate independently of CEA and promote their views to the public, instead of expecting CEA or a handful of public figures like MacAskill to do the heavy lifting.
More spending and effort placed into publicity arms makes sense. Less cohesion and coordination is a hard sell though, thatās more points of failure at best, and at worst risks exploitation/āplaying both sides by clever outsiders, or inter-org conflict/āretaliation that is triggered by accident instead of deliberately.
There needs to at least be an apparatus for negotiation.
Thank you for posting this! Iāve been frustrated with the EA movementās cautiousness around media outreach for a while. I think that the overwhelmingly negative press coverage in recent weeks can be attributed in part to us not doing enough media outreach prior to the FTX collapse. And it was pointed out back in July that the top Google Search result for ālongtermismā was a Torres hit piece.
I understand and agree with the view that media outreach should be done by specialistsāideally, people who deeply understand EA and know how to talk to the media. But Will MacAskill and Toby Ord arenāt the only people with those qualifications! Thereās no reason they need to be the public face of all of EAāthey represent one faction out of at least three. EA is a general concept thatās compatible with a range of moral and empirical worldviewsāwe should be showcasing that epistemic diversity, and one way to do that is by empowering an ideologically diverse group of public figures and media specialists to speak on the movementās behalf. It would be harder for people to criticize EA as a concept if they knew how broad it was.
Perhaps more EA orgsālike GiveWell, ACE, and FHIāshould have their own publicity arms that operate independently of CEA and promote their views to the public, instead of expecting CEA or a handful of public figures like MacAskill to do the heavy lifting.
I think GiveWell (at least, and maybe ACE too) is already very independent of CEA. The fact that they also havenāt done mass media outreach is probably a result of an independent assessment that it isnāt particularly in their interests to do so. They do have significant marketing and media outreach, e.g. Iāve seen YouTube sponsorships, and I know theyāre on podcasts sometimes, so I feel safe guessing that media exposure they havenāt had is because they havenāt pursued it rather than because they donāt have the expertise to do so.
Great points.
Thereās an unfortunate dynamic which has occurred around discussions of longtermism outside EA. Within EA, we have a debate about whether itās better to donate to nearterm vs longterm charities. A lot of critical outsider discussion on longtermism ends up taking the nearterm side of our internal debate: āThose terrible longtermists want you to fund speculative Silicon Valley projects instead of giving to the worldās poorest!ā
But for people outside EA, nearterm charity vs longterm charity is generally the wrong counterfactual. Most people outside EA donāt give 10% of their earnings to any effective charity. Most AI work outside EA is focused on making money or producing ācoolā results, not mitigating disaster or planning for the long-term benefit of humanity.
Practically all EAs agree people should give 10% of their earnings to effective developing-world charities instead of 1% to ineffective developed-world ones. And practically all EAs agree that AI development should be done with significantly more thought and care. (I think even Ćmile Torres may agree on that! Could someone ask?)
Itās unfortunate that the internal nearterm vs longterm debate gets so much coverage, given that what we agree on is way more action-relevant to outsiders.
In any case, I mention this because it could play into your āideologically diverse group of public figuresā point somehow. Your idea seems interesting, but I also donāt like the idea of amplifying internal debates further. I would love to see public statements like āEven though I have cause prioritization disagreements with Person X, yāall should really do as they suggest!ā And acquiring a norm of using the media to gain leverage in internal debates seems pretty bad.
Yeah, itās the narcissism of small differences. If weāre gonna emphasize our diversity more, we should also emphasize our unity. The narrative could be āEA is a framework for how to apply morality, and itās compatible with several moral systems.ā
More spending and effort placed into publicity arms makes sense. Less cohesion and coordination is a hard sell though, thatās more points of failure at best, and at worst risks exploitation/āplaying both sides by clever outsiders, or inter-org conflict/āretaliation that is triggered by accident instead of deliberately.
There needs to at least be an apparatus for negotiation.