I’m not excited about the astronomical waste theory as part of introductory longtermist content. I think much smaller/more conservative get exactly the same point across without causing as many people to judge the content as hyperbolic/trying to pull one over on them.
That said, I was impressed by the quality level of the video, and the level of engagement you’ve achieved already! If every EA-related video or channel had to be perfect right away, no one would ever produce videos, and that’s much worse than having channels that are trying to produce good content and seeking feedback as they go.
*****
One really easy win for videos like this: I counted 12 distinct characters (not counting Bostrom, Ord, or the monk character who shows up in several videos). All of them were animated in the style I think of as “white by default”, including the citizens of 10,000 BC (which may predate white skin entirely).
This isn’t some kind of horrible mistake, but it seems suboptimal for trying to reach a broad audience (which I figure is a big reason to make animated video content vs. other types of content).
My favorite example of effortless diversity (color, age, gender, etc.) in rationalist-adjacent cartoon sci-fi is Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
I don’t really get this feedback. Does reality say that people are actually more negative about Longtermism if it is introduced in this way? I’m a big fan of technological advancement and I expect my audience to be sort of similar. Also, what about engagement? I’m ok getting more criticism if it means more engagement (provided correctness of the content, and still all within reason). Does this make sense? In a previous version of the script there were also emulations in the mix! My experience says that on YT you ought to optimize for being the least boring you can be (in a good way, without causing drama etc.), not the opposite (without sacrificing correctness etc etc). And also enhance your personality BIG TIME, not suppress it. I think, in general, it is emerging that there are two goals here that are more or less in conflict: safety and engagement (safety and capability? :O). I need to take time to think how to actually blend them.
Yes, Animator has already taken note from previous feedback, and she is integrating it in the new animations. Same for gender parity (although you’ll probably see that later).
I’m running off of my own experience here (talking about longtermism with many dozens of people), rather than survey data. In that experience, I’ve seen most people round off “one second saves billions of lives” to “okay, I acknowledge that given these assumptions it’s important to advance technology and reduce risk”. But a few people seem to be (mentally) rolling their eyes a bit, or finding that the gigantic number of zeroes to be a bit absurd.
I think discussions of those numbers will eventually come up if people are serious about exploring the topic, but for first-time exposure, my impression is that people care more about getting a general sense of what’s at stake (“if humanity goes to the stars, there could be trillions of us, living happily for thousands of generations”) than getting the exact EV of X-risk work based on the size of the Virgo Supercluster.
Put another way: If the choice is between “you can enable a flourishing life in expectation for one one-trillionth of a penny” and “you can enable a flourishing life in expectation for a few cents”, and the latter argument seems less suspicious to enough people that it’s 10% more convincing overall, I’d favor that argument. It’s hard for me to picture someone being compelled by the first and not the second.
Though “it’s hard for me to picture” definitely doesn’t mean those people don’t exist. I’m just not sure I’ve met them.
Emulations actually seem like a good addition under this paradigm — they’re a neat way of indicating that the future will be good in strange ways the viewer hasn’t considered, and they give me a “space utopia” feel that long strings of zeroes don’t.
I agree that you want to not be boring, and you want to be personable. My issue is that I think that many people find gigantic numbers to be kind of boring, compared to more vivid explanations of what the future could look like. Scope insensitivity is a real thing.
Of course, this video has some good space utopia imagery and is generally solid on that front. I just found the astronomical waste calculations and “definition of expected value” to be slower parts of the video, while I think something like Will MacAskill’s charts of the human future might have been more engaging (e.g. his cartoon representation of how many people have lived so far vs. might live in the future, or the timeline passing through “everyone is well-off” and “entirely new form of art?”
To sum it up, I’m critiquing this small section of an (overall quite good) video based on my guess that it wasn’t great for engagement (compared to other options*), rather than because I think it was unreasonable. The “not great for engagement” is some combination of “people sometimes think gigantic numbers are sketchy” and “people sometimes think gigantic numbers are boring”, alongside “more conservative numbers make your point just as well”.
*Of course, this is easy for me to say as a random critic and not the person who had to write a script about a fairly technical paper!
I’m not excited about the astronomical waste theory as part of introductory longtermist content. I think much smaller/more conservative get exactly the same point across without causing as many people to judge the content as hyperbolic/trying to pull one over on them.
That said, I was impressed by the quality level of the video, and the level of engagement you’ve achieved already! If every EA-related video or channel had to be perfect right away, no one would ever produce videos, and that’s much worse than having channels that are trying to produce good content and seeking feedback as they go.
*****
One really easy win for videos like this: I counted 12 distinct characters (not counting Bostrom, Ord, or the monk character who shows up in several videos). All of them were animated in the style I think of as “white by default”, including the citizens of 10,000 BC (which may predate white skin entirely).
This isn’t some kind of horrible mistake, but it seems suboptimal for trying to reach a broad audience (which I figure is a big reason to make animated video content vs. other types of content).
My favorite example of effortless diversity (color, age, gender, etc.) in rationalist-adjacent cartoon sci-fi is Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
I don’t really get this feedback. Does reality say that people are actually more negative about Longtermism if it is introduced in this way? I’m a big fan of technological advancement and I expect my audience to be sort of similar. Also, what about engagement? I’m ok getting more criticism if it means more engagement (provided correctness of the content, and still all within reason). Does this make sense? In a previous version of the script there were also emulations in the mix! My experience says that on YT you ought to optimize for being the least boring you can be (in a good way, without causing drama etc.), not the opposite (without sacrificing correctness etc etc). And also enhance your personality BIG TIME, not suppress it. I think, in general, it is emerging that there are two goals here that are more or less in conflict: safety and engagement (safety and capability? :O). I need to take time to think how to actually blend them.
Yes, Animator has already taken note from previous feedback, and she is integrating it in the new animations. Same for gender parity (although you’ll probably see that later).
On (1), all fair questions.
I’m running off of my own experience here (talking about longtermism with many dozens of people), rather than survey data. In that experience, I’ve seen most people round off “one second saves billions of lives” to “okay, I acknowledge that given these assumptions it’s important to advance technology and reduce risk”. But a few people seem to be (mentally) rolling their eyes a bit, or finding that the gigantic number of zeroes to be a bit absurd.
I think discussions of those numbers will eventually come up if people are serious about exploring the topic, but for first-time exposure, my impression is that people care more about getting a general sense of what’s at stake (“if humanity goes to the stars, there could be trillions of us, living happily for thousands of generations”) than getting the exact EV of X-risk work based on the size of the Virgo Supercluster.
Put another way: If the choice is between “you can enable a flourishing life in expectation for one one-trillionth of a penny” and “you can enable a flourishing life in expectation for a few cents”, and the latter argument seems less suspicious to enough people that it’s 10% more convincing overall, I’d favor that argument. It’s hard for me to picture someone being compelled by the first and not the second.
Though “it’s hard for me to picture” definitely doesn’t mean those people don’t exist. I’m just not sure I’ve met them.
Emulations actually seem like a good addition under this paradigm — they’re a neat way of indicating that the future will be good in strange ways the viewer hasn’t considered, and they give me a “space utopia” feel that long strings of zeroes don’t.
I agree that you want to not be boring, and you want to be personable. My issue is that I think that many people find gigantic numbers to be kind of boring, compared to more vivid explanations of what the future could look like. Scope insensitivity is a real thing.
Of course, this video has some good space utopia imagery and is generally solid on that front. I just found the astronomical waste calculations and “definition of expected value” to be slower parts of the video, while I think something like Will MacAskill’s charts of the human future might have been more engaging (e.g. his cartoon representation of how many people have lived so far vs. might live in the future, or the timeline passing through “everyone is well-off” and “entirely new form of art?”
To sum it up, I’m critiquing this small section of an (overall quite good) video based on my guess that it wasn’t great for engagement (compared to other options*), rather than because I think it was unreasonable. The “not great for engagement” is some combination of “people sometimes think gigantic numbers are sketchy” and “people sometimes think gigantic numbers are boring”, alongside “more conservative numbers make your point just as well”.
*Of course, this is easy for me to say as a random critic and not the person who had to write a script about a fairly technical paper!