My gut feeling is that, putting to one side the question of which is the most effective strategy for reducing x-risk etc., the ‘narrow EA’ strategy is a mistake because there’s a good chance it is unethical to try to guide society without broader societal participation.
I suppose it depends on how much of an emergency you consider the current situation to be.
If you think it’s truly a dire situation, I expect almost no-one would reason as follows: “Well, we’re insufficiently diverse, it’d be immoral for us to do anything, we should just sit over here and wait for the end of the world”.
I suspect that, at least in these circumstances, a more productive lens is the lens of responsibility, where those who are afforded disproportionate influence are responsible to use it for the good of all and to strive to be conscious of potential blindspots due to selection biases.
Just to clarify, the above paragraphs are an argument against “it is unethical to try to guide society without broader societal participation” rather than an argument for narrow EA. I support the latter as well, but I haven’t made an argument for it here.
Yeah good point! I’m super cautious about this line of reasoning because, given high enough certainty about the seriousness of the situation, it can be used to justify almost anything.
I suppose it depends on how much of an emergency you consider the current situation to be.
If you think it’s truly a dire situation, I expect almost no-one would reason as follows: “Well, we’re insufficiently diverse, it’d be immoral for us to do anything, we should just sit over here and wait for the end of the world”.
I suspect that, at least in these circumstances, a more productive lens is the lens of responsibility, where those who are afforded disproportionate influence are responsible to use it for the good of all and to strive to be conscious of potential blindspots due to selection biases.
Just to clarify, the above paragraphs are an argument against “it is unethical to try to guide society without broader societal participation” rather than an argument for narrow EA. I support the latter as well, but I haven’t made an argument for it here.
Yeah good point! I’m super cautious about this line of reasoning because, given high enough certainty about the seriousness of the situation, it can be used to justify almost anything.