Pre-Warning: Please don’t read any of this as a criticism of those people who fit into the super-intelligent, hard degrees at Oxford etc. If you’re that person, you’re awesome, not critical of you, and this comment is directed at exploring the strengths of other paths :)
Tl;dr at bottom of post for the time-constrained :)
This was a really interesting post to read. I wrote a slightly controversial piece a little while back that highlighted that ‘top’ Universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford have a lot of class and wealth restrictions so that instead of marketing to the ‘most intelligent’ in society, EA was frequently marketing to the ‘intelligent, but wealthy’ instead—and missing out most of the intelligent but economically stranded people who went to universities lower down on the rankings because it made more financial sense. It ended up spreading on Twitter a bit. Most people were interested and engaged, one or two got a bit angry (largely by misinterpreting what I said but that’s likely on me as the writer, hence the pre-warning), that’s life. But I would like to highlight that to you—I know a ton of really, really intelligent people who went to average universities. In fact of the five smartest and most impactful people I know, only 1 went to an elite-tier uni. So don’t feel bad for going to a ‘normal’ uni. Loads of us did. And we’re doing great.
As for being smart, I think it’s easy to forget that science, law, engineering etc aren’t just labwork/fieldwork. I’ve seen loads of people who are fantastic in labs and in research who produce really excellent research which doesn’t go anywhere. Why? Because that’s stage 1. Research results need highlighted, need shown to people who can take action, and need put into practice in order to be impactful. This can sometimes happen by accident, but science communications (and communications in general) are actually really complex. In short, a lot of the time these ‘super intelligent’ people you’re intimidated by are actually like Narrow AI—fantastic at one thing, but fall apart elsewhere. This is why research frequently requires teams. Chances are by virtue of your own life path you might be fantastic at helping these researchers translate their research to be understood, and maybe great at getting it to where it needs to be. Research is a long process.
An advantage you have of your ‘normal’ life is that you will have learned a lot of skills others might not have. This isn’t dunking on people from other walks of life—they are as blameless for their life lottery as we are, but what I’m saying is that each person’s journey has taught them different skills.
An example from my own story entering EA is that I used to feel similar to you. I grew up on council estates to a completely non-academic family, many of my immediate family went into petty crime, and when I entered academia I felt like an outsider. I actually only started uni at 24 years old because I always felt that uni wasn’t for people like me—until I got a menial job in a STEM field and the scientists there told me otherwise. I actually met my EA group co-founder here and he was the same as me, both of us with very visible tattoos and strong regional accents standing out quite a bit among our peers. Often treated as stupid, or lesser, via a lot of (what is now called) microaggressions. Lots of doors slammed in faces. This was sometimes the same feeling in EA, but to a much lesser extent since the community is very welcoming. Seriously, the community here is lovely and all of the social/class barriers it faces are accidental and they try really hard to correct them. At least in my experience. But humans gonna hume.
When I notice the difference of background personally is in little things like spending money. In my EA group I’ll negotiate almost every transaction to scrape (sometimes literally) pennies in savings because that’s how I grew up, whereas I’ve noticed that a lot of the time other EA group leaders will just pay full price for stuff. That always blows me away. Like they’ll contact a company, ask for a price, then just…pay it. That brings tears to my eyes! But a lot of people have lived their whole life not having to scrape pennies so they don’t even know it’s possible to do this. So this odd little thing in my past that makes me different to a lot of EAs I meet actually helps the EA community by saving money for redeployment. I found a way to make my difference/insecurity my strength.
As an example I just got £800 in funding to buy 40 things at £20 each for my group, but instead of ordering online I contacted the company and negotiated a bulk order discount with their sales department, which meant that some money could go back to EA and be better deployed elsewhere. It’s a small example, but it shows that nothing occurs in isolation and there are a lot of valuable skills in EA. I often joke that EA funds could triple their impact by forgetting financial advisors and putting someone on Universal Credit in charge of their money! Emphasis on joke :) But it shows that just because you’re not in the position or desire to be applying to research fellowships that EA isn’t for you. You might be a wizard at events organising, grant applications, etc.
Another thing you need to bear in mind, which links back to what I said about teams, is that a lot of this debate/research on forums is both hyper-specialised and theoretical. You’re not going to understand an extremely niche computer science conversation, or ethics conversation, and it’s unlikely that anyone on the forums understands everything. This is not your fault, and it’s actually one of EA communities other (very few) flaws. Their public comms is pretty bad. They have real difficulties interpreting their ideas, theories, and research into something that is understandable and digestible. EA orgs are generally much better at it than forum posters, but it’s still an issue. That’s not on you, that’s a research skill that’s learned over time but that people in very theoretical and isolated environments tend not to learn it. I actually worked as a science communicator once where my job was to translate STEM research into something the public could understand. It’s harder than you think, and something I think should be offered as a training course to EA researchers and groups. Good idea for any EA course-makers out there!
Granted, as you said sometimes these debates need complexity because the ideas are complex. That’s fair, and often very necessary. But if you don’t understand a post directed at the whole community it’s not because you’re dumb, it’s because the poster doesn’t understand how to present research to an interdisciplinary audience. I was the same until I worked that job, and even now I work in the legal field surrounding AI so I constantly struggle to explain law concepts to software engineers and software engineering concepts to lawyers. It’s tough, and to be honest I struggle to understand really complex ideas from both sometimes. At least once a week I send a STEM or law paper to a colleague and ask them to explain it like I’m a 5 year old. There’s no shame in it, because they do the same to me!
As a final reminder—though 99% of the EA community are great, there are inevitably (like in all human communities) that 1% who think they are far more intelligent than average, and wondergods in their field, and that EA is for people like them and not their underlings. I haven’t met one in real-life yet, but I’ve seen one or two in comments sections over the years. Bear in mind that 1) They’re often very wrong about that and lack self-awareness, and 2) I currently cooperate with a lot of government bodies in deciding policy relating to AI and those types of people have their research cast aside a lot of the time due to a lack of social skills, a misunderstanding of policy norms, and a lack of experience outside of their field. If you ever bump into someone like that, who tells you that their impact is greater than yours, don’t listen. Because they’re probably in for a big shock when they find out how much teamwork is required to reach the impact finish line and how hard it is to build a team with that attitude!
On that note, don’t put yourself down as a sociologist. I just co-published a paper in the AI field and 2 of the authors are sociologists. Sociology is vital in areas such as governance and policy across AI, animal welfare, poverty, etc. Don’t put your field down because it doesn’t have graphs and algebra. Your field is what turns those things into actual, measurable actions that can work. There’s also no such thing as an ‘easy’ degree.
TL;DR
You’re not dumb at all, sometimes EA is just poor at public/interdisciplinary communication both externally and internally. Additionally, social barriers which EA struggles with sometimes can cause accidental alienation but rest assured you’re not alone, in fact everyone in this community probably feels like that sometimes. We deal with extremely difficult concepts across literally dozens of disciplines in areas of knowledge we’re only beginning to explore. Anyone who is thinking ‘wtf is going on’ at least once or twice a day isn’t paying attention. You’ll meet the odd person who likes to show how much smarter they are than everyone else, but no-one wants to work with them and their careers end up dying.
Please feel free, and this counts for anyone reading this as well as OP, to reach out to me on the forums or via email if you ever feel like this. I’m always happy to chat with other EA members, as someone who has faced these feelings before, and will happily do what I can to open doors for you. :)
Thank you so much for this comment! The points you made about the community needing different types of skills is great and I totally agree...your comment (and lots of others) has definitely helped open my mind up and think a bit more about ways in which I could be useful here...even if it’s outside the traditional view I had of what an EA is...so thank you for that!!
Pre-Warning: Please don’t read any of this as a criticism of those people who fit into the super-intelligent, hard degrees at Oxford etc. If you’re that person, you’re awesome, not critical of you, and this comment is directed at exploring the strengths of other paths :)
Tl;dr at bottom of post for the time-constrained :)
This was a really interesting post to read. I wrote a slightly controversial piece a little while back that highlighted that ‘top’ Universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford have a lot of class and wealth restrictions so that instead of marketing to the ‘most intelligent’ in society, EA was frequently marketing to the ‘intelligent, but wealthy’ instead—and missing out most of the intelligent but economically stranded people who went to universities lower down on the rankings because it made more financial sense. It ended up spreading on Twitter a bit. Most people were interested and engaged, one or two got a bit angry (largely by misinterpreting what I said but that’s likely on me as the writer, hence the pre-warning), that’s life. But I would like to highlight that to you—I know a ton of really, really intelligent people who went to average universities. In fact of the five smartest and most impactful people I know, only 1 went to an elite-tier uni. So don’t feel bad for going to a ‘normal’ uni. Loads of us did. And we’re doing great.
As for being smart, I think it’s easy to forget that science, law, engineering etc aren’t just labwork/fieldwork. I’ve seen loads of people who are fantastic in labs and in research who produce really excellent research which doesn’t go anywhere. Why? Because that’s stage 1. Research results need highlighted, need shown to people who can take action, and need put into practice in order to be impactful. This can sometimes happen by accident, but science communications (and communications in general) are actually really complex. In short, a lot of the time these ‘super intelligent’ people you’re intimidated by are actually like Narrow AI—fantastic at one thing, but fall apart elsewhere. This is why research frequently requires teams. Chances are by virtue of your own life path you might be fantastic at helping these researchers translate their research to be understood, and maybe great at getting it to where it needs to be. Research is a long process.
An advantage you have of your ‘normal’ life is that you will have learned a lot of skills others might not have. This isn’t dunking on people from other walks of life—they are as blameless for their life lottery as we are, but what I’m saying is that each person’s journey has taught them different skills.
An example from my own story entering EA is that I used to feel similar to you. I grew up on council estates to a completely non-academic family, many of my immediate family went into petty crime, and when I entered academia I felt like an outsider. I actually only started uni at 24 years old because I always felt that uni wasn’t for people like me—until I got a menial job in a STEM field and the scientists there told me otherwise. I actually met my EA group co-founder here and he was the same as me, both of us with very visible tattoos and strong regional accents standing out quite a bit among our peers. Often treated as stupid, or lesser, via a lot of (what is now called) microaggressions. Lots of doors slammed in faces. This was sometimes the same feeling in EA, but to a much lesser extent since the community is very welcoming. Seriously, the community here is lovely and all of the social/class barriers it faces are accidental and they try really hard to correct them. At least in my experience. But humans gonna hume.
When I notice the difference of background personally is in little things like spending money. In my EA group I’ll negotiate almost every transaction to scrape (sometimes literally) pennies in savings because that’s how I grew up, whereas I’ve noticed that a lot of the time other EA group leaders will just pay full price for stuff. That always blows me away. Like they’ll contact a company, ask for a price, then just…pay it. That brings tears to my eyes! But a lot of people have lived their whole life not having to scrape pennies so they don’t even know it’s possible to do this. So this odd little thing in my past that makes me different to a lot of EAs I meet actually helps the EA community by saving money for redeployment. I found a way to make my difference/insecurity my strength.
As an example I just got £800 in funding to buy 40 things at £20 each for my group, but instead of ordering online I contacted the company and negotiated a bulk order discount with their sales department, which meant that some money could go back to EA and be better deployed elsewhere. It’s a small example, but it shows that nothing occurs in isolation and there are a lot of valuable skills in EA. I often joke that EA funds could triple their impact by forgetting financial advisors and putting someone on Universal Credit in charge of their money! Emphasis on joke :) But it shows that just because you’re not in the position or desire to be applying to research fellowships that EA isn’t for you. You might be a wizard at events organising, grant applications, etc.
Another thing you need to bear in mind, which links back to what I said about teams, is that a lot of this debate/research on forums is both hyper-specialised and theoretical. You’re not going to understand an extremely niche computer science conversation, or ethics conversation, and it’s unlikely that anyone on the forums understands everything. This is not your fault, and it’s actually one of EA communities other (very few) flaws. Their public comms is pretty bad. They have real difficulties interpreting their ideas, theories, and research into something that is understandable and digestible. EA orgs are generally much better at it than forum posters, but it’s still an issue. That’s not on you, that’s a research skill that’s learned over time but that people in very theoretical and isolated environments tend not to learn it. I actually worked as a science communicator once where my job was to translate STEM research into something the public could understand. It’s harder than you think, and something I think should be offered as a training course to EA researchers and groups. Good idea for any EA course-makers out there!
Granted, as you said sometimes these debates need complexity because the ideas are complex. That’s fair, and often very necessary. But if you don’t understand a post directed at the whole community it’s not because you’re dumb, it’s because the poster doesn’t understand how to present research to an interdisciplinary audience. I was the same until I worked that job, and even now I work in the legal field surrounding AI so I constantly struggle to explain law concepts to software engineers and software engineering concepts to lawyers. It’s tough, and to be honest I struggle to understand really complex ideas from both sometimes. At least once a week I send a STEM or law paper to a colleague and ask them to explain it like I’m a 5 year old. There’s no shame in it, because they do the same to me!
As a final reminder—though 99% of the EA community are great, there are inevitably (like in all human communities) that 1% who think they are far more intelligent than average, and wondergods in their field, and that EA is for people like them and not their underlings. I haven’t met one in real-life yet, but I’ve seen one or two in comments sections over the years. Bear in mind that 1) They’re often very wrong about that and lack self-awareness, and 2) I currently cooperate with a lot of government bodies in deciding policy relating to AI and those types of people have their research cast aside a lot of the time due to a lack of social skills, a misunderstanding of policy norms, and a lack of experience outside of their field. If you ever bump into someone like that, who tells you that their impact is greater than yours, don’t listen. Because they’re probably in for a big shock when they find out how much teamwork is required to reach the impact finish line and how hard it is to build a team with that attitude!
On that note, don’t put yourself down as a sociologist. I just co-published a paper in the AI field and 2 of the authors are sociologists. Sociology is vital in areas such as governance and policy across AI, animal welfare, poverty, etc. Don’t put your field down because it doesn’t have graphs and algebra. Your field is what turns those things into actual, measurable actions that can work. There’s also no such thing as an ‘easy’ degree.
TL;DR
You’re not dumb at all, sometimes EA is just poor at public/interdisciplinary communication both externally and internally. Additionally, social barriers which EA struggles with sometimes can cause accidental alienation but rest assured you’re not alone, in fact everyone in this community probably feels like that sometimes. We deal with extremely difficult concepts across literally dozens of disciplines in areas of knowledge we’re only beginning to explore. Anyone who is thinking ‘wtf is going on’ at least once or twice a day isn’t paying attention. You’ll meet the odd person who likes to show how much smarter they are than everyone else, but no-one wants to work with them and their careers end up dying.
Please feel free, and this counts for anyone reading this as well as OP, to reach out to me on the forums or via email if you ever feel like this. I’m always happy to chat with other EA members, as someone who has faced these feelings before, and will happily do what I can to open doors for you. :)
Thank you so much for this comment! The points you made about the community needing different types of skills is great and I totally agree...your comment (and lots of others) has definitely helped open my mind up and think a bit more about ways in which I could be useful here...even if it’s outside the traditional view I had of what an EA is...so thank you for that!!