The claim you’re defending is that the Bay is an outlier in terms of the percentage of people who think AI is the top priority. But what the paragraph I quoted says is ‘favoring a cause area outlier’ - so ‘outlier’ is picking out AI amongst causes people think are important. Saying that the Bay favours AI which is an outlier amongst causes people favour is a stronger claim than saying that the Bay is an outlier in how much it favours AI. The data seems to support the latter but not the former.
Hey Michelle, I authored that particular part and I think what you’ve said is a fair point. As you said, the point was to identify the Bay as an outlier in terms of the amount of support for AI, not declare AI as an outlier as a cause area.
The article in general seems to put quite a bit of emphasis on the fact that poverty came out as the most favoured cause.
I don’t know that this is necessarily true beyond reporting what is actually there. When poverty is favored by more than double the number of people who favor the next most popular cause area (graph #1), favored by more people than a handful of other causes combined, and disliked the least, those facts need to be put into perspective.
If anything, I’d say we put a fair amount of emphasis on how EAs are coming around on AI, and how resistance toward putting resources toward AI has dropped significantly.
We could speculate about how future-oriented certain cause areas may be, and how to aggregate or disaggregate them in future surveys. We’ve made a note to consider that for 2018.
I don’t know that this is necessarily true beyond reporting what is actually there. When poverty is favored by more than double the number of people who favor the next most popular cause area (graph #1), favored by more people than a handful of other causes combined, and disliked the least, those facts need to be put into perspective.
I agree—my comment was in the context of the false graph; given the true one, the emphasis on poverty seems warranted.
Thanks for clarifying.
The claim you’re defending is that the Bay is an outlier in terms of the percentage of people who think AI is the top priority. But what the paragraph I quoted says is ‘favoring a cause area outlier’ - so ‘outlier’ is picking out AI amongst causes people think are important. Saying that the Bay favours AI which is an outlier amongst causes people favour is a stronger claim than saying that the Bay is an outlier in how much it favours AI. The data seems to support the latter but not the former.
I’ve also updated the relevant passage to reflect the Bay Area as an outlier in terms of support for AI, not AI an outlier as a cause area
Hey Michelle, I authored that particular part and I think what you’ve said is a fair point. As you said, the point was to identify the Bay as an outlier in terms of the amount of support for AI, not declare AI as an outlier as a cause area.
I don’t know that this is necessarily true beyond reporting what is actually there. When poverty is favored by more than double the number of people who favor the next most popular cause area (graph #1), favored by more people than a handful of other causes combined, and disliked the least, those facts need to be put into perspective.
If anything, I’d say we put a fair amount of emphasis on how EAs are coming around on AI, and how resistance toward putting resources toward AI has dropped significantly.
We could speculate about how future-oriented certain cause areas may be, and how to aggregate or disaggregate them in future surveys. We’ve made a note to consider that for 2018.
Thanks Tee.
I agree—my comment was in the context of the false graph; given the true one, the emphasis on poverty seems warranted.