Thanks for the question. Climate change is a contributor to existential risk. Changing what business schools teach (specifically to include sustainability) might change the behaviour of the next generation of business leaders.
This seems like a very long expected causal chain, and therefore—unless each link is specifically supported by evidence—unlikely to produce much effect compared to other approaches. It seems to assume:
1) Climate change is a relatively large x-risk factor (I interpreted the presentation I saw of your forthcoming article as claiming that “climate change is a non-negligible risk factor, but not a relatively large one”).
2) Improving sustainability of businesses and business leaders is a relatively effective way of addressing climate change (possibly, but there are many alternatives)
3) Increasing the amount of sustainability in business school programs will improve the sustainability of business and business leaders (There seem more direct ways of influencing business leaders; Examples: what about corporate campaigns but focused on sustainability? What about carbon taxes?)
4) Affecting business rankings will affect the curriculum (Yes, this seems to happen)
It might be the case that this was an opportunity that passed by Ellen Quiqley and was low-effort to give input on. But I’m afraid this was not a great use of time, and furthermore I’m afraid this validates the—for lack of a better term—“good-by-association fallacy”:
Cause Y is important.
Intervention A addresses cause Y.
Therefore, intervention A is a good use of resources.
I think this fallacy is a harmful meme that poses a risk to the EA and x-risk brand, because it’s very bad prioritization.
Thank you. Some specific info: Ellen Quigley joined as (part)-salaried at CSER in January 2019 (previously she was an external collaborator). The report was published in January 2019. It was conducted and mostly completed as part of a Judge Business School project in 2018. I was happy for CSER to co-brand as (a) it’s a good piece of work (b) being published by someone on staff (and where others provided some previous input) with (c) a well-thought out strategic aim, with good reasons to think it would be effective and timely in its aims from people with a lot of expertise in the topic (d) on a topic within our remit (climate/sustainability) and (e) offered various potential networking and reputational opportunities.
Since the report launch, Ellen has focused on other projects—the report has high value (by usual postdoctoral project standards) followup opportunities, but there are other projects of higher priority from a GCR/Xrisk perspective. Our current thinking is that if non-fungible-for Xrisk funding becomes available, Ellen may supervise a postdoc/research assistant in designing/actioning followups. Ellen has also accepted a more direct action-focused part-appointment (advising on the university of cambridge’s investment and shareholder engagement strategy around climate change (https://www.staff.admin.cam.ac.uk/general-news/two-environmental-appointments-at-the-university) so her research time is more limited.
More broadly, there are a lot of reasons why centres will sometimes engage in projects with indirect impacts or longer causal chains that don’t boil down to ‘failure to understand basic prioritisation for impact’. These include: 1) good intellectual or evidence-based reasons to have confidence that indirect approaches/longer causal chain-based approaches are likely to be effective, either in of themselves or as part of a suite of activities. (2) Value of these projects in establishing strong networks and credibility with bodies likely to be relevant for broader Xrisk mitigation (3) developing the ability and skillset to engage with the machinery of the world in different regards.
It will sometimes be affected by external constraints (e.g. funding stipulations—not every organisation has full funding from fully xrisk-aligned funders—or need for researchers to establish/maintain reputation and credibility in their ‘home domains’ in order to remain effective in the roles they play in Xrisk research). This is likely particularly true in academic institutions.
I would expect that with most xrisk organisations, particularly those with an active engagement with other research communities, policy bodies etc, there will be a suite of outputs where some are very obviously and directly relevant to xrisk, and where others are less direct or obvious but have good reason within an overall suite of activities.
My apologies in advance that I don’t have time to engage further due to other deadlines.
Thanks for the elaborate response Seán. It’s valuable for the EA community to understand the internal considerations of x-risk organization, and I don’t want to disincentivize organisations from publishing updates like these on the forum.
Just to be clear: I was not accusing CSER of ‘failure to understand basic prioritisation for impact’. I meant to say that it’s hard for outsiders to evaluate the reasons why an organisation chooses to pursue a certain project. When pure/direct x-risk related projects are reported together with these indirect projects, that can reinforce the ‘good-by-association fallacy’ in the outsiders.
I would expect that with most xrisk organisations, particularly those with an active engagement with other research communities, policy bodies etc, there will be a suite of outputs where some are very obviously and directly relevant to xrisk, and where others are less direct or obvious but have good reason within an overall suite of activities.
I think you’re right about that, although this does not necessarily mean that the current portfolio equals this ‘realistic ideal’ portfolio. I’m also wondering how much of the indirectness is necessary to make progress. A higher degree of indirect projects probably makes x-risk organization mainstream quicker, but at a larger risk that ‘existential risk’ becomes a diluted term and co-opted by other organizations.
Hi Haydn, thanks for the links, looking forward to learning more about CSER’s views on this. I wasn’t aware that CSER was actively doing projects to promote sustainability and climate change.
Thanks for the question. Climate change is a contributor to existential risk. Changing what business schools teach (specifically to include sustainability) might change the behaviour of the next generation of business leaders.
See:
We also have further publications forthcoming on the link between climate change and existential risk.
This seems like a very long expected causal chain, and therefore—unless each link is specifically supported by evidence—unlikely to produce much effect compared to other approaches. It seems to assume:
1) Climate change is a relatively large x-risk factor (I interpreted the presentation I saw of your forthcoming article as claiming that “climate change is a non-negligible risk factor, but not a relatively large one”).
2) Improving sustainability of businesses and business leaders is a relatively effective way of addressing climate change (possibly, but there are many alternatives)
3) Increasing the amount of sustainability in business school programs will improve the sustainability of business and business leaders (There seem more direct ways of influencing business leaders; Examples: what about corporate campaigns but focused on sustainability? What about carbon taxes?)
4) Affecting business rankings will affect the curriculum (Yes, this seems to happen)
It might be the case that this was an opportunity that passed by Ellen Quiqley and was low-effort to give input on. But I’m afraid this was not a great use of time, and furthermore I’m afraid this validates the—for lack of a better term—“good-by-association fallacy”:
I think this fallacy is a harmful meme that poses a risk to the EA and x-risk brand, because it’s very bad prioritization.
Thank you. Some specific info: Ellen Quigley joined as (part)-salaried at CSER in January 2019 (previously she was an external collaborator). The report was published in January 2019. It was conducted and mostly completed as part of a Judge Business School project in 2018. I was happy for CSER to co-brand as (a) it’s a good piece of work (b) being published by someone on staff (and where others provided some previous input) with (c) a well-thought out strategic aim, with good reasons to think it would be effective and timely in its aims from people with a lot of expertise in the topic (d) on a topic within our remit (climate/sustainability) and (e) offered various potential networking and reputational opportunities.
Since the report launch, Ellen has focused on other projects—the report has high value (by usual postdoctoral project standards) followup opportunities, but there are other projects of higher priority from a GCR/Xrisk perspective. Our current thinking is that if non-fungible-for Xrisk funding becomes available, Ellen may supervise a postdoc/research assistant in designing/actioning followups. Ellen has also accepted a more direct action-focused part-appointment (advising on the university of cambridge’s investment and shareholder engagement strategy around climate change (https://www.staff.admin.cam.ac.uk/general-news/two-environmental-appointments-at-the-university) so her research time is more limited.
More broadly, there are a lot of reasons why centres will sometimes engage in projects with indirect impacts or longer causal chains that don’t boil down to ‘failure to understand basic prioritisation for impact’. These include: 1) good intellectual or evidence-based reasons to have confidence that indirect approaches/longer causal chain-based approaches are likely to be effective, either in of themselves or as part of a suite of activities. (2) Value of these projects in establishing strong networks and credibility with bodies likely to be relevant for broader Xrisk mitigation (3) developing the ability and skillset to engage with the machinery of the world in different regards.
It will sometimes be affected by external constraints (e.g. funding stipulations—not every organisation has full funding from fully xrisk-aligned funders—or need for researchers to establish/maintain reputation and credibility in their ‘home domains’ in order to remain effective in the roles they play in Xrisk research). This is likely particularly true in academic institutions.
I would expect that with most xrisk organisations, particularly those with an active engagement with other research communities, policy bodies etc, there will be a suite of outputs where some are very obviously and directly relevant to xrisk, and where others are less direct or obvious but have good reason within an overall suite of activities.
My apologies in advance that I don’t have time to engage further due to other deadlines.
Thanks for the elaborate response Seán. It’s valuable for the EA community to understand the internal considerations of x-risk organization, and I don’t want to disincentivize organisations from publishing updates like these on the forum.
Just to be clear: I was not accusing CSER of ‘failure to understand basic prioritisation for impact’. I meant to say that it’s hard for outsiders to evaluate the reasons why an organisation chooses to pursue a certain project. When pure/direct x-risk related projects are reported together with these indirect projects, that can reinforce the ‘good-by-association fallacy’ in the outsiders.
I think you’re right about that, although this does not necessarily mean that the current portfolio equals this ‘realistic ideal’ portfolio. I’m also wondering how much of the indirectness is necessary to make progress. A higher degree of indirect projects probably makes x-risk organization mainstream quicker, but at a larger risk that ‘existential risk’ becomes a diluted term and co-opted by other organizations.
Hi Haydn, thanks for the links, looking forward to learning more about CSER’s views on this. I wasn’t aware that CSER was actively doing projects to promote sustainability and climate change.