a_e_r

Karma: 498

a_e_r 30 Nov 2022 17:40 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Lorenzo Buonanno’s comment on: Good Futures Initiative: Winter Project Internship
Thank you (both)!

a_e_r 12 Nov 2022 23:35 UTC
35 points
13 ∶ 0
on: Women and Effective Altruism
I’m incredibly sorry about the negative experiences you and your friends have had. I think it would be beneficial to provide more detail about the “Lesswrong style Jedi mind tricks” if you feel comfortable. My guess (as a woman who has many rationalist male friends) is that a good number of men who don’t want to be predatory are are trying to figure out if they’ve unknowingly done something that could be making women uncomfortable. I think they would benefit from specifics here, so that they can avoid doing similar things in the future.

I haven’t had any rationalist-style issues specifically. But, I’ll list some specific behaviors that have been best at making me feel comfortable when asked out /hit on in ea:
- People being extremely clear about consent about touching. Asking about things before they happen and, before asking, making it a point to say that they genuinely want you to say no if your answer is no.
- Anyone who has a position of authority over me/recommending me for funding telling me the extent to which they would immediately be transparent to funders/teammates in the case that we did date. I think this is a part of informed consent around dating that’s often overlooked. Also making it directly clear that this will not affect my funding/opportunities. The other person saying this without me having to ask is very important and makes me feel much less overwhelmed by any power dynamic.

a_e_r 27 Sep 2022 21:35 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: Global Warning Contest
Oh sorry! Thank you for clarifying.

a_e_r 27 Sep 2022 19:56 UTC
1 point
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: Global Warning Contest
I’m not sure I understand which part of this post your comment is referring to

a_e_r 21 Sep 2022 20:21 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: Arthur Conmy’s comment on: What Do AI Safety Pitches Not Get About Your Field?
It’s been a while since, but from what I remember, my questions were generally in the same range as the framing highlighted by user seanrson’s above!
I’ve also heard objections from people who’ve felt that predictions about AGI from biological anchors don’t understand the biology of a brain well enough to be making calculations. Ajeya herself even caveats “Technical advisor Paul Christiano originally proposed this way of thinking about brain computation; neither he nor I have a background in neuroscience and I have not attempted to talk to neuroscientists about this. To the extent that neuroscientists who talk about “brain computation” have a specific alternative definition of this in mind, this proposal may not line up well with their way of thinking about it; this might make it more hazardous to rely as much as I do on evidence Joe gathered from discussions with neuroscientists.”

a_e_r 1 Sep 2022 15:50 UTC
4 points
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on: Is there a “What We Owe The Future” fellowship study guide?
Hi! Yes, I created a 6-week reading guide with discussion questions, quotes, recommended readings, and a “take action” section with more resources.

a_e_r 29 Aug 2022 18:26 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: ThomasW’s comment on: Seeking Student Submissions: Edit Your Source Code Contest
Thanks! I’ll check it out and add it as a resource!

a_e_r 29 Aug 2022 18:25 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Yonatan Cale’s comment on: Seeking Student Submissions: Edit Your Source Code Contest
Thank you! I’m super glad to hear about modifications going wrong! I can make that more explicit on the website.

a_e_r 26 Aug 2022 2:27 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: henryj’s comment on: Seeking Student Submissions: Edit Your Source Code Contest
Should be fixed! Thank you!

a_e_r 8 Jul 2022 17:07 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Pablo’s comment on: WWOTF: Is there an existing reading guide or reading group syllabus?
Thank you!

a_e_r 26 May 2022 5:51 UTC
7 points
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on: Most students who would agree with EA ideas haven’t heard of EA yet (results of a large-scale survey)
This is super cool research and it’s great that you all were able to conduct this survey!!

I think it’s great that you all renamed to survey so that it didn’t specifically attract people who looked for words like “effective” or “altruism” or “existential risk.”

a_e_r 26 May 2022 0:07 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: Ishan Mukherjee’s comment on: Calling for Student Submissions: AI Safety Distillation Contest
Sure :)

a_e_r 26 Apr 2022 16:36 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: ChanaMessinger’s comment on: Calling for Student Submissions: AI Safety Distillation Contest
I wasn’t anticipating releasing the list (in some part because people may try to pander to a certain judge’s background and in some part to allow myself and the judges more flexibility in adding people last second).

Sending some judge recommendations my way would be great! I think having a variety of readers would be helpful :) Thank you!

a_e_r 26 Apr 2022 15:25 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: ChanaMessinger’s comment on: Calling for Student Submissions: AI Safety Distillation Contest
Great point! Early on, I had someone more connected than me make a list of potential judges. We have 15 names brainstormed and sectioned off by how much they know about alignment. I can say with pretty high certainty that I imagine we will at least have someone whose full-time job is alignment reading the submissions (likely a person with a CS doctorate), but hopefully, we could get even more expertise :)

a_e_r 26 Apr 2022 15:20 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: MaxRa’s comment on: Calling for Student Submissions: AI Safety Distillation Contest
I do think it’s possible that we might award more prizes retroactively if we recognize that we receive a lot of valuable submissions! Maybe an “honorable mentions” category.
Ah, I think my worry is that it feels difficult for me to find a standard to rate that actually tracks quality. If I give a couple of examples, people may feel limited to having their work look like those examples. I might say “make your distillation 1,000 words and explain two papers and I’ll give you a prize” but 1,500 words on one paper might have made an optimal submission and I would have limited people’s abilities. I think I find it hard to quantify a bar on writing since everyone has such different approaches. I think the real bar is something more like “the judges who know more about AI Safety than me believe that you have communicated this idea really well” and because of that it feels wrong for me to try to say “and if you do x you will definitely win something.”

a_e_r 26 Apr 2022 3:09 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: mariushobbhahn’s comment on: Calling for Student Submissions: AI Safety Distillation Contest
Hi! I’ve been thinking about this a bit more and I do think I want graduate students to be able to submit! However, since the main audience is meant to be undergraduate students, I may have to be harsher in evaluation or, more excitingly, maybe I could create a new tier for graduate students? For now I’d say feel free to submit and I’ll work out more specifics on my end and make an edit (+ reply to this) if I make official changes!

a_e_r 25 Apr 2022 13:56 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: badeliz’s comment on: Calling for Student Submissions: AI Safety Distillation Contest
The primary audience for this contests is undergrad, but Master’s students are allowed!

a_e_r 25 Apr 2022 0:25 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: mlc’s comment on: Calling for Student Submissions: AI Safety Distillation Contest
Oh, great idea! If nothing else, distill.pub is a great resource for me to list!

a_e_r 24 Apr 2022 21:27 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: MaxRa’s comment on: Calling for Student Submissions: AI Safety Distillation Contest
Thank you! These are thoughtful comments! I think I will try to add more texts and find more readers, as you suggest.
I’ve been thinking of going into working on creating contests in the future as a potentially serious work project, so I hope to create some contests that can be larger scale then! Right now, I’m rather limited in capacity. Thankfully, I’m connected with some other great university organizers who I’ve let know about advertising at their schools.
I think it would be tricky to have clear baseline cutoffs for distillation that still capture quality since writing varies so much between people. Do you have any ideas of clear cutoffs that would retain quality (for future contests if nothing else)?

a_e_r 24 Apr 2022 21:21 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: mlc’s comment on: Calling for Student Submissions: AI Safety Distillation Contest
Unfortunately, I created this contest to help build up university groups, so I think keeping the contest limited to enrolled students (including students who are entering college later this year and students who will graduate before the contest ends) would be the best way to ensure that students feel like they have an advantage in the contest. Thank you for clarifying!