BSc (Hons) Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence
Master of Laws (LLM) Space Law
PhD Candidate (Law) - Title: “AI and Machine Learning Nascent Visual Biometrics in Police Intelligence and Criminal Evidence – Impacts on Reliability and Fairness”
I currently work in the criminal justice system of England & Wales, as well as researching my PhD. My academic history in AI and in Law have resulted in an avid interest in all things AI Law (esp criminal law and human rights law) and its value to Longtermist principles. If you ever want to chat about the topic at all, please feel free to pop me a message:)
I think this is a good guide, and thank you for writing it. I found the bit on how to phrase event advertising particularly helpful.
One thing I would like to elaborate on is the ‘rent-seekers’ bit. I’m going to say something that disagrees with a lot of the other comments here. I think we need to be careful about how we approach such ‘rent-seeking’ conversations. This isn’t a criticism of what you wrote, as you explained it really well, but more of a trend I’ve noticed recently in EA discourse and this is a good opportunity to mention it.
It’s important to highlight that not all groups are equal, demographically. I co-lead a group in a city where the child poverty rate has gone from 24% to a whopping 42% in 5 years, and remains one of the poorest cities in the UK. I volunteer my time at a food bank and can tell you that it’s never been under stronger demand. Simply put, things are tough here. One of the things I am proudest about in our EA group is we’ve done a load of outreach to people who face extra barriers to participating in academia and research, and as a result have a group with a great range of life backgrounds. I’m sure it’s not the only EA group to achieve this, because I’ve spoken to other group leads who have made an effort to achieve the same effect.
We’ve adapted our strategies and events a bit to enable this—eg. pre-buying public transport tickets for people to attend our events, or wage replacement where if they attend a day-long event, we’ll pay a micro-stipend equivalent of a 10 or 12 hour shift of minimum wage (though this is rare as we’re careful about when we arrange stuff). This was because some people literally couldn’t afford a day off to attend conferences, or present their research, because that lost day had significant consequences for them. As a result, we’ve had some fantastic things come from people who otherwise would not have had the opportunity to contribute their valuable ideas and work.
My point is that a lack of funding is an extremely real barrier to many people’s participation not just in EA, but in academia/research in general. I understand that there is a very real risk of people using EA events as a ‘free holiday’ type deal, and it’s something that bears mitigating, but we also have to be really careful about unfairly tarring people who rely on full funding to attend events. I fully expect to encourage as many members of my group as possible to attend the conferences because they have lots to gain and lots to contribute. I understand the ‘rent-seeking’ fear is that people will use EA conferences to pursue jobs or grant funding for projects, but I don’t think this is as high a risk as people say because those are EA-aligned jobs and grants, and those organisations have their own safeguards. They can see through false interest fairly easily. As for reducing the quality of conferences, I’m not sure how you could reliably tell the difference between a ‘rent-seeker’ and someone who just doesn’t know EA in-depth yet, or who is nervous.
Essentially, it boils down to the fact that in some groups only a few people may be suitable to attend the conferences as in your example. However, there are contextual and geographical factors at play which means that some groups may make more applications than others, and it may not necessarily be a ‘rent-seekers’ issue. Some groups may just need more help for more people. As a result, higher numbers of people from x group over y group isn’t necessarily an indication of ‘rent-seeking’.
I’m always extremely apprehensive about any ‘rent-seekers’ discourse because it seems to follow a similar trend as to class warfare in mainstream media. For example, the demonisation of people on benefits despite that fact that benefits fraud makes up a microscopic rate of overall fraud. The idea of someone taking advantage of the group (whether that’s society or an organisation etc) is often overinflated compared to its actual risk. I would be very interested to see any confirmed examples of rent-seeking to try and gauge how big the current threat is. I assume the grant-makers check the hotels people are claiming for (not 5-star etc) and length of stay (not booking 8 days for a 2-day event). You also sign in to events via a QR code, so checking that people actually went to the event is fairly easy. I assume EA can also access people’s agendas, to a degree, and are able to see if people are actively engaging with others. These various safeguards should make this issue quite trackable. If it’s a matter of engaging in good faith, that’s so immensely hard to measure I’m not even sure it’s possible.
A final bit I would like to expand on is this:
”I’ve seen cases where people seem more motivated by the free flight than the conference itself”
There is also a risk of mistaking excitement for motivation. For many people, an EA conference will be the first time they’ve travelled away to another country (or even city), and so lots of excitement surrounding the actual trip is normal. My first ever EAG London was my first time travelling to my own nation’s capital. You can bet I had a walk around the tourist sites after my agenda for the day was finished. And that’s okay. I understand there’s a concern of people doing it just for the flight, travel, hotel, whatever—but the amount of safeguards would (I assume) prevent this from being the case.
You make really good points, and I think the ‘rent-seekers’ risk bears watching to see if it becomes a genuine threat, but I am concerned about it becoming an increasing part of EA discourse and if we’re not careful it could drive away otherwise great contributors because of entrenched social and class issues. EA already has intellectual diversity issues, and we need to be careful about exacerbating rather than fixing these. I also understand that ‘rent-seeker’ in no way is intended to mean ‘low economic background’ - however, my point is that many of the ‘rent-seeker’ red flags listed here and elsewhere could also be signs of someone overcoming class and social barriers and so there’s a risk of mistakenly alienating people from certain backgrounds over others.
Again—I 100% know this isn’t what you meant and this was a really helpful guide, but I’m commenting more on the general discourse trend I’m noticing on the forum, on the Twitter group, and in some blogs. I am concerned that the fears of rent-seekers could be overblown compared to the real proportion of the risk, and would be interested to see some evidence-based research in this area.