Conor Barnes

• Conor Barnes 14 Mar 2023 15:56 UTC

  3 points

  0

  on: Some more pro­jects I’d like to see

  Thanks for the Possible Worlds Tree shout-out!

  I haven’t had capacity to improve it (and won’t for a long time), but I agree that a dashboard would be excellent. I think it could be quite valuable even if the number choice isn’t perfect.

Hal­i­fax Monthly Meetup: AI Safety Discussion

• Conor Barnes 28 Feb 2023 16:54 UTC

  18 points

  11

  in reply to: CounterBlunder’s comment on: Help GiveDirectly kill “teach a man to fish”

  “Give a man money for a boat, he already knows how to fish” would play off of the original formation!

• Conor Barnes 14 Feb 2023 20:21 UTC

  3 points

  0

  on: Philan­thropy to the Right of Boom [Founders Pledge]

  Quite happy to see this on the forum!

Hal­i­fax Monthly Meetup: In­tro­duc­tion to Effec­tive Altruism

Hal­i­fax Monthly Meetup: Moloch in the HRM

• Conor Barnes 3 Dec 2022 14:25 UTC

  5 points

  5

  in reply to: projectionconfusion’s comment on: Some notes on com­mon challenges build­ing EA orgs

  It’s pretty common in values-driven organisations to ask for an amount of value-alignment. The other day I helped out a friend with a resume for an organisation which asked for people applying to care about their feminist mission.

  In my opinion this is a reasonable thing to ask for and expect. Sharing (overarching) values improves decision-making and requiring for it can help prevent value drift in an org.

Hal­i­fax, NS – Monthly Ra­tion­al­ist, EA, and ACX Meetup

• Conor Barnes 21 Oct 2022 20:02 UTC

  4 points

  0

  on: Brief eval­u­a­tions of top-10 billionnaires

  Love to see this, thank you Nuño!

Hal­i­fax, NS – Monthly Ra­tion­al­ist, EA, and ACX Meetup Kick-Off

Like The Set­ting Sun

• Conor Barnes 6 Sep 2022 18:50 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Paolo Bova’s comment on: In­ter­ac­tively Vi­su­al­iz­ing X-Risk

  I’m really glad to hear it! Polishing is ongoing. Replied on GH too!

• Conor Barnes 18 Aug 2022 13:15 UTC

  3 points

  on: Could re­al­is­tic de­pic­tions of catas­trophic AI risks effec­tively re­duce said risks?

  1. The probability of any one story being “successful” is very low, and basically up to luck, though connections to people with the power to move stories (ex. publishers, directors) would significantly help.

  2. Most ex-risk scenarios are perfect material for compelling and entertaining stories. They tap into common tropes (hubris of humans and scientists), are near-future disaster scenarios, and can have opposed hawk and dove characters. I imagine that a successful ex-risk movie could have a narrative shaped like Jurassic Park or The Day After Tomorrow.

  3. My actionable advice is that EA writers and potential EA writers should write EA fiction alongside their other fiction and we should explore connections with publishers.
     
     As a side-note, I wrote an AI-escapes-the-box story the other week, and have since used Midjourney to illustrate it, as is fitting: https://​​twitter.com/​​Ideopunk/​​status/​​1553003805091979265. If anybody would like to read the first draft, message me!

• Conor Barnes 2 Aug 2022 16:26 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: EcologyInterventions’s comment on: In­ter­ac­tively Vi­su­al­iz­ing X-Risk

  I love Possible Worlds Tree! It’s aligned with the optimistic outlook, conveys the content better, and has a mythology pun. I couldn’t be happier. Messaging re: bounty!

• Conor Barnes 30 Jul 2022 17:31 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: Paolo Bova’s comment on: In­ter­ac­tively Vi­su­al­iz­ing X-Risk

  Thanks for all the feedback! I think the buffs to interactivity are all great ideas. They should mostly be implemented this week.

• Conor Barnes 30 Jul 2022 17:29 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Stefan_Schubert’s comment on: In­ter­ac­tively Vi­su­al­iz­ing X-Risk

  A positive title would definitely help! I’ll think on this.

• Conor Barnes 30 Jul 2022 17:27 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Isaac Dunn’s comment on: In­ter­ac­tively Vi­su­al­iz­ing X-Risk

  Agreed. I think it needs a ‘name’ as a symbol, but the current one is a little fudged. My placeholder for a while was ‘the tree of forking paths’ as a Borges reference, but that was a bit too general...

• Conor Barnes 30 Jul 2022 17:26 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: Tristan Cook’s comment on: In­ter­ac­tively Vi­su­al­iz­ing X-Risk

  This isn’t exactly what I’m looking for (though I do think that concept needs a word).

  The way I’m conceptualizing it right now is that there are three non-existential outcomes:
  
  1. Catastrophe
  2. Sustenance /​ Survival
  3. Flourishing
  
  If you look at Toby Ord’s prediction, he includes a number for flourishing, which is great. There isn’t a matching prediction in the Ragnarok series, so I’ve squeezed 2 and 3 together as a “non-catastrophe” category.

• Conor Barnes 30 Jul 2022 17:20 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Isaac Dunn’s comment on: In­ter­ac­tively Vi­su­al­iz­ing X-Risk

  Thanks! I hadn’t thought of user interviews, that’s a great idea!

• Conor Barnes 30 Jul 2022 17:19 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: EcologyInterventions’s comment on: In­ter­ac­tively Vi­su­al­iz­ing X-Risk

  Thank you! And yeah, this is an artifact of the green nodes being filled in from the implicit inverse percent of the Ragnarok prediction and not having its own prediction. I could link to somewhere else, but it would need to be worth breaking the consistency of the links (all Metaculus Ragnarok links).