Dunja

Karma: 182

Dunja Sep 10, 2018, 8:31 PM
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in reply to: kbog’s comment on: Near-Term Effective Altruism Discord

Mhm, it’s POSSIBLE to talk about it, bias MAY exist, etc, etc. There’s still a difference between speculation and argument.

Could you please explain what you are talking about here since I don’t see how this is related to what you quote me saying above? Of course, there is a difference between a speculation and argument, and arguments may still include a claim that’s expressed in a modal way. So I don’t really understand how is this challenging what I have said :-/

different venues are fine, they must simply be split among legitimate lines (like light chat vs serious chat, or different specific causes; as I stated already, those are legitimate ways to split venues). Splitting things along illegitimate lines is harmful for reasons that I stated earlier in this thread.

having a discussion focusing on certain projects rather than others (in view of my suggestion directly to the OP) allows for such a legitimate focus, why not?

Dunja Sep 10, 2018, 8:26 PM
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in reply to: kbog’s comment on: How effective and efficient is the funding policy of Open Philanthropy concerning projects on AI risks?
Again, you are missing the point: my argument concerns the criteria in view which projects are assessed as worthy of funding. These criteria exist and are employed by various funding institutions across academia. I haven’t seen any such criteria (and the justification thereof, such that they are conducive to effective and efficient research) in this case, which is why I’ve raised the issue.

we’re willing to give a lot of money to wherever it will do the most good in expectation.

And my focus is on: which criteria are used/should be used in order to decide which research projects will do the most good in expectation. Currently such criteria are lacking, including their justification in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.

Dunja Sep 10, 2018, 8:21 PM
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in reply to: kbog’s comment on: Near-Term Effective Altruism Discord
Civil can still be unfriendly, but hey, if you aren’t getting it, it’s fine.

It should be clear, no? It’s hard to judge the viability of talking about X when you haven’t talked about X.

If it was clear, why would I ask? there’s your lack of friendliness in action. And I still don’t see the rationale in what you are saying: I can judge that certain topics may profit from being discussed in a certain context A even if I haven’t personally engaged in discussing it in that context. The burden of proof is on you: if you want to make an argument, you have to provide more than just a claim. So far, you are just stating something which I currently can’t make any sense of.

“talking about near-future related topics and strategies”. I don’t know how else I can say this.

Again: why would someone be able to assess the viability of the context in which a certain topic is discussed only if they have engaged in the discussion of that topic? As I said above, this is a non-sequitur, or at least you haven’t provided any arguments to support this thesis. I can be in a position to suggest that scientists may profit from exchanging their ideas in a venue A even if I myself haven’t exchanged any ideas in A.

Dunja Sep 10, 2018, 1:38 PM
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in reply to: kbog’s comment on: Near-Term Effective Altruism Discord
I have to single out this one quote from you, because I have no idea where you are getting all this fuel from:

But when I look through your comment history, you seem to not be talking about near-future related topics and strategies, you’re just talking about meta stuff, Open Phil, the EA forums, critiques of the EA community, critiques of AI safety, the same old hot topics. Try things out before judging.

Can you please explain what you are suggesting here? How is this conflicting with my interest in near-future related topics? I have a hard time understanding why you are so confrontational. Your last sentence:

Try things out before judging.

is the highest peak of unfriendliness. What should I try exactly before judging?!

Dunja Sep 10, 2018, 1:21 PM
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in reply to: kbog’s comment on: How effective and efficient is the funding policy of Open Philanthropy concerning projects on AI risks?

(1) I think it is standard practice for peer review to be kept anonymous,

Problem wasn’t in the reviewer being anonymous, but in the lack of access to the report

(2) some of the things you are mentioning seem like norms about grants and writeups that will reasonably vary based on context,

Sure, but that doesn’t mean no criteria should be available.

(3) you’re just looking at one grant out of all that Open Phil has done,

Indeed, I am concerned with one extremely huge grant. I find the sum large enough to warrant concerns, especially since the same can happen with future funding strategies.

(4) while you are looking at computer science, their first FDT paper was accepted at Formal Epistemology Workshop, and a professional philosopher of decision theory who went there spoke positively about it.

I was raising an issue concerning journal articles, which are nonetheless important even in computer science to solidify the research results. Proceedings are important for novel results, but the actual rigor of reviews comes through in journal publications (otherwise, journals would be pointless in this domain).

As for the rest of your post, I advice comparing an output of groups of smaller or similar size that have been funded via prestigious grants, you’ll notice a difference.

Dunja Sep 10, 2018, 1:14 PM
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in reply to: kbog’s comment on: Near-Term Effective Altruism Discord
First, I disagree with your imperatives concerning what one should do before engaging in criticism. That’s a non-sequitur: we are able to reflect on multiple meta-issues without engaging in any of the object-related ones and at the same time we can have a genuine interest in reading the object-related issues. I am genuinely interested in reading about near-future improvement topics, while being genuinely interested in voicing opinion on all kinds of meta issues, especially those that are closely related to my own research topics.

Second, the fact that measuring bias is difficult doesn’t mean bias doesn’t exist.

Third, to use your phrase, I am not sure what you are really worried about: having different types of venues for discussion doesn’t seem harmful especially if they concern different focus groups.

Dunja Sep 10, 2018, 11:55 AM
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in reply to: kbog’s comment on: Near-Term Effective Altruism Discord
No worries! Thanks for that, and yes, I agree pretty much with everything you say here. As for the discussion on far-future funding, it did start in the comments on my post, but it led nowhere near practical changes, in terms of transparency of proposed criteria used for the assessment of funded projects. I’ll try to write a separate, more general post on that.

My only point was that due to the high presence of “far-future bias” on this forum (I might be wrong, but much of downvoting-without-commenting seems to be at least a tendency towards biased outlooks) it’s nice to have some chats on more near-future related topics and strategies for promoting those goals. I see a chat channel more as a complementary venue to this forum than as an alternative.

Dunja Sep 10, 2018, 10:14 AM
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in reply to: kbog’s comment on: Near-Term Effective Altruism Discord
wow, you really seem annoyed… didn’t expect such a pissed post, but i suppose you got really annoyed by this thread or something. I provided the arguments in detail concerning OpenPhil’s practices in a post from few months ago here: http://effective-altruism.com/ea/1l6/how_effective_and_efficient_is_the_funding_policy/.

I have a few paper deadlines these days, so as much as I wish to respond with all the references, arguments, etc. I don’t have the time. I plan on writing a post concerning EAF’s funding policy as well, where I’ll sum it up in a similar way as I did for OpenPhil.

That said, I don’t think we shouldn’t criticize the research done by near-future organizations, to the contrary. And I completely agree: it’d be great to have a forum devoted only to research practices and funding thereof. But concerning far-future funding, research is the only thing that can be funded, which makes it particularly troublesome.

Just think of the press reporting on us doing exactly the same thing as everyone else in science? If you are worried about bad press, the #1 thing you should avoid is trying to kick up the social divisions that would give them something actually juicy to report on.

Err, no. Funding by academic institutions follows a whole set of criteria (take the ERC scheme, for instance), which can of course be discussed on their own, but they aim at efficient and effective research. The funding of AI-risk related projects follows… well, nobody could ever specify to me any criteria to begin with, except “an anonymous reviewer whom we trust likes the project” or “they seem to have many great publications”, which once looked at don’t really exist. That’s as far from academic procedures as it gets.

Dunja Sep 10, 2018, 10:02 AM
25 points
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on: Near-Term Effective Altruism Discord
This is a nice idea though I’d like to suggest some adjustments to the welcome message (also in view of kbog’s worries discussed above). Currently the message begins with:

“(...) we ask that EAs who currently focus on improving the far future not participate. In particular, if you currently prioritize AI risks or s-risks, we ask you not participate.”

I don’t think it’s a good idea to select participants in a discussion according to what they think or do (it pretty much comes down to an Argumentum ad Hominem fallacy). It would be better to specify what the focus of the discussion is, and to welcome those interested in that topic. So I suggest replacing the above with:

“we ask that the discussion be focused on improving the near future, and that the far-future topics (such as AI risks or s-risks) be left for other venues, unless they are of direct relevance for an ongoing discussion on the topic of near future improvements.” (or something along those lines).

Dunja Sep 10, 2018, 9:04 AM
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in reply to: kbog’s comment on: Near-Term Effective Altruism Discord
Hi Kbog, I see your point concerning near/far-future ideas in principle. However, if you look at the practical execution of these ideas, things aren’t following your lines of reasoning (unfortunately, of course). For instance, the community practices related to far-future focus (in particular AI-risks) have adopted the assessment of scientific research and the funding thereof, which I find lacking scientific rigor, transparency and overall validity (to the point that it makes no sense to speak of “effective” charity). Moreover, there is a large consensus about such evaluative practices: they are assumed as valid by OpenPhil and the EAF, and even when I tried to exchange arguments with both of these institutions, nothing has ever changed (I’ve never even managed to push them into a public dialogue on this topic). I see this problem as a potential danger for the EA community in whole (just think of the press getting their hands on this problem and arguing that EAs finance scientific research which is assumed effective, where it is unclear according to which criteria it would count as such; similarly for newcomers). In view of this, I think dividing these practices would be a great idea. The fact they are connected to “far-future EA” is secondary to me, and it is unfortunate that far-future ideas turned into a bubble of its own, closed towards criticism questioning the core of their EA methodology.

That said, I agree with some of your worries (see my other comment here).

Dunja Aug 15, 2018, 7:17 PM
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in reply to: Peter Wildeford’s comment on: Are men more likely to attend EA London events? Attendance data, 2016-2018.
That would be great!

Dunja Aug 15, 2018, 8:30 AM
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in reply to: Peter Wildeford’s comment on: Are men more likely to attend EA London events? Attendance data, 2016-2018.
Oh damn :-/ I was just gonna ask for the info (been traveling and could reply only now). That’s really interesting, is this info published somewhere online? If not, it would maybe be worthwhile to make a post on this here and discuss both the reasons for the predominantly male community, as well as ideas for how to make it more gender-balanced.

I’d be very interested in possible relations between the lack of gender balance and the topic of representation discussed in another recent thread. For instance, it’d be interesting to see whether non-male EAs find the forum insufficiently focused on causes which they find more important, or largely focused on issues that they do not find as important.

Dunja Aug 11, 2018, 3:03 PM
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on: The Ethics of Giving Part Three: Jeff McMahan on Whether One May Donate to an Ineffective Charity
Thanks a lot for writing this up—it’s nice to get some info on this literature. I didn’t get though the relationship between the selfish option and “doing good ineffectively”—why do you think that rejecting the selfish option would be a response to the ineffective charity?

Dunja Aug 10, 2018, 8:24 AM
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on: Are men more likely to attend EA London events? Attendance data, 2016-2018.
Thanks a lot for this post, that’s really interesting and highly relevant. I’d be curious to see also the proportion of women in online forums such as this one. And of course, I’m super interested in possible reasons behind the tendencies you describe.

Dunja Aug 7, 2018, 8:25 AM
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in reply to: Evan_Gaensbauer’s comment on: The EA Community and Long-Term Future Funds Lack Transparency and Accountability
Hey Evan, thanks for the detailed reply and the encouragement! :) I’d love to write a longer post on this and I’ll try to do so as soon as I catch some more time! Let me just briefly reply to some of your worries concerning academia, which may be shared by others across the board.
1. Efficiency in terms of time—the idea that academics can’t do research as much as non-academic due to teaching duties is not necessarily the case. I am speaking here for EU, where in many cases both pre-docs and post-docs don’t have much (or any) teaching duties (e.g. I did my PhD in Belgium where the agreement was that PhDs focus only on research). Moreover, even if you do have teaching dutues, it may often inform your research and as such it’s usually not a “wasted time” (when it comes to research results). As for professors, this largely depends on a country, but there are many examples of academics with a prof. title whose productivity is super high in spite of the teaching duties.
2. Focusing on sexy topics—there is this misconception that sexy topics won’t pass through academia, while actually the opposite is the case: the sexier your topic is, the more likely it is that your project gets funded. The primary issue with any topic, whatsoever, is that the project proposal shows how the topic will be investigated, i.e. the basic methodology. I don’t know where exactly this myth comes from, to be honest. I work in philosophy of science, and the more relevant your topic is for real-world problems, the more attractive your project proposal will be (at least in the current funding atmosphere). One reason why this myth is so entrenched among EAs could be the experience of EAs within research projects which already had pre-determined goals and so each researcher had to focus on whatever their boss asked them to. However, there are numerous possibilities across EU to apply for one’s own project proposals, in which case you will do precisely what you propose. Another reason could be that EAs don’t have much experience with applications for funding, and have submitted project proposals that don’t seem convincing in terms of methodology (writing projects is a skill which needs to learned like any other), leading them to conclude that academics don’t care about the given topics.
3. Using public funding for EA purposes—this point relates to what you mention above and I think it would be really great if this direction could be improved. For instance, if academics within EA formed a sort of counseling body, helping EAs with their project proposals, choice of a PhD supervisor, etc. This would be a win-win situation for all kinds of reasons: from integrating EA relevant research goals into academia, to using public funding sources (rather than EA donations) for research. This could proceed e.g. in terms of real-life workshops, online discussions, etc. I’d be happy to participate in such a body so maybe we should seriously consider this option.

Dunja Aug 7, 2018, 8:01 AM
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in reply to: Elizabeth’s comment on: EA Forum 2.0 Initial Announcement
Yeah, in case of obvious crap posts (like spams) they’ll be massively downvoted. Otherwise, I’ve never seen here any of the serious posts massively only downvoted. Rather, you’d have some downvotes, some upvotes, and the case you describe doesn’t capture this situation. In fact, an initial row of downvotes may misleadingly give such an impression, leading to some people ignoring the issue, while later on a row of upvotes may actually show the issue is controversial, and as such indeed deserves further discussion.

Dunja Aug 4, 2018, 3:56 PM
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in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: Problems with EA representativeness and how to solve it
Hi John, I don’t have any concrete links, but I’d start by distinguishing different kinds of far-future causes: on the one hand, those that are supported by a scientific consensus, and those that are a matter of scientific controversy. An example of the former would be global warming (which isn’t even that far future for some parts of the world), while the example of the latter would be the risks related to the development of AI.

Now in contrast to that, we have existing problems in the world: from poverty and hunger, to animals suffering across the board, to existing problems related to climate changes etc. While I wouldn’t necessarily prioritize these causes to future-oriented charities (say, climate related research), it is worth keeping in mind that investing in the reduction of the existing suffering may have an impact on the reduction of future suffering as well (e.g. by increasing the number of vegans we may impact the ethics of human diet in the future). The impact of such changes is much easier to assess than the impact of the research in an area that concerns risks which are extremely hard to predict. Hence, I don’t think the research on AI risks is futile—not at all—I just find it important to have a clear assessment criteria, just like in any other domain of science, as for what counts as effective and efficient research strategy, how are future assessments of the currently funded projects going to proceed (in order to determine how much has been done within these projects and whether a different approach would be better), whether the given cause is already sufficiently funded in comparison to other causes, etc.

Dunja Aug 4, 2018, 2:23 PM
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in reply to: Geoff_Anders’s comment on: Leverage Research: reviewing the basic facts

Part of what we do is help people to understand themselves better via introspection and psychological frameworks.

Could you please specify which methods of introspection and psychological frameworks you employ to this end, and which evidence you use to assure these frameworks are based on the adequate scientific evidence, obtained by reliable methods?

Dunja Aug 3, 2018, 11:04 PM
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in reply to: MichaelPlant’s comment on: Problems with EA representativeness and how to solve it
Thanks for the link, Michael—I’ve missed that post and it’s indeed related to the current one.

Thanks, Joey, for writing this up. My worry is that making any hard rules for what counts as representative may do more harm than good, if only due to deep (rational) disagreements that may arise on any particular issue. The example Michael mentions is a case in point: for instance, while I may not necessarily disagree that research on AI safety is worthy of pursuit (though see the disagreements between Yann LeCun, the head of AI research at Facebook with Bostrom’s arguments), I find the transparency of the criteria used by EA organizations to make decisions which projects to fund unsatisfactory, to the point of endangering the EA movement and is reputation when it comes to the claim that EA is about effective paths of reducing suffering. The primary problem here, as I argued in this post is that it remains unclear why the currently funded projects should count as effective and efficient scientific research.

In view of this, I find it increasingly frustrating to associate myself with the EA movement and its recent development, especially since the issue of efficiency of scientific research is the very topic of my own research. The best I can do is to treat this as an issue of a peer disagreement, where I keep it open that I might be wrong after all. However, this also means we have to keep an open dialogue since either of the sides in the disagreement may turn out to be wrong, but this doesn’t seem easy. For instance, as soon as I mention any of these issues on this forum, a few downvotes tend to pop up, with no counterargument provided (edit: this current post ironically turned out to be another case in point ;)

So altogether, I’m not sure I feel comfy associating myself with the EA community, though I indeed deeply care about the idea of effective charity and effective reduction of suffering. And introducing a rule-book which would claim, for instance, that EAs support the funding of research on of AI safety would make me feel just as uncomfy, not because of this idea in principle, but because of its current execution.

EDIT: Just wanted to add that the proposal for community-building organizations to strive for cause indifference sounds like a nice solution.

Dunja Aug 2, 2018, 10:33 AM
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in reply to: MaxDalton’s comment on: EA Forum 2.0 Initial Announcement
Hi Max! I agree, it indeed provides information, but the problem is that the information is too vague, and it may easily reflect a sheer bias (as in: “I don’t like any posts that question the work of OpPhil”). I think this is a strong sentiment in this community and as an academic who is not affiliated with OpPhil or any other EA organization, I’ve noticed numerous cases of silent rejection of a certain problem. I don’t think the issues are relevant for any “mainstream” EA topic (points on which the majority here agrees). But as soon as it comes to the polarized issues (say, the funding of non-academic institutions to conduct academic research), the majority that downvotes doesn’t say a word. I found it quite entertaining (but also disappointing) when I made a longer post on this topic, only to find bunch of downvotes without concrete engagement in the topic. My interpretation of what’s happened there: people dislike someone making waves in their little pond.

I understand you may wish to proceed as you’ve suggested, but eventually this community will push away dissenters, who are very fond of EA, but who just don’t see any point in presenting critical arguments on this platform.