elteerkers

Karma: 284

Virtual Book Club on Nick Bostrom’s “Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World”

elteerkers7 May 2024 9:52 UTC

12 points

1 comment1 min readEA link

Deep Utopia Virtual Book Club

elteerkers7 May 2024 9:46 UTC

5 points

1 comment1 min readEA link

AI Institution Design Hackathon (EAG Bay Area Satellite Event)

elteerkers12 Dec 2023 13:05 UTC

4 points

0 comments1 min readEA link

elteerkers 6 Nov 2023 14:01 UTC
8 points
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: SebastianSchmidt’s comment on: Existential Hope and Existential Risk: Exploring the value of optimistic approaches to shaping the long-term future
Thanks for your comment!

Agree with your pros and cons.

“Existential security” seems like a great one within EA.

Have not seen the “procedural visions” one! Thanks for recommending it, will look.

On your course question: As we are currently working on something similar to this at Foresight right now I will answer similarly to what we are thinking of adding there. Which is to do ambitious worldbuilding in groups of 4-5 people with complementary skill sets. Will share more when our resources are online for that!

Thank you! :)

Existential Hope and Existential Risk: Exploring the value of optimistic approaches to shaping the long-term future

Vilhelm Skoglund27 Oct 2023 9:07 UTC

36 points

3 comments24 min readEA link

Launching Foresight Institute’s AI Grant for Underexplored Approaches to AI Safety – Apply for Funding!

elteerkers17 Aug 2023 7:27 UTC

48 points

0 comments2 min readEA link

elteerkers 14 Apr 2023 8:27 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: C Tilli’s comment on: Preliminary investigations on if STEM and EA communities could benefit from more overlap
Thanks for the question!

I would say that it’s not that people aren’t aware of risks, my broad reflection is more in terms of how one relates to it. In the EA/X-risk community it is clear that one should take these things extremely seriously and do everything one can to prevent them. I often feel that even though researchers in general are very aware of potential risks with their technologies, they seem to get swept up in the daily business of just doing their work, and not reflecting very actively over the potential risks with it.

I don’t know exactly why that is, it could be that they don’t consider it their personal responsibility, or perhaps they feel powerless and that aiming to push progress forward is either the best or the only option? But that is a question that would be interesting to dig deeper into!

elteerkers 14 Apr 2023 8:17 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Linda Linsefors’s comment on: Preliminary investigations on if STEM and EA communities could benefit from more overlap
That’s a good point. I’m unsure of what the best way of facilitating these meetings would be, so that it doesn’t downplay the seriousness of the questions. But assuming good intentions, allowing for disagreements, and acknowledging the differences is enough and the best option.

elteerkers 14 Apr 2023 8:10 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: trevor1’s comment on: Preliminary investigations on if STEM and EA communities could benefit from more overlap
Thank you for the encouragement!

elteerkers 14 Apr 2023 8:10 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Jessica Wen’s comment on: Preliminary investigations on if STEM and EA communities could benefit from more overlap
Agree it doesn’t represent “the STEM community”. As in my reply to Jessica’s longer comment, I agree there isn’t really such a thing as “the STEM community”, and if I were to write the post now I would want to better reflect the fact that this was asked to the Foresight community, in which most participants are working in one of our technical fields: neurotech, space tech, nanotech, biotech or computation. In the survey I ask if people identify themselves as STEM professionals, a question to which most answered yes (85% of respondents in this v. small survey).

elteerkers 14 Apr 2023 8:09 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: DavidNash’s comment on: Preliminary investigations on if STEM and EA communities could benefit from more overlap
Thank you!

elteerkers 14 Apr 2023 8:06 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Jessica Wen’s comment on: Preliminary investigations on if STEM and EA communities could benefit from more overlap
Hi Jessica, thank you so much for your thorough read and response! I found it very useful.

I agree there isn’t really such a thing as “the STEM community”, and if I were to write the post now I would want to better reflect the fact that this was asked to the Foresight community, in which most participants are working in one of our technical fields: neurotech, space tech, nanotech, biotech or computation. In the survey I ask if people identify themselves as STEM professionals, a question to which most answered yes (85% of respondents in this v. small survey). So as you point out, most are not in the life sciences.

Regarding the demographics, our community is very male dominated. However, our team is all female, and we are actively trying to improve on this. I would be interested to hear if you at HI Engineers are doing anything on this, and have any learning that you can share? I did not collect any data on ethnicity or age in this survey.

As I stated in the post, and can only state again, this is very preliminary, so I agree one shouldn’t draw too much of a conclusion based on this. But I’m happy I put it out there as is so that I could get this useful feedback from you!

Regarding what technology means in the text, I would say that it refers to both informations and “physical” technologies. I’d be very interested to hear more about your outreach work with HI Engineers. Overall, your work looks very interesting, and so I hope you don’t mind if I reach out “off forum”! :)