Evan_Gaensbauer

• Evan_GaensbauerAug 7, 2024, 4:56 AM

  9 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Habryka [Deactivated]’s comment on: Why so many “racists” at Man­i­fest?

  This can especially be the case in a crucial way when a hyper-focus on race by itself can derail attention needed on the highest-stakes issues in terms of human genetic engineering that would impact people of all races. This could probably be the decade of any since the around 1970s when these debates started that they’ll no longer just be thought experiments debated by bioethicists.

• Evan_GaensbauerAug 7, 2024, 12:48 AM

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: yanni kyriacos’s comment on: Ozzie Gooen’s Shortform

  At least at the time, Holly Elmore seemed to consider it at least somewhat compelling. I mentioned this was an argument I provided framed in the context of movements like PauseAI—a more politicized, and less politically averse coalition movement, that includes at least one arm of AI safety as one of its constituent communities/​movements, distinct from EA.

  >They don’t have short timelines like me, and therefore chuck it out completely
  
  Among the most involved participants in PauseAI, presumably there may estimates of short timelines comparable to the rate of such estimates among effective altruists.

  >Are struggling to imagine a hostile public response to 15% unemployment rates
  
  Those in PauseAI and similar movements don’t.

  >Copium
  
  While I sympathize with and appreciate why there would be high rates of huffing copium among effective altruists (and adjacent communities, such as rationalists), others who have been picking up slack effective altruists have dropped in the last couple years, are reacting differently. At least in terms of safeguarding humanity from both the near-term and long-term vicissitudes of advancing AI, humanity has deserved better than EA has been able to deliver. Many have given up hope that EA will ever rebound to the point it’ll be able to muster living up to the promise of at least trying to safeguard humanity. That includes both many former effective altruists, and those who still are effective altruists. I consider there to still be that kind of ‘hope’ on a technical level, though on a gut level I don’t have faith in EA. I definitely don’t blame those who have any faith left in EA, let alone those who see hope in it.
  
  Much of the difference here is the mindset towards ‘people’, and how they’re modeled, between those still firmly planted in EA but somehow with a fatalistic mindset, and those who still care about AI safety but have decided to move on in EA. (I might be somewhere in between, though my perspective as a single individual among general trends is barely relevant.) The last couple years have proven that effective altruists direly underestimated the public, and the latter group of people didn’t. While many here on the EA Forum may not agree that much—or even most—of what movements like PauseAI are doing are as effective as they could or should be, they at least haven’t succumbed to a plague of doomerism beyond what can seemingly even be justified.
  
  
  To quote former effective altruist Kerry Vaughan, in a message addressed to those who still are effective altruists: “now is not the time for moral cowardice.” There are some effective altruists who heeded that sort of call when it was being made. There are others who weren’t effective altruists who heeded it too, when they saw most effective altruists had lost the will to even try picking up the ball again after they dropped it a couple times. New alliances between emotionally determined effective altruists and rationalists, and thousands of other people the EA community always underestimated, might from now on be carrying the team that is the global project of AI risk reduction—from narrow/​near-term AI, to AGI/​ASI.
  
  EA can still change, though either it has to go beyond self-reflection and just change already, or get used to no longer being team captain of AI Safety.

• Evan_GaensbauerAug 6, 2024, 10:48 PM

  17 points

  4 ∶ 2

  in reply to: titotal’s comment on: Ozzie Gooen’s Shortform

  Leverage was an EA-aligned organization, that was also part of the rationality community (or at least ‘rationalist-adjacent’), about a decade ago or more. For Leverage to be affiliated with the mantles of either EA or the rationality community was always contentious. From the side of EA, the CEA, and the side of the rationality community, largely CFAR, Leverage faced efforts to be shoved out of both within a short order of a couple of years. Both EA and CFAR thus couldn’t have then, and couldn’t now, say or do more to disown and disavow Leverage’s practices from the time Leverage existed under the umbrella of either network/​ecosystem/​whatever. They have. To be clear, so has Leverage in its own way.

  At the time of the events as presented by Zoe Curzi in those posts, Leverage was basically shoved out the door of both the rationality and EA communities with—to put it bluntly—the door hitting Leverage on ass on the on the way out, and the door back in firmly locked behind them from the inside. In time, Leverage came to take that in stride, as the break-up between Leverage, and the rest of the institutional polycule that is EA/​rationality, was extremely mutual.

  Ien short, the course of events, and practices at Leverage that led to them, as presented by Zoe Curzi and others as a few years ago from that time circa 2018 to 2022, can scarcely be attributed to either the rationality or EA communities. That’s a consensus between EA, Leverage, and the rationality community agree on—one of few things left that they still agree on at all.

• Evan_GaensbauerAug 6, 2024, 10:20 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Habryka [Deactivated]’s comment on: Ozzie Gooen’s Shortform

  I wouldn’t and didn’t describe that section of the transcript, as a whole, as essentially true. I said much of it is. As the CEO might’ve learned from Tucker Carlson, who in turned learned from FOX News, we should seek to be ‘fair and balanced.’

  As to the debugging part, that’s an exaggeration that must have come out the other side of a game of broken telephone on the internet. It seems that on the other side of that telephone line would’ve been some criticisms or callouts I’ve read years ago of some activities happening in or around CFAR. I don’t recollect them in super-duper precise detail right now, nor do I have the time today to spend an hour or more digging them up on the internet

  For the perhaps wrongheaded practices that were introduced into CFAR workshops for a period of time other than the ones from Leverage Research, I believe the others were some introduced by Valentine (e.g., ‘againstness,’ etc.). As far as I’m aware, at least as it was applied at one time, some past iterations of Connection Theory bore at least a superficial resemblance to some aspects of ‘auditing’ as practiced by Scientologists.

  As to perhaps even riskier practices, I mean they happened not “in” but “around” CFAR in the sense of not officially happening under the auspices of CFAR, or being formally condoned by them, though they occurred within the CFAR alumni community and the Bay Area rationality community. It’s murky, though there was conduct in the lives of private individuals that CFAR informally enabled or emboldened, and could’ve/​should’ve done more to prevent. For the record, I’m aware CFAR has effectively admitted those past mistakes, so I don’t want to belabor any point of moral culpability beyond what has been drawn out to death on LessWrong years ago.

  Anyway, activities that occurred among rationalists in the social network that in CFAR’s orbit, that arguably arose to the level of triggering behaviour comparable in extremity to psychosis, include ‘dark arts’ rationality, and some of the edgier experiments of post-rationalists. That includes some memes spread and behaviours induced in some rationalists by Michael Vassar, Brent Dill, etc.

  To be fair, I’m aware much of that was a result not of spooky, pseudo-rationality techniques, but some unwitting rationalists being effectively bullied into taking wildly mind-altering drugs, as guinea pigs in some uncontrolled DIY experiment. While responsibility for these latter outcomes may not be as attributable to CFAR, they can be fairly attributed to some past mistakes of the rationality community, albeit on a vague, semi-collective level.

• Evan_GaensbauerAug 6, 2024, 6:21 AM

  2 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: yanni kyriacos’s comment on: Ozzie Gooen’s Shortform

  I was telling organizers with PauseAI like Holly Elmore they should be emphasizing this more several months ago.

• Evan_GaensbauerAug 6, 2024, 6:20 AM

  23 points

  4 ∶ 4

  in reply to: Ozzie Gooen’s comment on: Ozzie Gooen’s Shortform

  To be fair to the CEO of Replit here, much of that transcript is essentially true, if mildly embellished. Many of those events or outcomes associated with EA, or adjacent communities during their histories, that should be the most concerning to anyone other than any FTX-related events and for reasons beyond just PR concerns, can and have been well-substantiated.

• Evan_GaensbauerAug 5, 2024, 6:27 AM

  5 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Evan_Gaensbauer’s comment on: Evan_Gaens­bauer’s Shortform

  Update: it got better.

• Evan_GaensbauerFeb 9, 2024, 8:13 AM

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Quick PSA: Edit­ing and Re­view peer group for fo­rum posts

  I’m the admin of that Facebook group. Do you have any suggestions for what I/​we could do to help it serve its purpose of helping EAs better?

• Evan_GaensbauerJan 22, 2024, 11:34 PM

  7 points

  3 ∶ 0

  on: Introduction

  When I first checked this post, it had 0 karma but 4 votes. That means about half of those who voted on this post downvoted it. I would understand why except nobody explained why.
  
  To explain that myself, it’s typically preferred introductory posts like this are submitted as personal posts, or as a comment in an open thread, as opposed to as frontpage posts. Especially in light of how eagerly you seek to contribute to the community, it was rude nobody who disliked your post bothered taking a moment to explain why. In light of that, I’ve strongly upvoted this post, and I apologize on behalf of our other peers who were so unwelcoming.

• Evan_GaensbauerJan 22, 2024, 7:58 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: trevor1’s comment on: Cat­a­logue of POLITICO Re­ports and Other Cited Ar­ti­cles on Effec­tive Altru­ism and AI Safety Con­nec­tions in Wash­ing­ton, DC

  Thanks for the consideration, though I knew you weren’t referring to me. What I meant is that, while lurkers or faithless actors may have motives including profiteering in theory, in practice there isn’t enough incentive to put that much effort into profiteering that way.
  I’m not aware there’s enough money in that kind of task for anyone to bother with the effort, compared to other ways they could make money.
  
  Those most motivated to weaponize damaging info on EA have proven themselves savvy enough to acquire that kind of info without bothering with the EA Forum. Between critics, whistleblowers and haters, there’s so great a supply for negative info on EA that there isn’t enough demand that someone could earn much money off of trying to sell it.

• Evan_GaensbauerJan 22, 2024, 2:30 AM

  7 points

  2 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Nicholas Kross’s comment on: Cat­a­logue of POLITICO Re­ports and Other Cited Ar­ti­cles on Effec­tive Altru­ism and AI Safety Con­nec­tions in Wash­ing­ton, DC

  I’m considering writing a reply to one or more of Bordelon’s reports. To aid others who might want to do so is one of the main reasons why I shared the document. Given my understanding that POLITICO is widely read by policymakers in DC, another reason I shared it is for more EAs to at least be aware of how they’re being perceived in DC, for better or worse.
  
  If I wind up writing a response, I’m not sure where I might publish it, though the EA Forum would likely be one platform. Other than EAs, it could serve as a resource to be shared with those outside of EA.

• Evan_GaensbauerJan 22, 2024, 2:24 AM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: trevor1’s comment on: Cat­a­logue of POLITICO Re­ports and Other Cited Ar­ti­cles on Effec­tive Altru­ism and AI Safety Con­nec­tions in Wash­ing­ton, DC

  I’m not aware of reason to suspect any such person might be profiteering. That seems like by itself it wouldn’t be lucrative to justify the effort.

• Evan_GaensbauerJan 22, 2024, 12:31 AM

  6 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: gergo’s comment on: Cat­a­logue of POLITICO Re­ports and Other Cited Ar­ti­cles on Effec­tive Altru­ism and AI Safety Con­nec­tions in Wash­ing­ton, DC

  Summary: As EA remains a poorly understood movement in DC, and POLITICO is a publication that may be widely read by policymakers, it’s worth those in EA and AI safety being aware of how the perception of their efforts are being shaped, whether for better or worse. To facilitate that is one of the main reasons I shared this document. Journalists who spin conspiracy theories about EA tend to do so regardless of content like this on the EA Forum. Those journalists who would bother to be whatsoever accurate will probably be apt enough to check this comment for clarification.

  I think it’s pretty amusing that much of the mainstream media thinks that EA is some coordinated illuminati-like movement, even though that is incredibly far from being the case. However, dropping a list of EA-critical articles on the forum and speculating on journalists future behaviour without any further explanation actually does make that impression—even though I think most readers of this forum will be just as confused by seeing this list as any journalist from the mainstream media would be.

  This list wouldn’t provide that impression to most EAs. Like you, they know how false the impression is that EA is such a conspiratorial movement. To those who consider EA dubious or insidious, this linkpost might appear as though someone is surveilling journalists who tend to cover EA activities in ways many EAs dislike. Some such individuals have long presumed that without posts like this being on the EA Forum. During the last couple years, some news articles with a critical bent on EA have called the EA Forum the community’s secret platform. Meanwhile, it’s accessible on the World Wide Web. Given that fact apparently won’t deter those who fabricate conspiracy theories about EA anyway, the risk my linkpost will worsen the problem seems negligible.
  
  The third likeliest alternative is that some EAs may be concerned the author of this document is someone who is trying to give an impression someone is trying to convince them there is a conspiracy among their ranks. For context, that’s not the case, as I’m the one who created the document. I’ve participated in the EA community since 2011. Given my understanding that POLITICO is widely read by policymakers, it seemed worthwhile for more EAs to at least be aware of how they’re being perceived in DC, for better or worse. That was one of the main reasons I shared the above document. As to potentially confused journalists, as much as some EAs may doubt the quality of the reporting some of them provide, many are at least savvy enough to even read deep into comments sections on the EA Forum to gain insights. I expect any journalist so determined to understand the purpose of this linkpost might read this comment, thus clearing their confusion.
  
  I didn’t mean to speculate about what the main journalist in question, Bordelon, might do next. I’m aware of others in AI safety and EA who have speculated the series of articles has been written as a series of hit pieces. He’s generally one of POLITICO’s main reporters on the influence of Big Tech lobbies in DC. Having read several of the articles he has written in that vein not focused on EA-affiliated organizations, it seems he tends to write a comprehensive set of reports on the stakeholders pushing various agendas in DC. His reports on EA don’t seem to be more critical than others, so I doubt he’s especially hostile to EA. He has written a few reports on EA that have gotten to the root of a perceived AI safety agenda as thoroughly as anyone could.
  
  Especially as tends to be expected by editors of their reporters, I expect he will soon focus on some other lobby from Silicon Valley in his next articles. As he hasn’t published another report so far in 2024, there’s not yet a way to verify my expectations, or the speculations others in EA and AIS have already made. I sought to clarify for those who already have their own suspicions about his motives that there is not yet anymore evidence to confirm or deny the suspicions.

• Evan_GaensbauerJan 21, 2024, 9:30 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: gergo’s comment on: Cat­a­logue of POLITICO Re­ports and Other Cited Ar­ti­cles on Effec­tive Altru­ism and AI Safety Con­nec­tions in Wash­ing­ton, DC

  all I know about Politico is that a while ago they published an article on EA that seemed to be written in pretty bad faith.

  Do you remember whether:

  1. that article was published in the last 6 months, or before that?

  2. the article covered an area EA has influence over, other than AI safety or biosecurity?

  If it was published in the last 6 months, it’s probably one of the ones I’ve listed. If it was published before then, it may have been one about the connections between Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX, and EA. If it was something else, it’s one of their articles that most EAs wouldn’t be aware of.

Cat­a­logue of POLITICO Re­ports and Other Cited Ar­ti­cles on Effec­tive Altru­ism and AI Safety Con­nec­tions in Wash­ing­ton, DC

[Question] What ev­i­dence is there for (or against) the­o­ries about the ex­tent to which effec­tive al­tru­ist in­ter­ests mo­ti­vated the ouster of Sam Alt­man last year?

• Evan_GaensbauerJan 17, 2024, 7:02 AM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Some Com­ments on the Re­cent FTX TIME Article

  I’m sorry to hear to join Alameda under the impression that it would be the opposite of what it became to be, like happened to so many others, is the reason you quit the company you had founded. I didn’t know you stopped working at the company you founded to work at Alameda.

  At the time, I thought you had maybe sold your stake in it or something so you’d have a lot of cash to donate while moving onto an opportunity to do way more good in some other job at the advice of 80k or whoever. I thought it seemed strange you had left the company you founded then, given that it seemed unlikely you could find that much of a higher-impact job that would outweigh the value of the money you could gain to donate if you stuck at Health eFilings for a while longer. I was sad you left the company at that point because it seemed to me you could’ve gotten more good done there. I was glad to hear you were hired at the CEA, though I felt like it was strange to learn about your exciting new job a few months after you stopped working at Health eFilings, when I thought it’s something you’d want to tell the rest of us about right away.

  In a way, I was right about all of that. I wish I had read this post when you first published it last year, though it’s still interesting to be someone who has also participated in the EA community for that long and to know the fuller story now.

• Evan_GaensbauerJan 8, 2024, 10:01 PM

  5 points

  2 ∶ 0

  in reply to: RobBensinger’s comment on: MIRI 2024 Mis­sion and Strat­egy Update

  This was an acerbic and bitter comment I made as a reference to the fake MIRI strategy update in 2022 from Eliezer, the notorious “Dying with Dignity.” I’ve thought about this for a few days and I’m sorry I made that nasty comment.

  I was considering deleting or retracting it, though I’ve decided against that. The fact my comment has a significantly net negative karma score seems like punishment enough. Retracting the comment now probably wouldn’t change that anyway.

  I’ve decided against deleting or retracting this comment because its reception seems like a useful signal for MIRI to receive. At least as of the time I’m writing this reply, my original comment has received more agreement than disagreement. It’s valid for you or whoever from MIRI disagrees with the perception I snarkily expressed as wrong or unserious. I expect it’s still worth MIRI being aware that almost as many people still distrust as trust MIRI as being sufficiently honest in its public communications.

• Evan_GaensbauerJan 5, 2024, 1:43 AM

  −3 points

  15 ∶ 11

  on: MIRI 2024 Mis­sion and Strat­egy Update

  I appreciate the pivot to a better-devised and merely pessimistic strategy on MIRI’s part, as opposed to a deceptively dignified and misrepresentative resignation to death.

• Evan_GaensbauerSep 28, 2023, 8:21 PM

  2 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Niyorurema Pacifique’s comment on: Open Thread: July—Septem­ber 2023

  Welcome to the EA Forum! Thanks for sharing!