I’m in the final year of a PhD program in History. Before pursuing graduate studies, I was the Research Director for NARAL, a U.S. nationwide reproductive rights advocacy group. I was introduced to Effective Altruism via my husband and many of our friends in DC. The more I learn about EA the more invested I am in creating a career that has real impact beyond academia or political advocacy.
HannahGB
Karma: 5
One avenue that might be helpful in assessing impact would be to see what plans already exist for knowledge preservation in the face of disaster and what kinds of information they don’t include that you think might be of vital importance.
For instance, while “a paper copy of wikipedia” sounds cool, preserving paper over a long time span is actually quite difficult. Archivists have special trainings in how to preserve paper and other materials.
The good news is, a lot of archivists and librarians have already thought about this specific problem. Most archives that I am familiar with have what they call a Disaster Plan. These cover everything from a “minor” flood that could happen tomorrow, to larger scale disasters that could happen in the future. These plans are specifically built to be flexible to accommodate a wide range of possible disasters that could threaten knowledge preservation. Many archives are built to survive natural disasters and keep paper copies of their records in the event of power failure. An (incomplete) list of some of their plans can be found here. Of course, not every archive or library has the money to have a super-robust plan, but groups like the Smithsonian, National Archives (including the patent office), British Library, etc., have a lot of info stored in vaults for exactly these kinds of scenarios.It could be the case that the type of information you think is most vital to save civilization is not already stored in traditional archives and libraries. For instance, CJR did a report in 2019 that found that many newspapers, especially digital publications, do not have a good disaster plan in place. (Many newspapers solve this, however, by partnering with libraries who do the preservation work for them). Perhaps one helpful brainstorm would be what kinds of information are not already in archives/libraries, or ways you think archives/libraries could make their material more accessible post-disaster?
It also sounds like you want these kits to include tools. That might be a higher impact way to focus, as I don’t know of a worldwide network of accessible generators, etc. But that could be really cool!
Can you say more about this:
“Soft ops roles (program management, talent management, generalist positions, etc,) are different. Domain expertise matters less than having strong inside-view models of the field and generalist competency. Succeeding in these roles requires real mission alignment and enough context to spot high-EV opportunities that someone without that background would miss.”
As someone who does “soft ops” for a think tank that works across literally dozens of issue areas, I think you may be too highly weighting familiarity with AI safety. A really good people-and-program manager should be able to be dropped into any new environment and get up to speed on the nuances of that particular field very quickly (even 2-3 weeks) sufficiently such that they can apply their people and project management skills effectively. It’s much harder to teach people and project management skills, and I applaud you for trying to do so! But I also wonder if you’ve missed really great opportunities with folks unfamiliar with the field because you seem to start from the assumption that teaching them about AI safety will be too great a lift.