howdoyousay?

Karma: 606

howdoyousay? 13 Apr 2023 15:15 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Geoffrey Miller’s comment on: Nobody’s on the ball on AGI alignment
I’ve been thinking about this very thing for quite some time, and have been thinking up a concrete interventions to help the ML community / industry grasp this. DM me if you’re interested to discuss further.

howdoyousay? 23 Mar 2023 12:52 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Benjamin_Todd’s comment on: Time Article Discussion—“Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed”
Now having read your reply, I think we’re likely closer together than apart on views. But...
But the question of board choice is firstly a question of who should be given legal control of EA organisations.
I don’t think this is how I see the question of board choice in practice. In theory yes, for the specific legal, hard mechanisms you mention. But in practice in my experience boards significantly check and challenge direction of the organisation, so the collective ability of board members to do this should be factored in appointment decisions which may trade off against legal control being put in the ‘safest pair of hands’.
That said, I feel back and forth responses on the EA forum may be exhausting their value here; I feel I’d have more to say in a brainstorm about potential trade-offs between legal control and ability to check and challenge, and open to discussing further if helpful to some concrete issue at hand :)

howdoyousay? 22 Mar 2023 23:15 UTC
7 points
4 ∶ 1
in reply to: Benjamin_Todd’s comment on: Time Article Discussion—“Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed”
Isn’t the point of EA that we are responsive to new arguments? So, unlike Extinction Rebellion where belief that climate change is a real and imminent risk is essential, our “belief system” is rather more about openness and willingness to update in response to 1) evidence, and 2) reasonable arguments about other world views?

Also I think a lot of the time when people say “value alignment”, they are in fact looking for signals like self-identification as EAs, or who they’re friends with or have collaborated / worked with. I also notice we conflate our aesthetic preferences for communication with good reasoning or value alignment; for example, someone who knows in-group terminology or uses non-emotive language is seen as aligned with EA values / reasoning (and by me as well often). But within social-justice circles, emotive language can be seen as a signal of value alignment. Basically, there’s a lot more to unpack with “value alignment” and what it means in reality vs. what we say it ostensibly means.

Also to tackle your response, and maybe I’m reading between the lines too hard here / being too harsh on you here, but I feel there’s goalpost shifting in your original post about EA value alignment and you now stating that people who understand broader principles are also “value aligned”.

Another reflection: the more we speak about “value alignment” being important, the more it incentivises people to signal “value alignment” even if they have good arguments to the contrary. If we speak about valuing different perspectives, we give permission and incentivise people to bring those.

howdoyousay? 22 Mar 2023 1:16 UTC
12 points
6 ∶ 3
in reply to: Benjamin_Todd’s comment on: Time Article Discussion—“Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed”
Ultimately, if you think there is enough value within EA arguments about how to do good, you should be able to find smart people from other walks of life who have: 1) enough overlap with EA thinking (because EA isn’t 100% original after all) to have a reasonable starting point along with 2) more relevant leadership experience and demonstrably good judgement, and linked to the two previous 3) mature enough in their opinions and / or achievements to be less susceptible to herding.

If you think that EA orgs won’t remain EA orgs if you don’t appoint “value aligned” people, it implies out arguments aren’t strong enough for people who we think should be convinced by them. If that’s the case, it’s a real good indicator your argument might not be that good and to reconsider.

To be concrete, I expect a board of 50% card-carrying EAs and 50% experienced high achievement non-EAs with good understanding of similar topics (e.g. x-risk, evidence based interventions) to appraise arguments of what high-/lower-risk options to fund much better than a board of 100% EAs with the same epistemic and discourse background and limited prior career / board experience.

Edit- clarity and typos

howdoyousay? 20 Feb 2023 20:26 UTC
44 points
24 ∶ 23
on: A statement and an apology
For the times when I have been done wrong to, I would have been really happy if the injuring party had been as reflective, genuinely self-critical and (from what I can see) steadfast in trying to do better as you are.

From what I can tell, you didn’t have to “out” yourself for this. I respect the move to do this and to make amends and doing so (from what it seems) with the person you wronged. It’s impressive that (from what it seems) they’re keen to see things put right and giving you some support in this regard (if only fact checking this post).

I’ve more often felt like the younger woman in this scenario did. But the depths of your reflections Owen are leading me to think more critically about how I can be careless / flippant from my relative position of power and how that would make others feel.

Whether someone has had a big fuck up or minor infractions, I think this stuff is life long learning. There is no simple algorithm (though some guidelines, always evolving); diversity of people and emotional world’s mean that it’s just hard work to understand other people better, and not become complacent or over-confident when you think you’re doing is well or dismissive and derisive if you’re dismayed by lack of success.

howdoyousay? 15 Feb 2023 17:20 UTC
3 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: “Community” posts have their own section, subforums are closing, and more (Forum update February 2023)
I’m curious about the down-voting with out explanations as well, keen to hear why people disagree.

howdoyousay? 10 Feb 2023 14:59 UTC
10 points
3 ∶ 6
on: “Community” posts have their own section, subforums are closing, and more (Forum update February 2023)
Why we’re doing this
You can see our full reasoning here (and in the comments). In brief, we are worried about a way in which the voting structure on the Forum leads to more engagement with “Community” posts than users endorse, we’ve been hearing user feedback on related issues for a long time, and we’ve been having lots of conversations on hypotheses that we’d like to test.
I feel mixed about this.
On one hand, I log on to the forum and sometimes think “I’d rather not read about more drama”, or indeed “I keep getting sucked in by drama rather than cause prioritisation”. Really I just want to learn more rather than get sucked into debates about polycules and stuff.
On the other, if people are gravitating towards posts and discussion about the community, that’s telling you something about what matters to people and what is soaking up a lot of mental energy among the community. It means there’s an opportunity for (hopefully) progress to be made, when messages can land better, when it’s more acceptable to dissent; in large part spurred on by FTX fraud fallout.
I feel like this experiment is maybe not the best response to increased visceral dialogue about the community; it feels more like trying to package certain conversations in another space because XYZ reasons. I say XYZ reasons because the reasons themselves aren’t the important part; the important part is that the message latent in people’s behaviour isn’t being paid attention to.
It’s a human response, and it’s typically the response of very cerebral / less emotional people when there has been emotional trauma in a small group setting. But it isn’t necessarily the response which leads to the best results, as others feel silenced or that the opportunity for changing things for the better is being taken away.
Also I find the rationale here for removing community posts because they are intrinsically ones that everyone can grapple with wildly counterintuitive.

howdoyousay? 10 Feb 2023 9:11 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Hardening pharmaceutical response to pandemics: concrete project seeks project lead
If you haven’t come across it yet, worth seeing what Wellcome Leap’s R3 project involves, it focuses on increasing the production capability of MRNA vaccines in globally distributed labs so that there is better responsiveness to emerging pathogens; whether another covid, ebola, a particularly bad flu etc.

https://wellcomeleap.org/r3/

howdoyousay? 9 Feb 2023 20:19 UTC
12 points
4 ∶ 3
in reply to: Jeff Kaufman 🔸’s comment on: In (mild) defence of the social/professional overlap in EA
I don’t actually think that’s necessarily messed up? That sometimes your role conflicts with a relationship you’d like to have is unfortunate, but not really avoidable:
- A company telling its managers that they can’t date their reports .
- ...
- A school telling professors they can’t date their students.
- A charity telling their donor services staff that they can’t date major donors.
In theory, I think it makes a lot of sense to have some clear hard lines related to some power dynamics, but even when I’m trying to write those red lines I notice myself writing guidelines because human dynamics are subtle and context specific. For instance:
- because you shouldn’t have power dynamics potentially seep into a romantic relationship or influence your work behaviour: don’t date direct reports; and most likely same for anyone in your workplace hierarchy; or where you have any inkling this negative dynamic could arise
- Someone at a certain level of seniority and / or power within an organisation will find others feel less able to speak up if their behaviour doesn’t chime with them, so you should be extra careful in non-work social settings, especially if there’s banter which could be flirtatious or a bit too close to the bone
- Someone very experienced / well regarded in a company—even if very junior—can wield a lot of power over someone more senior, so they too need to keep themselves in check in terms of how they affect the other person; including how they challenge them
Basically, I don’t think there’s a feasible checklist for dealing effectively with the range of issues that might occur: affection and loyalty, and power, influence and control are all so subtle. To ensure you’re not doing wrong to others or being done wrong to, it’s more a constant process of checking in with yourself and empowering others to speak up.
Moreover, I think it’s difficult to separate out what counts as more / less ok workplace relationships. You could say we need to see fewer people working in EA orgs who were friends outside of work (as opposed to friends you make at work) or romantic relationships starting in EA orgs, but then there’s just the people who you get along with and see eye-to-eye with within the work place and sometimes develop more impactful and / or toxic relationships with. For example:
- having political loyalty to a colleague, leading to factions
- nepotism between close friends / former work colleagues
- simply the more junior person feels their career is still dependent on their mentor / friend^[1]
Which is to say implement all these rules targeting ‘out of work’ friendships / relationships, but human power dynamic issues will still prevail in adjacent domains.
Reflecting that tighter human alliances and power dynamics is somewhat inevitable (I postulate), it’s worth noting that a lot of the time companies—big or small—deal with relationships in flexible ways, and sometimes this is worth considering. Things like:
- if two people want to start dating—whether they’re in the same team or in a line management hierarchy—give them the option of changing teams where that’s appropriate for the business and still maintains sufficient separation to avoid power imbalances /
- in some cases, just turning a blind eye because people have their shit together and it isn’t interfering in their work-lives
- stipulating that a married couple cannot be in the same senior leadership team (as they’ll be a unit)
1. ^
  Side note: most of the above examples are why I’m often banging on about diversity within organisations—just newbies full stop—because they can break much of these dynamics up both through behaviours and new ideas, but I won’t get on that hobby-horse just now.

howdoyousay? 3 Jan 2023 14:33 UTC
60 points
21 ∶ 5
in reply to: Jan_Kulveit’s comment on: If EA Community-Building Could Be Net-Negative, What Follows?
I don’t think this is a fair comment, and aspects of it reads more of a personal attack rather than an attack of ideas. This feels especially the case given the above post has significantly more substance and recommendations to it, but this one comment just focuses in on Zoe Cremer. It worries me a bit that it was upvoted as much as it was.

For the record, I think some of Zoe’s recommendations could plausibly be net negative and some are good ideas; as with everything, it requires further thinking through and then skillful implementation. But I think the amount of flack she’s taken for this has been disproportionate and sends the wrong signal to others about dissenting.

I think this aspect of the comment is particularly harsh, which is in and of itself likely counterproductive. But on top of that, it’s not the type that should be made lightly or without a lot of evidence that that is the person’s agenda (bold for emphasis):
- I think part of Cremer’s reaction after FTX is not epistemically virtuous; “I was a vocal critic of EA”—“there is an EA-related scandal”—“I claim to be vindicated in my criticism” is not sound reasoning, when the criticisms are mostly tangentially related to the scandal. It will get you a lot of media attention, in particular if you present yourself as some sort of virtuous insider who was critical of the leaders and saw this coming, but I hope upon closer scrutiny people are actually able to see through this.
What links here?
- JamesÖz's comment on If EA Community-Building Could Be Net-Negative, What Follows? by joshcmorrison (3 Jan 2023 22:18 UTC; 16 points)

howdoyousay? 24 Dec 2022 13:15 UTC
9 points
3 ∶ 1
on: Keep EA high-trust
A few disjointed challenges, basically:
1. Governance has value regardless of degree of trust
2. I find EA leadership’s attitude low trust in some instances
There’s a false dichotomy implied in this post; that high trust and less governance go together, and having strong governance means you have low trust. I don’t think this is the case; in fact you often create high trust by having appropriate strong governance, or lack of governance destroying trust.

I also find the characterisation of governance being there to protect against bad actors narrow, even naive; both in this post and in comments. Governance primarily should be in place to protect the average good person from doing something ill-considered; such as accounting for funding streams that is irregular and inexact which could cause problems later on, or having slap-dash recruitment practices which are not designed to ensure you are being fair to all applicants. I think EA could benefit from a lot more of that; just because we’re well intended and generally more conscientious doesn’t mean we’re immune from mistakes

There’s many ways in which the relationship between EA (nominal) leadership and EA base seems low trust to me. For instance:
1. I’ve worked in organisations of 6000 people where any communications had to go to the CEOs office, to ensure everything was “on message”; most people I knew found that process controlling and low trust, but also understandable. For example, a media announcement that team X was committing £Y to a certain area would have financial implications for the whole organisation, which could cause budgetary challenges. This approach reminds me a lot of how EA leadership actively discourages people from speaking to the media, to the point of directly ringing people to discourage them.
2. when I spoke to some EA leaders about excessive deference within EA, they cited the unilateralists curse as a reason for not speaking up about uncertainties leaders have in key ideas
Edit for context: Basically I feel it’s wrong to say we are high trust across the board, and if we’re going to discuss trust I feel a more rounded view is needed. So I’m bringing these two anecdata points in to spark another nuance in the conversation, but not making a “cased close” argument about just how representative these instances are or just how justifiable they are.

howdoyousay? 19 Dec 2022 12:37 UTC
15 points
8 ∶ 2
in reply to: throwaway790’s comment on: I’m less approving of the EA community now than before the FTX collapse
Strong disagree.
I would have qualified my statements even if I was 99% confident that SBF had committed outright fraud. I would expect more and more information to come to light which could nuance my views (if not outright change them) which would lead me to want to change my public position.

Moreover, I felt Will’s statement was quite strong in outright denouncing SBF, and had this qualifier as an afterthought; not in the foreground.
I didn’t take issue with Holden’s post. For me the subtext was “I’m going to be giving cold takes, because another loud voice isn’t needed right now” at a time when Twitter, EA Forum and media overall was alight and not with the most sensible takes. I respect that as his choice, and I don’t feel he minimised what was going on. I also think it was sensible for him to focus energies on ‘here’s what this means for OpenPhil, and for the EA funding ecosystem, which is what most of you care about’.
Personally, I felt most aligned with Rob’s take, and I probably would have posted something similar. To note, he also included a qualifier: “If media reports of what happened are at all accurate, what at least two people high up at FTX and Alameda have done here is inexcusable (e.g. wsj.com/articles/ftx-t…).”

howdoyousay? 3 Dec 2022 10:57 UTC
23 points
4 ∶ 0
in reply to: Geoffrey Miller’s comment on: I’m a 22-year-old woman involved in Effective Altruism. I’m sad, disappointed, and scared.
I really appreciated your comment and think it’s important to acknowledge and ensure neurodiverse people feel welcome, and I’m coming from a place where I agree with Maya’s reflections on emotions within EA and am neurotypical.

Not sure I have time to post my thoughts in depth but I think the rational Vs. intuitive emotional intelligence tension within EA is something worth a lot more thought. It’s a tension / trade-off I’ve picked up on in the EA professional realm: where people aren’t getting on in EA organisations, where people aren’t feeling heard, and where the working culture becomes one that’s more afraid of losing status / threat mindset than supportive, to the detriment of employees.

Maybe as a counter to what you’re saying, some of the people who helped me best own and articulate my emotions (in the context of another EA repeatedly undermining me) are bay-area rationalist EAs who you might describe as neurodivergent. Why? I think a lot of people from that community have just done the work on themselves to recognise emotions in themselves, and consequently in others. And this is driven by valuing emotions / internal worlds intrinsically—in that integrating head and heart way you write about—and then getting better in that domain.

So to link this back to Maya’s post;
1. agree with making sure EA is truly inclusive and, in being better at responding to emotions and traumatic experiences, doesn’t swing to excluding neurodivergent people,
2. I think this tension / trade-off goes beyond social realm, and into the professional, and
3. I would like to play up how many neurodivergent people—especially those who might instinctively behave in a way that creates the culture Maya has highlighted as problematic - can actually be really good at creating an emotionally responsive and caring environment.
Happy to discuss further time permitting (which is sadly not on my side!)

howdoyousay? 29 Nov 2022 16:28 UTC
−9 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: NunoSempere’s comment on: List of past fraudsters similar to SBF
Oh darling, I understood your point which is why I said...
Yeah I had the same thought too.

howdoyousay? 29 Nov 2022 13:47 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: NunoSempere’s comment on: List of past fraudsters similar to SBF
Yeah I had the same thought too. Though when I said priors I personally did not mean updating quantifiably (i.e. 0.05 --> 0.1); more in the folk sense of priors, or base rates.
Also the examples I gave are more about certain features of a business / company that I should be more sceptical about.

howdoyousay? 29 Nov 2022 12:05 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 1
on: List of past fraudsters similar to SBF
Great post, thank you for writing. Definitely makes me re-evaluate my own priors on fraud, and also think about structural risks inherent in companies where:
- there is a trading house and fund owned by the same person (as in Bernie Madoff’s case)
- the nature of the business and / or investments may not be a ponzi scheme by nature or have multi-level marketing built in, but where it’s growth model in effect looks a bit like that; i.e. growth seems highly driven by enthusiasm, is activated through social networks / word of mouth, and the intrinsic value of the business / commodity is subject to a lot of debate (in contrast with e.g. stock prices of minerals necessary in electronics manufacturing)

howdoyousay? 17 Nov 2022 9:49 UTC
4 points
2 ∶ 1
on: late entry for the EA criticism contest
Strong upvote from me. I really appreciated the frank sharing of your experience and also that it was playfully written (and more on this forum could be!)
Particularly keen on the policy mandating anonymous donations, and building a receiving organisation to do this and (presumably) pool all different donations for cause / intervention X together and administering them? TBH, it seems like a no-brainer to me to do in the first place if governance was being prioritised. Main reason I think you would keep the close donor-adviser relationship in place would be:
- historic precedence, this being the expectation in classic philanthroty
- a belief that if you make a strong relationship with the donor, you can influence their donations to better places and at higher scale (and not an unreasonable belief at that)
- something something ‘donors deserve this for their money’ something something ‘accountability’ and other things which someone might put forward a more earnest argument for that I would
And I’m genuinely curious if people who advise donors 1:1 think that such interventions / policies you list would deter donors? Or if, on the plausible trade-off between anonymity-as-prevention-against-capture Vs. getting donations, they think it’s net positive?
Would also be keen to hear views of donors directly on this (even if this thread might not be the most hospitable place given Eigenrobot’s unpacking of how these structures necessarily corrupt).

howdoyousay? 13 Nov 2022 10:20 UTC
84 points
36 ∶ 3
in reply to: AbigailT’s comment on: Will MacAskill’s role in connecting SBF to Elon Musk for a potential Twitter deal
I think seeing it as “just putting two people in touch” is narrow. It’s about judgement on whether to get involved in highly controversial commercial deal which was expected to significantly influence discourse norms, and therefore polarisation, in years to come. As far as I can tell, EA overall and Will specifically do not have skills / knowhow in this domain.

Introducing Elon to Sam is not just like making a casual introduction; if everything SBF was doing was based on EA, then this feels like EA wading in on the future of Twitter via the influence of SBFs money.

Introducing Elon to Holden because he wanted to learn more about charity evaluation? Absolutely—that’s EA’s bread and butter and where we have skills and credibility. But on this commercial deal and subsequent running of Twitter? Not within anyone’s toolbox from what I can tell.

I’d like to know the thinking behind this move by Will and anyone else involved. For my part, I think this was unwise, should have had more consultation around it.

I would consider disavowing the community if people start to get more involved in: 1) big potentially world-changing decisions which—to me—it looks like they don’t have the wider knowledge or skillset to take on well, or 2) incredibly controversial projects like the Twitter acquisition, and doing so through covert back-channels with limited consultation.

howdoyousay? 12 Nov 2022 15:44 UTC
20 points
7 ∶ 0
on: CEA/EV + OP + RP should engage an independent investigator to determine whether key figures in EA knew about the (likely) fraud at FTX
Posting quickly, haven’t thought it through but guessing that one of the key benefits of having an independent investigator is that it gives routes for any evidence to be evaluated, thereby preventing a witch-hunt which could happen if no legitimate routes for recourse.

howdoyousay? 10 Nov 2022 11:45 UTC
1 point
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: jacquesthibs’s comment on: More mental health support needed for the EA community because of the recent events concerning FTX?
Fair!
In case wasn’t clear from my post, I’m not saying there’s a clear action here yet but to still think beyond the EA community.