I’m currently a co-director at EA Netherlands (with Marieke de Visscher). We’re working to build and strengthen the EA community here.
Before this, I worked as a consultant on urban socioeconomic development projects and programmes funded by the EU. Before that, I studied liberal arts (in the UK) and then philosophy (in the Netherlands).
Hit me up if you wanna find out about the Dutch EA community! :)
Nice post! If anyone reading this would like to see examples of outside game interventions, check out the Existential Risk Observatory and PauseAI.
Looks like Charity Navigator is taking a leaf from the EA book!
Here they’re previewing a new ‘cause-based giving’ tool—they talk about rating charities based on effectiveness and refer to research by Founder’s Pledge.
Thanks for publishing this! Very helpful.
One quick thought: those retreats seem extraordinarily expensive. EA Netherlands has organised four retreats since February last year. I haven’t checked the most recent one but, of the first three, the most expensive had a cost per person of EUR 260 (not including the cost of EA Netherlands spending time organising it). Granted, they were short retreats (arrive late on the Friday, leave Sunday afternoon before the evening meal), but it would be interesting to see how they compare to the events you looked at on the outcome measures you specified.
For example, for our ‘raw’ average number of connections, across all four retreats the figure is 4.6. So that’s approx 35% less than the EAGx events you looked at, and 30% less than the retreats you looked at, but our most expensive retreat cost approximately 80% less per person than the average CEP retreat.
Great post!
On whether the decision has been made to do ‘narrow EA’ as opposed to ‘global EA’, I also have the impression that this is what leaders such as those on the longtermist CB team at OP have decided. I think this decision has been made on the basis of research such as this. I also agree that more transparency on this would have some benefits.
The decision to go for ‘narrow EA’ seems to go against most of the social change research I’m familiar with, which usually stresses the importance of both ‘inside track’ and ‘outside track’ interventions. But I’m not sure how much weight to give this research.
My gut feeling is that, putting to one side the question of which is the most effective strategy for reducing x-risk etc., the ‘narrow EA’ strategy is a mistake because there’s a good chance it is unethical to try to guide society without broader societal participation.
In other words, if MacAskill argues here we should get our shit together first and then either a) collectively decide on a way forward or b) allow for everyone to make their own way forward, I think it’s also important that ‘the getting our shit together’ has broad societal participation.
Thanks for sharing this, really looking forward to the results of the survey.
As this event is for “a group of key people focused on meta / community-building work”, wouldn’t it make sense to include those doing community-building work ‘on the ground’? E.g., organisers that work for national, uni, city, or profession-based community-building organisations?
Rob provides some representation as head of CEA’s Groups Team, and obviously many of the attendees were working at the coalface in the recent past, but it still feels like a missed opportunity.
I recognise I’m probably biased because I co-run the Dutch national organisation.
I’m surprised by the scepticism re 80k. The OP EA/LT survey from 2020 seems to suggest one can be quite confident of the positive impact 80k had on the small (but important) population surveyed. As the authors noted in their summary:
Among the organizations, pieces of content, and meetup groups/discussion platforms we explicitly asked about, the ones that seemed to have been most impactful on our respondents robustly, across multiple metrics, were 80,000 Hours, CEA, local and university EA groups, FHI, Nick Bostrom’s works, Eliezer Yudkowsky’s works, and Peter Singer’s works.
Politico just published a fairly negative article about EA and UK politics. Previously they’ve published similar articles about EA and Brussels.
I think EA tends to focus on the inside game, or narrow EA, and I believe this increases the likelihood of articles such as this. I worry articles such as this will make people in positions of influence less likely to want to be associated with EA, and that this in the long run will undermine efforts to bring about the policy changes we desire. Still, of course, this focus on the inside game is also pretty cost-effective (for the short term, at least). Is it worth the trade-off? What do people think?
My gut feeling is that, putting to one side the question of which is the most effective strategy for reducing x-risk etc., the ‘narrow EA’ strategy is a mistake because there’s a good chance it is wrong to try to guide society without broader societal participation.
In other words, if MacAskill argues here we should get our shit together first and then either a) collectively decide on a way forward or b) allow for everyone to make their own way forward, I think it’s also important that ‘the getting our shit together’ has broad societal participation.
I think events are underrated in EA community building.
I have heard many people argue against organising relatively simple events such as, ‘get a venue, get a speaker, invite people’. I think the early success of the Tien Procent Club in the Netherlands should make people doubt that advice.
Why? Well, the first thing to mention is that they simply get great attendance, and their attendees are not typical EAs. I think their biggest so far has been 400, and the typical attendee is a professional in their 30s or 40s. It also does an amazing job of generating buzz. For example, suppose you’ve got a journalist writing an article about your community. In that case, it’s pretty cool if you can invite them to an event with hundreds of regular people in attendance.
Now, of course, attendance doesn’t translate to impact. However, I think we can see the early signs of people actually changing their behaviour.
For example, running a quick check on GWWC’s referral dashboard, I can see four pledges that refer to the Tien Procent Club (2 trial, 2 full). Based on GWWC’s March 2023 impact evaluation, they can therefore self-attribute ~$44k of 2022-equivalent donations to high-impact funding opportunities.
This is despite the fact they started less than two years ago and don’t have any funding other than what they have provided themselves or raised through selling tickets.
What’s more, it’s beginning to look like their formula works in different contexts. They started in Amsterdam, but since then they’ve seeded new organising teams elsewhere in the Netherlands, and the teams in Rotterdam and Utrecht have successfully organised their first events.
One caveat to all of this is that they received quite a bit of promotion from Rutger Bregman, a very prominent writer in the Netherlands. I know people are going to experiment with the TPC format abroad. I assume they won’t have a similar ambassador. It will therefore be interesting to see if the formula still works without such a resource.
In the meantime, my current takeaways are: get an endorsement from someone like Bregman + if your target audience is non-students who aren’t already EAs, put on events that only require shallow engagement but are good fun + focus on doing what you’re good at (e.g., they only do large events, and they only do them once every 3 months).
The latest episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast is about Derek Parfit.[1] It’s an interview with his biographer (and fellow philosopher) David Edmonds. It’s quite accessible and only 20 mins long. Very nice listening if you fancy a walk and want a primer on Parfit’s work.
My recommended readings/resources for community builders/organisers
CEA’s groups resource centre, naturally
LifeLabs’s coaching questions (great for 1-1s with organisers you’re supporting/career coachees)
Centola’s work on social change, e.g., the book Change: How to Make Big Things Happen
Han’s work on organising, e.g., How Organisations Develop Activists (I wrote up some notes here)
This 80k article on community coordination
@Michael Noetel’s forum post - ‘We all teach: here’s how to do it better’
What should the content split at EAGxUtrecht[1] be? Below is our first stab. One of our subgoals is to inspire people to start new projects, hence the heavy focus on entrepreneurship under ‘Meta’.
Neartermist[2] 35%
Global Health & Dev 35%
Animal welfare 60%
Mental health 5%
Longtermist 45%
AI risk 50%
Biosec 30%
Nuclear 10%
General longtermist 5%
Climate change 5%
Meta 20%
Priorities research 5%
Entrepreneurship skills 85%
Community building 5%
Effective giving 5%
Gender split of speakers: 50:50
Proportion of speakers with a strong Dutch connection: 35%
July 5-7 - be there or be square. Or be there and do square things like check out the world’s largest bicycle garage. You do you.
Yeah, I don’t like the terms ‘neartermism’ and ‘longtermism’ either, and it’s messy, but this is our attempt at organising things. We used RP’s 2022 survey’s categorisation of the two to guide us, with some small modifications.
Just want to add that many of the retreats organised by national organisations or uni groups are a fraction of the cost of the retreats analysed in the link Ollie posted. Our most expensive retreat had a per-person cost of around EUR 260. The average retreat analysed in that post had a per-person cost of just under EUR 1,500. See my comment for further details.
You missed the most impressive part of Jan-Willem’s EA CV—he used to co-direct EA Netherlands, and I hear that’s a real signal of talent ;)
But yes, I guess it depends on how you define ‘EA project’. They’re intentionally trying to do something different, so that’s why I don’t describe them as one, but the line is very blurred when you take into account the personal and philosophical ties.
If EA was a broad and decentralised movement, similar to e.g., environmentalism, I’d classify SMA as an EA project. But right now EA isn’t quite that. Personally, I hope we one day get there.
Thanks!
I agree that negative articles are inevitable if you get influence, but I think there are various angles these negative articles might come from, and this is a particularly bad one.
The Soros point is an excellent analogy, but I worry we could be headed for something worse than that. Soros gets criticism from people like Orban but praise from orgs like the FT and Politico. Meanwhile, with EA, people like Orban don’t give a damn about EA but Politico is already publishing scathing pieces.
I don’t think reputation management is as hard as is often supposed in EA. I think it’s just it hasn’t been prioritised much until recently (e.g., CEA didn’t have a head of comms until September 2022). I can imagine many national organisations such as mine would love to have a Campaign Officer or something to help us manage it, but we don’t have the funding.
I ask ChatGPT to analyse the text’s sentiment.
What is the text’s sentiment re effective altruism?
The sentiment towards effective altruism (EA) in the provided text is primarily skeptical and critical. The text associates effective altruism with the AI safety movement, describing them as intertwined. It suggests that EA has been recruiting ambitious young people on elite college campuses, but questions the movement’s focus, methods, and associations.
Here are a few points from the text that highlight the skeptical sentiment toward effective altruism:
The text mentions that EA initially focused on global poverty but then shifted its focus to rogue AI, with the implication that this shift may not be entirely grounded in current, practical concerns. This suggests a lack of consistency in the movement’s goals.
The text notes that extreme practitioners within EA began promoting an idea called “longtermism,” which is portrayed as prioritizing the lives of hypothetical future beings over present-day suffering. This is presented as a rather abstract and potentially disconnected concern.
The text mentions that EA is associated with controversial figures and ideas, including a scandal involving one of its largest donors, Bankman-Fried, and a backlash against Nick Bostrom, an influential figure in EA, for controversial past writings. This suggests that the movement is connected to individuals and ideas that have faced criticism.
The phrase “EA Kool-Aid” is used in the text, a colloquial term that implies that EA might be likened to a cult where followers are expected to accept beliefs without critical examination.
Overall, the sentiment toward effective altruism in the text is that it is a movement with questionable focus, controversial associations, and methods that may be seen as cult-like or ungrounded.
What is the text’s sentiment re the field of AI safety?
The sentiment towards the field of AI safety in the provided text is largely mixed with a tinge of skepticism. While the text acknowledges the importance and legitimacy of AI safety as a field, it appears to criticize its association with effective altruism and the extreme scenarios some proponents focus on.
Here are some points from the text that illustrate the sentiment towards AI safety:
The text acknowledges that AI safety is a “legitimate field”, indicating that there is recognition of its relevance and importance.
The description of the “superintelligent AI uprising” being an “extremely improbable scenario” reflects skepticism towards certain extreme concerns within the field. It suggests that there may be an exaggerated focus on unlikely outcomes.
The association of AI safety with effective altruism in the text might imply that some aspects of AI safety are criticized for being too abstract or speculative, as effective altruism is portrayed with skepticism, particularly when it shifted focus to long-term, more abstract concerns like rogue AI.
The mentioning of AI safety researchers not taking themselves too seriously in the text suggests that there may be an underlying criticism or questioning of the magnitude of certain claims or concerns within the field.
In summary, the text portrays AI safety as an important and legitimate field, but questions the focus on highly speculative scenarios and criticizes its close association with the effective altruism movement, which is portrayed skeptically. The text also seems to suggest a need for a more grounded and realistic approach within the AI safety community.
Do a sentiment analysis of the text
The text provided can be broken down into various elements in terms of sentiment:
Neutral-Positive sentiment towards Paul Edwards and Steve Luby: The text introduces Paul Edwards and Steve Luby in a neutral light and showcases their dedication and positive intentions in educating young minds about potential threats to humanity.
Neutral sentiment regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI) risks: The text discusses AI risks and how the concept has gained traction over time. It doesn’t take a side, rather presents the evolving perception of AI.
Positive sentiment towards efforts to counter rogue AI: The text illustrates a positive sentiment towards various organizations, philanthropists, and labs (such as DeepMind, OpenAI, and Anthropic) that are taking steps to prevent AI-related catastrophes by promoting AI safety and developing benign AI systems.
Negative sentiment towards the AI safety movement by critics: The text highlights criticism of the AI safety movement as unscientific and potentially distracting from other important issues. The movement is presented as potentially exaggerative and is likened to a religion by critics.
Positive sentiment towards student involvement in AI safety: The article shows positive sentiment towards the involvement of students, especially Gabriel Mukobi, in AI safety, and how they are becoming increasingly aware and motivated to act against the potential existential risks associated with AI.
Negative sentiment regarding controversial figures and ideas associated with the AI safety movement: The text shows a negative sentiment towards certain figures and ideas associated with the AI safety movement, including Effective Altruism (EA) and past controversial statements by Nick Bostrom.
Neutral-Positive sentiment towards the increasing acknowledgment of AI safety: Towards the end, the article discusses how AI safety is becoming a topic of growing interest and concern among academia and industry. This is presented in a neutral to positive light, indicating the recognition of AI safety as an area that requires attention.
Mixed sentiment among educators: The article ends with mixed sentiments among educators like Luby, who seems to be in agreement with the concerns, and Edwards, who acknowledges AI safety but still sees other issues such as climate change as more immediate threats.
In summary, the text provides a balanced view, containing neutral, positive, and negative sentiments regarding the topic of AI safety and its growing prominence in academia and the tech industry. There is a general positive sentiment towards proactive measures and student involvement, but also a significant negative sentiment related to the criticisms and controversial aspects of the AI safety movement.
If anyone wants to see what making EA enormous might look like, check out Rutger Bregmans’ School for Moral Ambition (SMA).
It isn’t an EA project (and his accompanying book has a chapter on EA that is quite critical), but the inspiration is clear and I’m sure there will be things we can learn from it.
For their pilot, they’re launching in the Netherlands, but it’s already pretty huge, and they have plans to launch in the UK and the US next year.
To give you an idea of size, despite the official launch being only yesterday, their growth on LinkedIn is significant. For the 90 days preceding the launch date, they added 13,800 followers (their total is now 16,300). The two EA orgs with the biggest LinkedIn presence I know of are 80k and GWWC. In the same period, 80k gained 1,200 followers (their total is now 18,400), and GWWC gained 700 (their total is now 8,100).[1]
And it’s not like SMA has been spamming the post button. They only posted 4 times. The growth in followers comes from media coverage and the founding team posting about it on their personal LinkedIn pages (Bregman has over 200k followers).
EA Netherlands gained 137, giving us a total of 2900 - wooo!