Jan-Willem

• Jan-WillemFeb 18, 2022, 7:58 AM

  11 points

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  on: Samo Burja on Effec­tive Altruism

  Interesting thoughts, apart from the sections finm mentioned this one stood out to me as well:

  status engineering—redirecting social status towards productive ends (for instance on Elon Musk making engineers high status)

  I think this is something that the EA community is doing already and maybe could/​should do even more. Many of my smartest (non EA) friends from college work in rent-seeking sectors /​ sectors that have neutral production value (not E2G). This seems to be an incredible waste of resources, since they could also work on the most pressing problems.

  One interesting question could be: Are there tractable ways to do status engineering with the large group of talented non EAs? I think this could be worthwhile doing, because obviously not all incredibly smart people are part /​ want to be part of the EA community.

• Jan-WillemFeb 9, 2022, 5:09 PM

  7 points

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  on: Re­lease of Ex­is­ten­tial Risk Policy database

  Thanks a lot, this looks like a great resource. This would add a lot of value I think: Properly evaluate existing policy ideas to identify and promote the set of high-quality ideas.

  I would be really interesting to see how different experts within the EA community rank the ideas within the same category (e.g. AI) on certain criteria (e.g. impact, tractability, neglectedness, but there are probably better critera). Or enrich this data with the group that is probably most able to push for certain reforms (e.g. American civil servants, people that engage with party politics etc.).

  This would make the database actionable to the EA community and thereby even more valuable.

• Jan-WillemJan 31, 2022, 3:17 PM

  6 points

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  in reply to: Jan-Willem’s comment on: Is the Euro­pean Union Rele­vant for AGI Gover­nance?

  If you believe however that the EU becomes irrelevant at all (argument 5 against), all policy careers for EAs in mainland Europe become quite unappealing suddenly. This makes me think: if you believe the EU market and political environment favor AGI safety (argument 4 in favor), shouldn’t it be a priority for European EAs to keep the EU a relevant political force?

• Jan-WillemJan 31, 2022, 3:16 PM

  14 points

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  on: Is the Euro­pean Union Rele­vant for AGI Gover­nance?

  I think there is one argument I really want to back, but I also want to provide a different angle: “Growing the political capital of AGI-concerned people”

  I think that even when you think there are substantial odds that the EU doesn’t play an important role in regulation of AGI, having political capital could still be useful for other (tech-related) topics. Quite often I think there is a “halo-effect” related to being perceived as an tech-expert in government. That means that if you are perceived as a tech expert in government because you know a lot about AI, people will also perceive you as an expert on other technologies (where the EU might be more relevant).

  This is also one of the reasons that I advise people to work in AI/​tech regulation, even when it’s not (solely) on the long term consequences of AI we care about, but e.g. on short term risks or even more on the side of economic stimulus of AI development. Often it will provide EAs with the political capital and credibility to deal with long term /​ x-risk relevant risks later on when there is an opportunity to switch roles.

• Jan-WillemJan 31, 2022, 1:13 PM

  4 points

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  on: Which EA orgs provide feed­back on test tasks?

  Applied for OPP strategy role during Sumer 2021 and received no feedback in first and second test task round. Wasn’t disapointed, because it was well-compensated.

  On a different note however: this is one of the largest advantages I see coming from an EA recruitment agency that would be able to give feedback to EA candidates. It feels like quite a miss I didn’t get it, since I have to do very similar work for my own organisation Training For Good. Maybe there is something really obvious I can improve on, but due to the lack of feedback I don’t know what.

• Jan-WillemJan 30, 2022, 8:34 AM

  0 points

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  in reply to: Jonas V’s comment on: EA megapro­jects continued

  Hahah same here Jonas! Let me know if you know more

• Jan-WillemJan 27, 2022, 10:37 AM

  4 points

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  on: EA Anal­y­sis of the Ger­man Coal­i­tion Agree­ment 2021–2025

  I thought this was really interesting : we should open the way to a constitutional assembly leading to the development of a federal European state

  Curious to hear thoughts from other EAs about the new German administration’s appetite for a federalist Europe. I think a stronger, federalist Europe is something we should want from an EA perspective for the following reasons:

  • A stronger Europe increases the chance of European collective investments in AI leading to the development of “human-centric” AI

  • Increases the chance of a strong green European energy policy and other climate action, reducing the chance of +2 degrees scenarios

  • A strong federalist Europe is a good counterbalance against a market-oriented US model and the Chinese/​Russian government that has a strong appetite for breaching human rights. Just as the Western model looked so aspiring for former citizens of the DDR /​ Soviet states at the end of the cold war, Europe could be aspiring for American, Russian and Chinese citizens. Internal pressure could lead to welfare enhancing reforms in the US, Russia and China.

  Some risks I see:

  • A strong federalist Europe would shake up the current international order with unknown geopolitical consequences. The current world order is not perfect, but was also quite peaceful compared to the pre-1945 era.

  • National European governments pushing too much for quick federalist changes could cause massive internal backlash, giving room to a further rise of populism. That would increase the odds of internal European warfare, less free trade etc. with negative consequences for welfare

4 les­sons from EAs work­ing in Euro­pean policy

• Jan-WillemJan 20, 2022, 8:35 AM

  7 points

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  on: Euro­pean Union AI Devel­op­ment and Gover­nance Part­ner­ships

  Thanks, great overview! How can early stage career European EAs contribute to this? Do you know which organisations you mentioned have the capacity to absorb interns /​ starters from the EA community?

• Jan-WillemDec 10, 2021, 9:41 AM

  2 points

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  in reply to: affective_altruist’s comment on: EA megapro­jects continued

  Also sent you an email for possible involvement from Training For Good

• Jan-WillemNov 19, 2021, 9:25 AM

  6 points

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  on: Database of orgs rele­vant to longter­mist/​x-risk work

  Great work Michael, I’ve already included this Airtable in the curriculum of Training For Good’s upcoming impactful policy careers workshop. Well done, this work is of high value!

• Jan-WillemOct 25, 2021, 3:17 PM

  25 points

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  on: FTX EA Fellowships

  Hi, you say you will provide “housing in the Bahamas for up to 6 months”.

  Is there a certain minimum length of stay required (in terms of months)?

• Jan-WillemOct 14, 2021, 9:50 AM

  2 points

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  in reply to: jared_m’s comment on: Notes on “Manag­ing to Change the World”

  Thanks Jared for thinking about TFG! We will make use of existing resources as much as possible. Never heard of this but just got the book .

  Our focus on EMEA is temporary and dependent on the kind of programs. E.g. our program for policy makers is aimed at EMEA because of substantial differences with the US market

• Jan-WillemOct 11, 2021, 9:27 AM

  2 points

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  in reply to: Jack R’s comment on: In­tro­duc­ing Train­ing for Good (TFG)

  “People who expressed interest in a program about doing good” seems to be the best description. Marketing was focused on Dutch speaking people that wanted to do more good.

  No prior EA knowledge was needed and most people heard about EA but had no real prior knowledge.

• Jan-WillemOct 8, 2021, 1:50 PM

  12 points

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  in reply to: Jack R’s comment on: In­tro­duc­ing Train­ing for Good (TFG)

  Hi Jack,

  Jan-Willem here, one of the other co-founders of Training for Good. I actually have some data on tractability of outreach to an older generation. As chapter director at EA Netherlands we organised a serie of workshops targeted at a slightly older audience (average age ~35).

  Three out of 25 people in this program comitted to considerable changes in their life (pledging large amounts of money and switching into high impact roles). We didn’t use a control group, but it is a good sign of tractability.

• Jan-WillemOct 7, 2021, 9:38 PM

  16 points

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  in reply to: MichaelPlant’s comment on: Pre­sent­ing: 2021 In­cu­bated Char­i­ties (Char­ity En­trepreneur­ship)

  Hi Michael! Thanks for your response and your question. About TFG: We are considering a management for EA orgs program for our second year of existence. As mentioned in our longer introduction post we are even open to changes in the second half of this year’s training schedule, if new information shifts our beliefs about the added value of certain programs.

In­tro­duc­ing Train­ing for Good (TFG)

• Jan-WillemAug 28, 2021, 8:55 AM

  14 points

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  on: More EAs should con­sider “non-EA” jobs

  Hi Sarah, thanks for writing this great article.

  As someone else mentioned in the comments most EAs work in non-EA orgs looking at the EA surveys. According to the last EA Survey I checked only ~10% of respondents worked in EA orgs and this is probably an overestimation (people in EA orgs are more likely to complete the survey I assume)

  So I think the problem is not that EAs are not considering these jobs, I would say the bottleneck for impact is something else:

  1) Picking the right non-EA orgs, as mentioned in the comments the differences are massive here

  2) Noticing and creating impact opportunities in those jobs

  80k is able to give generic career advice, e.g. on joining the civil service but they often lack the capacity to give very specific advice to individuals on where to start, let alone on how to have impact in that job once you landed it.

  One solution could be to start a new career org for this, but I think it is very hard to be an expert in everything and I often think that specific personal fit considerations are important. Therefore I think we are better off through training people in picking the right orgs, through teaching them impact-driven career decision models and training and sharing impact opportunities in certain non-EA org career paths.

  Summarized: I don’t think people lack the willingness to join non EA-orgs but they lack the tools and skills for maximising their impact in those careers

• Jan-WillemAug 15, 2021, 9:21 AM

  1 point

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  in reply to: Sanjay’s comment on: Most re­search/​ad­vo­cacy char­i­ties are not scalable

  Interesting thougts Sanjay and I agree that we neglect the 60% for profit sector

  My biggest concern with your solution in one sentence: as long as people mostly care about money they want to act on advice that maximises their financial return. Of course we could ” subsidise” a service like that for social profit, but as long as it is not in the systems interest to act on our advice it’s useless.

  So changing the incentives of the system (through policy advocacy) or movement building (expanding the moral circle) seem more promosing from this viewpoint. On the other hand: once enough people are really interested in social profits we need to have the insights which companies do good and which do not. Maybe it’s more a question of the right timing...

• Jan-WillemAug 3, 2021, 4:58 AM

  6 points

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  in reply to: Benjamin_Todd’s comment on: Is effec­tive al­tru­ism grow­ing? An up­date on the stock of fund­ing vs. people

  Thanks for your response Benjamin (and Ben West asking a question)

  Sorry for not being completely clear about this, but I pointed towards the profile of a (EA-style) charity entrepreneur which is indeed different from the regular SV co founder (although there are similarities, but let’s not go into the details). I think the mini profile you wrote about a non profit entrepreneur is great and I am happy to see that 80k pushes this. Hopefully the Community Building Program will follow since national and local chapters are for many people the first point of entrance into EA. It would be good if this program also encouraged local and national chapters to make valuable cheap tests in non profit entrepreneurship viable.

  I am also very happy that you acknowledge that reaching out to get 2x as many people in is probably desirable. Also here I think that the “common EA opinion” shifted quite a lot over the ~two years I’ve been involved in EA, great to see!