Hello everyone, I am Kelvin Muchiri, a graduate in Information Technology from the Jomo Kenyatta university of agriculture and technology (JKUAT) in Kenya. I am also a member of the E.A JKUAT 2nd cohort, currently starting the in-depth program in the course of the month.
I am honestly really happy that I the E.A community because I am a person who values kindness (helping everyone in any way I can and always spreading a smile). I am also empathetic and it always pains me when I cannot help people in any type of need. I am trying to make an impact in the world by helping make the world a better place for us and future generations. I am unemployed, currently looking for internship and employment opportunities especially in areas where my work will also help people in my community or around the world.
Meanwhile I am focusing my path as an article writer, my interest in cybersecurity and in research. I would say I am mostly interested in research because I love backing up any claim using data and learning new things really makes me excited.
I am also in a phase where I am exploring on the best way to use my career and personal skills to help others, such as in the E.A community. So far I am thinking of writing about the different things I have learned in this community, sharing my understanding and perspective of this in hopes that it will be helpful to everyone who might come across my post to understand the content, and motivate them to contribute their time and resources in the most effective way to help others.
Hello,
I am sorry that this was your experience in your university group. I would also like to thank you for being bold and sharing your concerns because it will help make necessary changes to various groups who are having the same experience. This kind of effort is important because it will keep the priorities, actions and overall efforts of E.A groups in check.
There are some actions that my university facilitator took to help people “think better” about issues they are particular interested in and fall under the EA umbrellas (or would make the world a better place).
He held 1 on 1s with each member to try and access interests in various course areas. He also assessed if the EA community has been of help to each individual in helping us think better, and encouraged us to air any concerns we might have such as the issues you have written on your post.
He held discussions with the group members individually to try and establish if the course they are undertaking at the university is something they are interested in or they just landed on it which would mean their interested in another career path or interests that would help others in line with the E.A goals.
He also guided us on the best way to cause prioritize and how to best use E.A and the resources available to make the most out of our efforts to make the world a better place.
He encouraged us to be vocal about cause areas we thing that are neglected and more efforts should be put into. We also have general conversations within this space. Having conversations with likeminded individuals in the line of the E.A goals helped us foster growth and think better.
After each session where we discuss the week’s content, we take time and discuss our personal (E.A related) ideas and learn in a safe space where we can ask any question we have. Honestly helped me see various issue in different perspectives and in turn helped me start to think of cause areas that are a best fit for me.
In my own view, we should commend the organizers and other stakeholders involved in A.I safety. The movement has become a success and they are on the right path to prevent A.I related risks in the future despite the failures you have highlighted based on your experience. We should push other E.A related movements to have as much traction as A.I safety. However, we should not just push people towards any of the E.A related organization without cause prioritization.
I agree with various comments on how the A.I safety (and other high impact cause areas) issue should have their individual movements to give E.A space to be its own thing. This will give individuals an opportunity to join such high impact organizations of their choice based on their interests and fitness. In turn E.A will only focus on teaching people how to “find the best ways to help others, and put them into practice.” both as a research field and a practical community.
Regarding payment to organizers, I think that this helps them spend time doing what is most impactful. I think paying the organizers helps them by motivating them to continue volunteering and fostering growth of the group. Funding the organizer would make a difference between them taking more time organizing the club versus them looking for a part time jobs which would take more of their time. I believe that if an organizer is in a stable financially, they should decline the payment and see it directed towards another cause area. This will definitely depend on how altruistic a person is.