michel

Karma: 2,485

I’m currently managing the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism’s reporting grants program.

Previously, I researched international AI benefit-sharing at Pivotal Research and worked on executive support and events at the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA). I also scaled up the EA Opportunity Board, interned at Global Challenges Project, and founded the EA student group at University of Wisconsin–Madison, where I studied Neurobiology and Psychology.

If you think we share an interest (we probably do!), don’t hesitate to reach out :)

michel 21 Aug 2025 5:20 UTC
3 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Effective Altruism: An Unmanifesto
Helpful post! Especially liked this comment with respect to how EA is defined and what a more helpful definition can include:
Most definitions of effective altruism are unsatisfying, because their goal is primarily persuasive: their purpose is to get you to become an effective altruist [...]

This post series defines effective altruism in a way that’s anthropological. What do effective altruists believe that other people tend not to believe? Why do they believe that? What do the vegans and the kidney donors, the AI safety researchers and the randomized controlled trial lovers, have in common?

michel 21 Aug 2025 5:08 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Deep Democracy as a promising target for positive AGI futures
Nice post. I’ve been vaguely thinking in this direction so it’s helpful to have a name for this idea and some early food for thought.

michel 21 Feb 2025 1:15 UTC
14 points
3 ∶ 0
in reply to: titotal’s comment on: The Case for Journalism on AI
I think this is really fair pushback, thanks! Skeptical coverage of AI development is legitimate. I think the way I wrote this over-implied that these articles is a failing of journalism—the marketing hype claim is not baseless.
But I’m torn. I still think there’s something off about current AI coverage, and this could be a valid reason to want more journalism on AI. Most articles seem to default to either full embrace of AI companies’ claims or blanket skepticism, with relatively few spotlighting the strongest version of arguments on both sides of a debate.

Also, I think my core point stands without conditioning on object-level views: we need more journalists who can dig deep into AI development. More investigation and scrutiny from all angles would serve us better than our current situation of relatively thin coverage.

michel 8 Jan 2025 17:49 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Sarah Cheng 🔸’s comment on: The EA Opportunity Board is back
Thank you!
Also, I back your earlier sentiment that there’s probably loads of other UI/UX improvements to be made, although of course I understand if those aren’t a priority.

michel 8 Jan 2025 16:29 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Sarah Cheng 🔸’s comment on: The EA Opportunity Board is back
It’s been a few years since I worked on the opportunity board so I don’t really remember the decision to add this filter.
It’s based on this database of EA orgs, which I haven’t kept up to date. (I’m not sure if more recent opportunity board contributors have). I borrowed the language from a similar database Michael A made. Worth noting that both databases were made before or during summer 2022 where EA was much less politicized.
Looking at it now, I also find this filter a bit weird and would probably advise removing it or making sure it’s up to date and uses language most organizations would endorse.

michel 8 Jan 2025 16:22 UTC
19 points
2 ∶ 0
on: The EA Opportunity Board is back
Thank you for taking this on!
This project that was started by motivated university students, sustained by grant funding (thanks Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund! cc @calebp ), and now ultimately absorbed by a proper organization.
I like that arc. I think ‘find an organizational home that doesn’t depend on one-off grant funding and unusually dedicated/risk-tolerant organizers’ is a worthy goal for early-stage project to orient towards. (This can be done either by starting a more mature org on the basis of a good pilot project or joining an org, like the board did here).

michel 10 Oct 2024 21:52 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Announcing my departure from CEA (& sharing assorted notes)
I’m really grateful to have worked alongside you! I admire your enthusiasm and careful thinking and am excited to see what you work on next :)

michel 22 Aug 2024 12:40 UTC
9 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Results of an informal survey on AI grantmaking
Interesting that a typical AI journalist is valued more than a typical AI technical researcher (1.2x) and typical AI policy person (1.7x).

michel 16 Jul 2024 10:36 UTC
9 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Destabilization of the United States: The top X-factor EA neglects?
Just an FYI that most non-profits are often legally constrained on doing many sorts of political advocacy work, I think.

michel 16 Jul 2024 10:12 UTC
23 points
5 ∶ 1
on: Against Aschenbrenner: How ‘Situational Awareness’ constructs a narrative that undermines safety and threatens humanity
National securitisation privileges extraordinary measures to defend the nation, often centred around military force and logics of deterrence/balance of power and defence. Humanity macrosecuritization suggests the object of security is to defend all of humanity, not just the nation, and often invokes logics of collaboration, mutual restraint and constraints on sovereignty.
I found this distinction really helpful.
It reminds me of Holden Karnofsky’s piece on How to make the best of the most important century (2021), in which he presents two contrasting frames:
- The “Caution” frame. In this frame, many of the worst outcomes come from developing something like PASTA in a way that is too fast, rushed, or reckless. We may need to achieve (possibly global) coordination in order to mitigate pressures to race, and take appropriate care. (Caution)
- The “Competition” frame. This frame focuses not on how and when PASTA is developed, but who (which governments, which companies, etc.) is first in line to benefit from the resulting productivity explosion. (Competition)
- People who take the “caution” frame and people who take the “competition” frame often favor very different, even contradictory actions. Actions that look important to people in one frame often look actively harmful to people in the other.
  I worry that the “competition” frame will be overrated by default, and discuss why below. (More)

michel 3 Jul 2024 17:11 UTC
9 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Terminate deliberation based on resilience, not certainty
FYI, I was making a difficult career decision a few months ago and found this post helpful. Thanks for writing it!

michel 25 Jun 2024 14:08 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Loving a world you don’t trust
Love it.

Your discussion of how ‘Green’ vibes can fall short of really looking consequences in the face reminds of a quote:

“All that blood was never once beautiful, it was always just red.”—Kait Rokowski

michel 24 May 2024 9:29 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Policy advocacy for eradicating screwworm looks remarkably cost-effective
Thanks for sharing this! I’ve really been liking your forum posts recently :)

michel 30 Apr 2024 12:15 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: AnotherAnonymousFTXAccount’s comment on: Personal reflections on FTX
Oh sorry, I missed this! I should have read that more closely before commenting.

michel 19 Apr 2024 8:49 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: Personal reflections on FTX
Fair enough. Interesting to see people’s different intuitions on this.

michel 18 Apr 2024 17:24 UTC
3 points
7 ∶ 14
in reply to: AnotherAnonymousFTXAccount’s comment on: Personal reflections on FTX
Registering that this line of questioning (and volume of questions) strikes me as a bit off-putting/ too intense.
If someone asked about what “What were the key concerns here, and how were they discussed?” [...] “what questions did you ask, and what were the key considerations/evidence?” about interactions I had years ago, I would feel like they’re holding me to an unrealistic standard of memory or documentation.
(Although I do acknowledge the mood that these were some really important interactions. Scrutiny is an appropriate reaction, but I still find this off-putting.)

michel 3 Apr 2024 15:04 UTC
33 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Quick Update on Leaving the Board of EV
the EA community is not on track to learn the relevant lessons from its relationship with FTX.
In case it helps, here’s some data from Meta Coordination Forum attendees on how much they think the FTX collapse should influence their work-related actions and how much it has influenced their work-related actions:
- On average, attendees thought the average MCF attendee should moderately change their work-related actions because of the FTX collapse (Mean of 4.0 where 1 = no change and 7 = very significant change; n = 39 and SD = 1.5)
- On average, attendees reported that the FTX collapse had moderately influenced their work related actions (Mean of 4.2 where 1 = no change and 7 = very significant change; n = 39 and SD = 1.7)
My interpretation of this is that MCF attendees have changed their professional behavior a reasonable amount (according to MCF attendees), although maybe this doesn’t address broader questions of reform (eg., ecosystem-wide work that requires substantial coordination).
And here’s a summary of responses to the question “what lessons do we need to learn from the past year”, asked directly after the above question:
1. Improve governance and organizational structures (mentioned by 7 respondents):
  - Shore up governance, diversify funding sources, build more robust whistleblower systems, and have more decentralized systems in order to be less reliant on key organizations/people.
2. Build crisis response capabilities (mentioned by 6 respondents):
  - Create crisis response teams, do crisis scenario planning, have playbooks for crisis communication, and empower leaders to coordinate crisis response.
3. Improve vetting and oversight of leaders (mentioned by 5 respondents):
  - Better vet risks from funders/leaders, have lower tolerance for bad behavior, and remove people responsible for the crisis from leadership roles.
4. Diversify and bolster communication capacities (mentioned by 5 respondents):
  - Invest more in communications for crises, improve early warning/information sharing, and platform diverse voices as EA representatives.
5. Increase skepticism and diligence about potential harms (mentioned by 4 respondents):
  - Adopt lower default trust, consult experts sooner, and avoid groupthink and overconfidence in leaders.
6. Learn about human factors in crises (mentioned by 3 respondents):
  - Recognize the effect of stress on behavior, and be aware of problems with unilateral action and the tendency not to solve collective action problems.
7. Adopt more resilient mindsets and principles (mentioned by 3 respondents):
  - Value integrity and humility, promote diverse virtues rather than specific people, and update strongly against naive consequentialism.
I thought that this might be relevant when discussing how much or little has been done post-FTX.
My personal guess is that public discussions on the Forum under-represent changes to org policies, institutional norms, and fuzzy updates about who to trust how much.
(I work at CEA, so I could be very biased.)

michel 20 Mar 2024 14:39 UTC
2 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: EffectiveAdvocate🔸’s comment on: I’m glad I joined an experienced, 20+ person organization
Thanks! It’s something very similar to the ‘responsibility assignment matrix’ (RACI) popularized by consultants, I think. But in this case BIRD is more about decisions (rather than tasks) and stands for Bound (set guidelines), Input (give advice), Responsible (do the bulk of thinking decision through and laying out reasoning), and Decider (make decision).

michel 15 Mar 2024 15:39 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: The Lack of EA in US Private Foundations
Interesting post!
these PF basically think being EA-aligned means you have to be a major pain in the ass to your grantees.
This surprised me. I wonder why this is the case? Maybe from early GiveWell charity investigations where they made the charities do a lot of reporting? My experience with EA grantmakers is that they’re at least very aware of the costs of overhead and try hard to avoid red tape.

michel 15 Mar 2024 15:35 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Kyle Smith’s comment on: The Lack of EA in US Private Foundations
Fwiw, I don’t know anybody actively promoting ‘EA has to be all-or-nothing.’ Like, there’s not an insider group of EA thought leaders who have decided that either you give “100% to AMF or you’re not an EA.” I’m not denying that that vibe can be there though; I guess it may just be more of a cultural thing, or the product of a mostly maximizing philosophy.
Context: As part of CEA events team I help organize and attend a lot of events that draw EA thought-leaders.