michel

• michelFeb 21, 2025, 1:15 AM

  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.

The Case for Jour­nal­ism on AI

• michelJan 8, 2025, 5:49 PM

  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.

• michelJan 8, 2025, 4:29 PM

  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.

• michelJan 8, 2025, 4:22 PM

  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).

• michelOct 10, 2024, 9:52 PM

  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 :)

AI and the feel­ing of liv­ing in two worlds

• michelAug 22, 2024, 12:40 PM

  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).

Shar­ing the AI Wind­fall: A Strate­gic Ap­proach to In­ter­na­tional Benefit-Sharing

• michelJul 16, 2024, 10:36 AM

  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.

• michelJul 16, 2024, 10:12 AM

  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)

• michelJul 3, 2024, 5:11 PM

  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!

• michelJun 25, 2024, 2:08 PM

  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

• michelMay 24, 2024, 9:29 AM

  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 :)

• michelApr 30, 2024, 12:15 PM

  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.

• michelApr 19, 2024, 8:49 AM

  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.

• michelApr 18, 2024, 5:24 PM

  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.)

Shar­ing Real­ity with Walt Whit­man [2-min Video]

• michelApr 3, 2024, 3:04 PM

  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.)

• michelMar 20, 2024, 2:39 PM

  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).