MvK

Back by pop­u­lar de­mand: The Im­pact­ful Policy Ca­reers Work­shop Series (Ap­pli­ca­tions now open)!

• MvK 14 Dec 2023 4:22 UTC

  39 points

  4 ∶ 0

  on: Where are you donat­ing this year, and why? (Open thread)

  In 2023, I donated 46,645 $, which represents ~75% of my post-tax income.
  
  [My donations are a bit messy, since I often asked employers or clients to donate my “salary” to a charity instead of having it paid out to me and only then re-directing it. Sometimes this limited my choices of where to donate, and not all employers offered this. I work on AI Safety and so my donations go towards GHD which reflects my hedging and has some other philosophical reasons I am happy to share if you reach out to me.]
  
  My 2023 donations will be split as follows:

  • GiveWell (Top Charities Fund): 26,655 $

  • GiveDirectly: 6,000 $

  • Malaria Consortium: 3,000 $

  • CEA ^[1]: 3,150 $

  • Misc ^[2]: ~2,340 $

  • Effektiv Spenden (as gift vouchers): ~5,500 $

  Going forward, I will re-evaluate whether to include or even prioritize animal welfare in my giving (I had previously decided against that, but I’m now questioning my reasoning behind that decision).
  
  [Edited to include new donations that I just made]

  1. ^

     This is compensation for contracting work that I negotiated an hourly salary for which I then never claimed.

  2. ^

     This mostly covers smaller amounts of work test compensation that wasn’t claimed or re-directed immediately, or work that I was offered money for but ultimately turned down the payment. I don’t want to name any organization here but am happy to share details if you are curious.

• MvK 12 Jul 2022 5:20 UTC

  28 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: EA for dumb peo­ple?

  Hi Olivia! As a former teacher with a degree in Education from a very low-ranking German university, I understand how you feel. I’ve been there! I am 100% confident there is an impactful way you can contribute to the EA community. Please reach out to me if you’d like to chat about those options, talk through potential career moves or volunteering opportunities!

  P. S. : Your post has inspired me to finally create an account here and start commenting and posting—who knows what impact you have created down the line… ;-)

What We’ve Learned from run­ning an Im­pact­ful Policy Ca­reers Work­shop Series

• MvK 26 Mar 2024 14:47 UTC

  24 points

  12 ∶ 2

  in reply to: Manuel Allgaier’s comment on: An­nounce­ment on the fu­ture of Wytham Abbey

  “It’s not common” wouldn’t by itself suffice as a reason though—conducting CEAs “isn’t common” in GHD, donating 10% “isn’t common” in the general population, etc. (cf. Hume, is-and-ought something something).

  Obviously, something may be “common” because it reliably protects you from legal exposure, is too much work for too little a benefit etc., but then I’m much more interested in those underlying reasons.

• MvK 15 Aug 2023 12:14 UTC

  24 points

  9 ∶ 0

  on: Ap­pli­ca­tions Open for the Next Oper­a­tions Fel­low­ship Cohort

  I know we use the term “Fellowship” for anything and everything in the EA community, but wouldn’t a program that charges tuition etc. be more accurately described as a “Course”, “Class”, “Training” or “Bootcamp”?

  Or, to be less adversarial: How did you decide on the name for this program? :)

• MvK 19 Jan 2023 23:20 UTC

  20 points

  5 ∶ 0

  on: Job Op­por­tu­ni­ties at Altru­is­tic Careers

  Adding some data to this:
  
  When I sent an email to the email address mentioned above, I received a well-meaning automated reply.

  However, it contained the following part, which I don’t think we should lead with:

  In the meantime, why not check out some fun facts about Effective Altruism? Did you know that by donating to charity, you can save a life for as little as $3.33? Or that some of the most effective ways to make a positive impact are also some of the most unexpected?
  https://​​www.effectivealtruism.org/​​articles/​​introduction-to-effective-altruism

  This is inaccurate at best and deceiving and harmful at worst—and it’s even debunked by the very link you follow this up with!^[1]

  1. ^

     The CEA website mentions the more commonly used number of 5,500$.

• MvK 18 Jul 2023 16:43 UTC

  19 points

  4 ∶ 1

  on: Char­ter Cities: why they’re ex­cit­ing & how they might work [Ra­tion­alAn­i­ma­tions Draft Script]

  I think this does a great job of introducing the concept of a charter city to audiences with little prior exposure to these ideas.
  
  That said: I know this is for a YouTube video and I might just be too immersed in academic/​research culture and hedging, but this feels a little too much like an advertisement to me.

  As a report by RethinkPriorities points out, there’s a number of reasons to think Charter Cities are not the most effective way to alleviate poverty:

  • Lack of tractability, mostly caused by difficulties of coordination between many stakeholders

  • Indirect effects might be huge, but are hard to measure: “We could not find a comprehensive argument for the value of these indirect benefits being large.”^[1]

  • Nearest empirical analogue (SEZs) seem to only marginally outperform host countries

  • Large development cost

  You choose one example of a Charter city that could be deemed to be a success, but omit mentioning those that are widely considered “failures”. According to the aforementioned RP report, Paul Romer—who you mention—turned away from the idea because of these failures in Honduras and Madagascar (a conclusion you may agree or disagree with, but that maybe deserves to be mentioned).
  
  I will happily concede that some of these failures can be explained away by certain political circumstances rather than by flaws inherent to the concept of charter cities, but if the goal of this is to inform, not to persuade, I would love to see some of those limitations mentioned in the video. I say this less as an argument against charter cities, but as an argument for carefully considering the circumstances under which charter cities do or don’t work.

  Furthermore, there are many debates about whether charter cities will end poverty^[2] or exacerbate social inequality and threaten social cohesion^[3], but they are absent from this video, which mostly seems to rely on the perspective of advocates for charter cities.

  1. ^

     https://​​rethinkpriorities.org/​​publications/​​intervention-report-charter-cities

  2. ^

     Mark Lutter on trying to end poverty by founding well-governed ‘charter’ cities, ft Tamara Winter − 80,000 Hours (80000hours.org)

  3. ^

     https://​​verfassungsblog.de/​​the-danger-zone-charter-cities-citizenship-and-social-justice/​​

Re­quest for pub­lic in­put: The EA Hand­book

ERA Fel­low­ship Alumni Stories

• MvK 29 Dec 2023 8:12 UTC

  14 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: yanni’s comment on: yanni’s Quick takes

  They have: https://​​www.charityentrepreneurship.com/​​center-for-alcohol-policy-solutions#:~:text=The Center for Alcohol Policy,thus saving millions of lives.

• MvK 23 Nov 2023 2:03 UTC

  13 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Vasco Grilo’s comment on: Open Phil Should Allo­cate Most Neart­er­mist Fund­ing to An­i­mal Welfare

  This is from 2016, but worth looking into if you’re curious how this works:

  “At least 50% of each program officer’s grantmaking should be such that Holden and Cari understand and are on board with the case for each grant. At least 90% of the program officer’s grantmaking should be such that Holden and Cari could easily imagine being on board with the grant if they knew more, but may not be persuaded that the grant is a good idea. (When taking the previous bullet point into account, this leaves room for up to 40% of the portfolio to fall in this bucket.) Up to 10% of the program officer’s grantmaking can be done without meeting either of the above two criteria, though there are some basic checks in place to avoid grantmaking that creates risks for Open Philanthropy. We call this “discretionary” grantmaking. Grants in this category generally follow a different, substantially abbreviated approval process. Some examples of discretionary grants are here and here.”

  (https://​​www.openphilanthropy.org/​​research/​​our-grantmaking-so-far-approach-and-process/​​)

• MvK 11 Aug 2022 6:26 UTC

  10 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Against longtermism

  Re Cleopatra:

  The argument is not that Cleopatra’s action is the beginning of a causal chain. In fact, the present and the future need not be linked causally at all for Parfit’s argument to make sense.

  Instead, what he employs is a “reductio ad absurdum”—he takes the non-longtermist position to an extreme where it has counterintuitive implications.

  If discounting WAS true, then any of Cleopatra’s actions (even something insignificant as eating dessert) would’ve mattered so much more than anything that happens today (including curing cancer). This seems counterintuitive to most of us. Therefore, something is wrong with this kind of discounting.

• MvK 13 Mar 2024 2:40 UTC

  9 points

  2 ∶ 1

  in reply to: erafellowship’s comment on: An­nounc­ing the Cam­bridge ERA:AI Fel­low­ship 2024

  Thanks for the detailed reply. I completely understand the felt need to seize on windows of opportunity to contribute to AI Safety—I myself have changed my focus somewhat radically over the past 12 months.

  I remain skeptical on a few of the points you mention, in descending order of importance to your argument (correct me if I’m wrong):

  “ERA’s ex-AI-Fellows have a stronger track record” I believe we are dealing with confounding factors here. Most importantly, AI Fellows were (if I recall correctly) significantly more senior on average than other fellows. Some had multiple years of work experience. Naturally, I would expect them to score higher on your metric of “engaging in AI Safety projects” (which we could also debate how good of a metric it is). [The problem here I suspect is the uneven recruitment across cause areas, which limits comparability.] There were also simply a lot more of them (since you mention absolute numbers). I would also think that there have been a lot more AI opportunities opening up compared to e.g. nuclear or climate in the last year, so it shouldn’t surprise us if more Fellows found work and/​or funding more easily. (This is somewhat balanced out by the high influx of talent into the space.) Don’t get me wrong: I am incredibly proud of what the Fellows I managed have gone on to do, and helping some of them find roles after the Fellowship may have easily been the most impactful thing I’ve done during my time at ERA. I just don’t think it’s a solid argument in the context in which you bring it up.

  “The infrastructure is here” This strikes me as a weird argument at least. First of all, the infrastructure (Leverhulme etc.) has long been there (and AFAIK, the Meridian Office has always been the home of CERI/​ERA), so is this a realisation you only came to now? Also: If “the infrastructure is here” is an argument, would the conclusion “you should focus on a broader set of risks because CSER is a good partner nearby” seem right to you?

  “It doesn’t diminish the importance of other x-risks or GCR research areas” It may not be what you intended, but there is something interesting about an organisation that used to be called the “Existential Risk Alliance” pivot like this. Would I be right in assuming we can expect a new ToC alongside the change in scope? (https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​9tG7daTLzyxArfQev/​​era-s-theory-of-change)

• MvK 22 Aug 2023 7:45 UTC

  9 points

  6 ∶ 1

  on: An Elephant in the Com­mu­nity Build­ing room

  Supporting a global EA community is expensive—e.g flying people to conferences in the US and UK from places like South Africa and India is often ~4X the price of local attendees travel costs; we have to sponsor travel and work visas.

  Well, it is, but only as long as you assume that all conferences should be held in the US and the UK in the first place (for discussions on this, see this and this).

• MvK 30 Nov 2023 15:50 UTC

  8 points

  3 ∶ 1

  on: Red-team­ing ex­is­ten­tial risk from AI

  Hi Zed! Thanks for your post. A couple of responses:

  “As critics of the long-termist viewpoint have noted, the base-rate for human extinction is zero.”

  • Yes, but this is tautologically true: Only in worlds where humanity hasn’t gone extinct could you make that observation in the first place. (For a discussion of this and some tentative probabilities, see https://​​www.nature.com/​​articles/​​s41598-019-47540-7)

  “Instead of outlandish ideas of a new global government capable of unilaterally curtailing compute power or some other factor through force, we should focus on what is practically achievable today. Encouraging firms like OpenAI to red-team their models before release, for example, is practical and limits negative externalities.”

  • Why are the two mutually exclusive? I think you’re opening a false dichotomy—as far as I know, x-risk oriented folks are amongst the leading voices calling for red teams or even engaging in this work themselves. (See also: https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​Q4rg6vwbtPxXW6ECj/​​we-are-fighting-a-shared-battle-a-call-for-a-different)

  “Let’s assume for a moment that domain experts who warn of imminent threats to humanity’s survival from AI are acting in good faith and are sincere in their convictions.”

  • The way you phrase this makes it sound like we have reason to doubt their sincerity. I’d love to hear what makes you think we do!

  “For example, a global pause in model training that many advocated for made no reference to the idea’s inherent weakness—that is, it sets up a prisoner’s dilemma in which the more AI firms voluntarily agree to pause research, the greater the incentive for any one group to defect from the agreement and gain a competitive edge. It makes no mention of practical implementation, nor does it explain how it arrived on its pause time-duration; nor does it recognize the improbability of enforcing a global treaty on AI.”

  • My understanding is that even strong advocates of a pause are aware of its shortcomings and communicate these uncertainties rather transparently—I have yet to meet someone who sees them as a panacea. Granted, the questions you ask need to be answered, but the fact that an idea is thorny and potentially difficult to implement doesn’t make it a bad one per sé.

  “A strict international regime dedicated to preventing proliferation still failed to prevent India, Israel, Pakistan, North Korea, and, likely, Iran from acquiring weapons.”

  • Are you talking about the NPT or the IAEA here? My expertise on this is limited (~90 hours of engagement), but I authored a case study on IAEA safeguards this summer and my overall takeaway was that domain experts like Carl Robichaud still consider these regimes success stories. I’d be curious to hear where you disagree! :)

• MvK 7 Nov 2023 15:27 UTC

  8 points

  4 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Radical Empath Ismam’s comment on: JWS’s Shortform

  1. I am not convinced that “having a bigger public presence in media” is a reliable way to get democratic buy-in. (There is also some “damned if you, damned if you don’t” dynamic going on here—if OP was constantly engaging in media interactions, they’d probably be accused of “unduly influencing the discourse/​the media landscape”) Could you describe what a more democratic OP would look like?

  2. You mention “less billionaire funding”—OP was built on the idea of giving away Dustin’s and Cari’s money in the most effective way. OP is not fundraising, it is grantmaking! So how could it, as you put it, “rely on a more diverse pool of funding”? (also: https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​zuqpqqFoue5LyutTv/​​the-ea-community-does-not-own-its-donors-money) I also suspect we would see the same dynamic as above: If OP did actively try to secure additional money in the forms of government grants, they’d be maligned for absorbing public resources in spite of their own wealth.

  3. I think a blanket condemnation of political lobbying or the suggestion to “do less” of it is not helpful. Advocating for better policies (in animal welfare, GHD, pandemic preparedness etc.) is in my view one of the most impactful things you can do. I fear we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater here.

• MvK 14 Dec 2022 11:18 UTC

  8 points

  1 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Rina’s comment on: An­nounc­ing ERA: a spin-off from CERI

  I think this is highly dependent on the tasks that are required of applicants! I know e.g. Charity Entrepreneurship has thought a lot about how to make the application process, work tests etc. more valuable for applicants. And iirc, I found the CERI Process quite helpful in sharpening my research focus and organizing my thoughts around x-risk.

  (An entirely different question is whether long decision timelines negatively affect applicants’ options or result in applicants withdrawing/​going with their second best option, but I’m not sure this happened a lot. There was also a post recently about the benefits of opening applications sooner to be able to compete with non-EA summer internships/​Fellowships.)

• MvK 12 Mar 2024 2:19 UTC

  7 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: An­nounc­ing the Cam­bridge ERA:AI Fel­low­ship 2024

  AI was—in your words—already “an increasingly capable emerging technology” in 2023. Can you share more information on what made you prioritize it to the exclusion of all other existential risk cause areas (bio, nuclear, etc.) this year?

  [Disclaimer: I previously worked for ERA as the Research Manager for AI Governance and—briefly—as Associate Director.]

• MvK 5 Aug 2023 23:52 UTC

  7 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: An ap­peal to peo­ple who are smarter than me: please help me clar­ify my think­ing about AI

  Hi bethhw!

  Thanks for taking the time to write up this post. Many of us have gone through similar things and can relate to the struggle you are experiencing.

  Regarding the “I can’t do anything about it” part:

  1. I see this meme a lot in the AI safety community. I think it’s a function of a) the underlying complexity of the problem and b) the reverance we have for some of the people working on this, with a dash of c) “my academic background is completely irrelevant” and d) “it’s too late for me to build the skills I need to contribute” thrown in there.

  2. I won’t argue against a) and b) - the problem IS hard and the people working on it ARE often very impressive with regards to their intellectual chops.

  3. But c) and d) are a completely different story, and I want to push back hard against them. People routinely underestimate how many different skills a given field can benefit from. AI Safety needs cognitive scientists, STEM people, historians, activists, political scientists, artists, journalists, content editors, Office Managers, educators, finance specialists, PAs- if you truly think your background is irrelevant, send me a DM and I’m happy to take bets on whether I can find a position that would benefit from your skillset. ;-)
     (Anecdotally, I used to be a teacher, and I’m now working on case studies for AI Standards, field-building and Research Management. It turned out people really appreciate it when you can explain something in clear terms, organize processes well and help others to engage with important but thorny ideas.)

  
  On building skills: The field is so young and nascent that literally nobody is “on the ball” and while this is deeply concerning from an x-risk perspective, it is good news for you—there is a limited number of key concepts and models to understand. For many people, it’s is not too late to learn about these things and to build skills, and there are many resources and programs to support this.

  Last but not least: Reach out to me if you’d like to discuss your options or just want to talk to a kind voice. I’d be happy to. :)