Thank you so much for this extremely important and helpful guide on EA messaging, Julia! I really appreciate it, and hope all EAs read it asap.
Social opinion dynamics seem to have the property where some action (or some inaction) can cause EA to move into a different equilibrium, with a potentially permanent increase or decrease in EA’s outreach and influence capacity. We should therefore tread carefully.
Unfortunately, social opinion dynamics are also extremely mysterious. Nobody knows precisely what action or what inaction possesses the risk of permanently closing some doors to additional outreach and influence. Part of the system is likely inherently unpredictable, but people are almost certainly not near the optimal level of knowledge about predicting such social opinion dynamics.
But perhaps EA movement-builders are already using and improving a cutting-edge model of social opinion dynamics!
Thank you so much for this extremely important and brilliant post, Andrew! I really appreciate it.
I completely agree that the degree to which autonomous general-capabilities research is outpacing alignment research needs to be reduced (most likely via recruitment and social opinion dynamics), and that this seems neglected relative to its importance.
I wrote a post on a related topic recently, and it would be really great to hear what you think! (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/juhMehg89FrLX9pTj/a-grand-strategy-to-recruit-ai-capabilities-researchers-into)