Sarah Weiler

Let’s keep the Dis­cus­sion on Sys­temic Change go­ing!

Sys­temic work in the Effec­tive Altru­ism space – Do EA or­gani­sa­tions pay at­ten­tion to sys­temic is­sues?

• Sarah Weiler 25 Aug 2026 19:29 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Tobias Häberli’s comment on: Sys­temic change – What are we even talk­ing about?

  Hi Tobias! Thanks for that comment, I hadn’t thought about things in the way you laid out but it feels like a useful way to challenge our—maybe somewhat inconsistent? - understanding of systemic change.

  A quick response (I will at least try to find/​make time to consider your point in more depth in the weeks to come):

  The first thing that comes to mind in response to your question for a concrete example is women’s sufferage. That feels to me like a systemic intervention that worked on a root cause of the suffering/​decreased wellbeing of women in European societies (probably also other, but I don’t know those others well enough to make any meaningful statements). It created a change that permanently improved the situation for many women in those societies … but I realise while writing that I have a somewhat hard time pinning down how exactly it did so, i.e. to state the measurable changes this caused to “the problem”.

  And maybe that points to a larger insight from your remark: “addressing a root cause” is ill-defined, especially when considered from the systemic perspective we advocate here. The interventions you mention do, in fact permanently remove a specific problem, thus tackling that problem at its root in some sense. Systemic interventions that I can come up with (and that might also just be a problem in my knowledge) rarely seem to pinpoint a root cause that can actually be addressed fully; it seems more a matter of “the more we address this root cause, the more we can prevent recurring problems from occurring”.

  In the case of women’s suffrage: it seems to address some root cause that could be labeled “oppression of women”, or maybe “political inequality (which translates to worse outcomes for the politically disenfrachised)”. But it neither fully eliminates that root cause, nor does it fully eliminate the specific problem (women’s situation improved after being granted the vote, but it didn’t immediately switch to “no more disadvantageous outcomes for women in society”); nor can I now come up with a more comprehensive systemic intervention that would achieve these outcomes in this example.

  What are the implications? Maybe it means we need a better/​fuller specification of “addressing root causes”? Maybe it does mean that our definition is inconsistent and we have to give up on, or reformulate, the claim that systemic changes can always (/​often?/​ever?) remove a given problem indefinitely by addressing its root causes? (Or maybe it just means that I myself am insufficiently knowledgeable about systemic change and should work harder learning about concrete examples ¯\_(ツ)_/​¯)

  Either way, thanks for prompting me (and everyone on the forum stumbling across this post) to take our references to “root causes” apart and to figure out more concretely how systemic interventions do or don’t address them!

Sys­temic change – What are we even talk­ing about?

• Sarah Weiler 19 Aug 2026 18:29 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Hillary’s comment on: Sys­temic change and EA: What is it all about?

  Hi Hillary! Thanks so much for engaging, glad to read that our sequence is striking a nerve!

  Quick note on getting involved and contributing: our work on these topics has for now culminated in posting this sequence, with no specific projects planned as a direct follow-up. That said, we spell out our ideas for taking this forward in our last post (which will be published in three weeks, on 8 Sep, if things go as planned). Very excited for you to have a look at those and let us (and the rest of the forum) know if any of them sound worthwhile! And if our group itself decides to commit to a follow-up project, we’ll let you know :)

  As for your questions: I don’t think I’ll be able to do them justice in a brief comment here, but do want to say that I appreciate you posting them, will mull them over myself as I find the time, and am curious what others here on the forum think about them! In terms of connecting directly to our sequence of posts:

  • I think your first and third questions are tightly linked to the thinking around systemic change that we’ve been developing (more on that in post 2, published next week)

  • Thee second question around how we understand ourselves as actors within system is super interesting and, I think, one we’ve been underexploring in the sequence. Curious to see that patched/​complemented by future work!

  • I’m personally really interested in your third question around making more use of sophisticated existing perspectives, figuring out which of these perspectives are most valuable to the EA-type quest of making the world better effectively, and exploring how exactly they can be integrated with existing frameworks and approaches within EA. I think integral altruism offers a start at that, but remain keen to see and engage in more discussions around that challenge!

Sys­temic change and EA: What is it all about?

• Sarah Weiler 17 Aug 2026 15:19 UTC

  6 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Start with Rea­sons, Not Global Welfare

  I appreciate your critique of global welfare maximisation as a problematic goal given our epistemic situation: “That standard is problematic. It requires us to anticipate a comparison encompassing all effects on all welfare-bearing beings across the relevant future, although the central lesson of cluelessness is that our evidence does not support such a comparison. Appealing to an idealised evaluator does not explain how we can form justified expectations about its verdict. [...] Nor would perfect information necessarily yield a global welfare ranking. A single welfare function requires cardinal measurement, interpersonal and cross-species comparison, aggregation across populations and a solution to population ethics.” I think this is on point, and I think many discussions within effective altruism would benefit from greater caution when it comes to comparing causes and interventions!

  But I’m unsure I fully understand how you suggest that we respond (which might be due to me misreading the text, apologies in that case).

  The reason arising from the expected benefit to the child remains visible even if its final weight cannot be determined. [...] We should first identify the welfare-relevant reasons supported by the evidence, consider countervailing effects and uncertainty, and reach an overall judgement only where those reasons can be sufficiently weighed.

  I really resonate with parts of this approach: being clear about the reasons we have, how they are supported, and how they can be challenged; allowing for a variety of reasons without forcing them immediately onto an artificially-produced common scale in order to facilitate simplistic aggregation of welfare effects. But I’m not sure what it implies for action: if the weight of the expected benefit to the child cannot be determined and if we can only reach overall judgement for reasons that can be weighed, then how are we to reach a judgement and thus decision in this case? More generally, how do we make judgements and how do we decide when our reasons cannot be weighed straightforwardly?

  Similarly for the “potentially very large but deeply indeterminate animal-welfare reason against”: Is that reason a “mere possibility” and therefore to be disregarded entirely in the final judgement? Or does/​can it enter our overall judgement somehow, and if so, how can it be weighed against the expected benefit to the child?

• Sarah Weiler 17 Aug 2026 14:41 UTC

  3 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: The Train to Arbitraryland

  I don’t have any very insightful immediate thoughts on where to get off the train (and which train to take in the first place), but I wanted to leave a brief comment to say that I found this short story, and the main character’s ceaseless demand for a clear answer, helpfully relatable. And on first reflection, the idea of using the “train to Arbitrariland” as an analogy for thinking about DiGiovanni’s empirical premise seems like a promising route, thanks for spelling it out and sharing it here!

Can Poli­ti­cal The­ory be a con­se­quen­tial­ist re­sponse to Clue­less­ness?

• Sarah Weiler 22 Jul 2026 18:18 UTC

  2 points

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  in reply to: David Mathers🔸’s comment on: Europe 2031: A Re­sponse, and Call for Open-Ended Inquiry

  Sure! I haven’t done any serious research on this particular topic, so the sentence expresses more of a general worry (derived from how I think the political economic system generally tends to function).

  The worry, in brief, is something like this: Large industrial projects in Europe are governed by fairly stringent environmental and social/​labour standards. Such projects take more time and are more expensive than they would be if there were fewer /​ less stringent standards. Corporate actors thus often advocate for a loosening of standards, which [in my understanding of the world] would benefit their private interests at the expense of our collective interests in environmental protection and decent working conditions (the latter furthers social stability, a collective good). Competitiveness-related arguments are regularly employed in order to shift the debate to privilege private interests over collective interests, by making it seem that the two are synonymous [the belief that they are not synonymous is, again, based in my understanding of the world /​ political economy].

  I think there is good reason to believe that European efforts to attract data centre build-outs by/​in collaboration with US frontier companies would lead to a weakening of the environmental and social/​labour standards that would usually govern such large industrial projects. Beyond this, I think there might be AI-related regulations that become weakened, or pre-empted, if corporate interests succeed in depicting AI infrastructure (and a friendly regulatory environment for such infrastructure) as an essential element in preserving European wealth and prosperity.

• Sarah Weiler 20 Jul 2026 16:35 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: pmanen’s comment on: Europe 2031: A Re­sponse, and Call for Open-Ended Inquiry

  Hi pmanen,

  To be fair, I know a few of the authors of the scenario tangentially, and one of them more closely. Easy to engage in good faith when I feel confident that the authors actually do care about the topic, are not bought by Silicon Valley, and are not in any way as reckless as “the likes of Marc Andreessen”. While I agree much more with your takes and policy position than their’s, I do want to emphasise that I think they very much deserve engagement in good faith, and with an eye to exploring strategies in an uncertain world constructively rather than dogmatically.

  I haven’t looked in any detail at the modelling they did, so can’t comment on your skepticism with regards to that. On the two more substantive points, there’s not much need for me to comment, because I largely agree that the arguments the authors on these two fronts make are dubious (/​underdeveloped). I would be curious to hear how proponents of massive data centre build-outs in Europe (or other “democratic middle powers”) would respond? Can we get to the crux of what divides serious analysts on this topic, and is there any way to make progress on resolving that crux (or, at least, understanding which irresolvable value differences sit at the core of it)?

  I appreciate the bullet points at the end that raise the political angle intertwined with the discussions I’m calling for. I didn’t emphasise that angle a lot in my original post, because I hadn’t thought about it a lot; reading your quick notes, I think it does merit thinking about, so that’d be worth adding to my list of “questions I’d love to see contested and discussed”. Are you okay for me to take your notes as input to make an addition in the original post (would add a footnote linking to your comment as a source)?

  Thanks for the recommended readings! I gave them a quick skim for now, and have added them to my own reading list as well as the still-very-incomplete-and-provisional living resource repository mentioned in the post: EU_AI_geopolitics_resources.

• Sarah Weiler 20 Jul 2026 16:12 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: EffectiveAdvocate🔸’s comment on: Europe 2031: A Re­sponse, and Call for Open-Ended Inquiry

  Hey there!

  Thanks for responding, and for your honesty regarding time for engagement. If you end up writing out in greater length what you have to say, happy to see an extended version of your response. That said, it seems to me that what you did write already provides good grounds for me to engage, so here’s a quick response from my side point-by-point:

  1. The scenario is a story, and all narrative scenarios are. [...] The point is not to paint a full analytical picture; the point is to change minds and inspire action. So I don’t think it’s quite right to hold it to the standard of a rigorous analytical exercise: it’s a different tool for a different job.

  I think I largely agree to this, actually. That’s why I tried to emphasise in my intro, and to a lesser extent throughout the post, that I see my response as complementary: narratives are a good tool to inspire action, but they require attendant analytical exercises to have positive value. Action in an ill-considered direction is worse, I would argue, than no action at all, and definitely worse than reflective action.

  The scenario Europe 2031 (in contrast to other narrative projects that make more of an effort to highlight uncertainties and multiple possible futures, see e.g. AI 2040) leaves its readers with a fairly strong conclusion in the Epilogue, one that very much sends the (emotionally charged) message “we know what we need to do, and we should do it even if it is politically painful”. The authors offer a more analytical, and somewhat more nuanced /​ uncertainty-aware, outline of their argument in the Summary, the FAQs that you also (rightly in my mind) cite, and their Compute Forecasting section. But my sense is that many readers will mainly focus on the scenario itself, not the analytical bits on the side; this post here is one attempt to shift that a little bit further in the direction of using the scenario as an entry-point to the analytical discussion, rather than as a shortcut to a seemingly clear conclusion.

  You are right, I think, to ask about the actual empirical effects of Europe 2031′s publication. The honest answer is (a) that I’m not in Brussels (or another EU hub), so I have a very poor sense of what is being discussed with how much of a truth-seeking intention to it; and (b) I think it’s too early to tell. I do think, however, that other people have established quite well how narratives and stories can obfuscate public and policy debates^[1]; and that feels enough to at least be worried about Europe 2031 having a similar effect, if we don’t try explicitly to counter that obfuscating effect.

  2. The scenario clearly describes itself as having a narrow focus on purpose. The scenario is exclusively about maintaining European agency, and says nothing about how to use that agency once it has been achieved or strengthened.

  That’s largely true, but I also think it’s a good example of means and ends being hard to separate in practice. “Maintaining European agency” is a means to an end which the authors barely discuss, and I think it’s fair for them not to discuss it at length (for the reasons they themselves list in the FAQ, and which you cite above). However, to the extent that their proposal for “maintaining European agency” hinges on instrument that have implications for diverse AI governance aims, I do think they have a responsibility to discuss that; or, at least, I think we should use the scenario as a starting point for discussing these implications. If the scenario’s proposal for “maintaining European agency” mainly consists in “massive compute build-outs on EU territory” (and I have confirmed with one of the authors that my reading of that is broadly in line with what they themselves take the main message of the scenario to be), then that is not neutral with respects to “other [deliberately ignored] aspects of the AI transition”: such a build-out might accelerate frontier AI development; might further amass power with US frontier AI companies (if, as the scenario suggests, such a build-out would happen under the auspices of these capital-rich US frontier companies); and might undermine EU regulatory standards, which could otherwise be used as a tool in AI governance efforts. It also diverts capital and attention away from other potential European responses to rapid AI developments.

  I think my main sticking point here is: I agree that “maintaining European agency” is a worthwhile instrumental goal to strive for, because I too would like to the see the EU as a capable actor in future AI governance developments; but I think that we face many really difficult and politically/​normatively meaningful questions when it comes to deciding which strategy to pursue in order to maintain European agency. I want our response to Europe 2031 to be that we discuss vigorously and honestly what different strategies might look like, and what their merits and costs are. I think the scenario itself may not spark these discussions (because neither the scenario nor the authors’ supplementary commentary insinuate that there are open questions here at all). So I wrote this Forum post to start filling that gap.

  3. On power concentration and international coordination: These are super important, but you can’t do much about them without agency. Europe being “AI colonized” and losing its agency to a handful of foreign companies and states, is itself one of the forms of power concentration the scenario is trying to get Europe to defend against. Building European leverage is, in part, a hedge against exactly that concentration, as well as a way to gain the agency to combat other problems.

  My response to this is largely the same as the one offered above: I think there should be controversy and open discussion around how we can prevent Europe from being “AI colonized”, around what it means for Europe to build up effective leverage, and around what we are and are not willing to give up in our attempt to build up such (supposed/​potential) leverage. My sense is that Europe 2031 “falls into the same trap”^[2] as Anthropic itself did: assuming that a race is inevitable and that the best option is to come out on top (or near the top, in Europe’s case), even if that means accepting all of the costs the race brings in the first place. I want for that assumption to be vigorously debated, not taken for granted.

  Lastly, thanks for linking the post on the (potential) effectiveness of fictional accounts. I haven’t read it yet, but it definitely falls within what I’m interested in and I’m glad to have the link (and also for others visiting this post to have access to the link)!

  1. ^

     Here I would insert a reference from the study of propaganda, media studies, or a similar field if I had the time to look for it. I hope to come back to this later this week, but apologise in advance if I fail to. My only excuse is that those fields and their general takeaway—stories influence minds, and not always in an epistemically ideal way—is a sufficiently well-accepted piece of common knowledge that my claim survives without a specific reference (?).

  2. ^

     In quotation marks, because it is only a trap given the specific worldview from which I am speaking; one that should, just like Europe 2031′s worldview, be vigorously debated and contested!

Europe 2031: A Re­sponse, and Call for Open-Ended Inquiry

• Sarah Weiler 22 Sep 2025 16:31 UTC

  3 points

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  in reply to: Erich_Grunewald 🔸’s comment on: China x AI Refer­ence List: Au­gust 2025 Update

  Hi Erich! Thanks for pointing out these two additional resources on semiconductor export controls; both look helpful! We decided to replace the older report you mention with the newer one you suggest, and to add Chris Miller’s article as a new resource. Should be all updated both here in the post, and in the original GoogleDoc. Thanks!

China x AI Refer­ence List: Au­gust 2025 Update

En­hanc­ing global sta­bil­ity: Per­spec­tives from the US and China [hy­brid dis­cus­sion]

• Sarah Weiler 23 Aug 2024 10:34 UTC

  8 points

  3 ∶ 1

  in reply to: EffectiveHelp - Cameroon’s comment on: This chart is right. Most in­ter­ven­tions don’t do much. (Cameroon ex­pe­rience)

  Thanks for explaining! In this case, I think I come away far less convinced by your conclusions (and the confidence of your language) than you seem to. I (truly!) find what you did admirable given the resources you seem to have had at your disposal and the difficult data situation you faced. And I think many of the observations you describe (e.g., about how orgs responded to your call; about donor incentives) are insightful and well worth discussing. But I also think that the output would be significantly more valuable had you added more nuance and caution to your findings, as well as a more detailed description of the underlying data & analysis methods.

  But, as said before, I still appreciate the work you did and also the honesty in you answer here!

• Sarah Weiler 22 Aug 2024 6:57 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: (Prob­a­bly Flawed) Solu­tion to ca­sual EAs try­ing to max­i­mize im­pact un­der un­cer­tainty and confusion

  I have major reservations about your conclusion (in part because I embrace anti-fanaticism, in part because I see big challenges and some downsides to outsourcing moral reflection and decision-making to another person). However, I really appreciate how well you outlined the problem and I also appreciate that you don’t shy away from proposing a possible solution, even while retaining a good measure of epistemic humility. Thanks for posting!

• Sarah Weiler 22 Aug 2024 6:46 UTC

  15 points

  3 ∶ 1

  on: This chart is right. Most in­ter­ven­tions don’t do much. (Cameroon ex­pe­rience)

  Thanks a lot for writing this up and sharing your evaluations and thinking!

  I think there is lots of value in on-the-ground investigations and am glad for the data you collected to shine more light on the Cameroonian experience. That said, reading the post I wasn’t quite sure what to make of some of your claims and take-aways, and I’m a little concerned that your conclusions may be misrepresentating part of the situation. Could you share a bit more about your methodology for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of different organisations in Cameroon? What questions did these orgs answer when they entered your competition? What metrics and data sources did you rely on when evaluating their claims and efforts through your own research?

  Most centrally, I would be interested to know: 1) Did you find no evidence of effects or did you find evidence for no effect^[1]?; and 2) Which time horizon did you look at when measuring effects, and are you concerned that a limited time horizon might miss essential outcomes?

  If you find the time, I’d be super grateful for some added information and your thoughts on the above!

  1. ^

     The two are not necessarily the same and there’s a danger of misrepresentation and misleading policy advice when equating them uncritically. This has been discussed in the field of evidence-based health and medicine, but I think it also applies to observational studies on development interventions like the ones you analyse: Ranganathan, Pramesh, & Buyse (2015): Common pitfalls in statistical analysis: “No evidence of effect” versus “evidence of no effect”; Vounzoulaki (2020): ‘No evidence of effect’ versus ‘evidence of no effect’: how do they differ?; Tarnow-Mordi & Healy (1999): Distinguishing between “no evidence of effect” and “evidence of no effect” in randomised controlled trials and other comparisons

• Sarah Weiler 19 Jul 2024 7:04 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Dist­in­guish­ing Between Ideal­ism and Real­ism in In­ter­na­tional Relations

  Hi! Thanks for posting this, I think international relations/​politics and different approaches to it receive too little attention in EA discussions and thinking and am happy to see contributions on the topic here on the forum! :))

  However, your outline seems a bit overly reductive to me: Within international relations theory and discussions, the realist/​idealist dichotomy has probably never existed in a pure form, and much less so since the end of the Second World War. Over the second half of the twentieth century until roughly today, these categories tend to be more reflective of how scholars and thinkers in the space classify themselves and their colleagues (see disciplinary overviews here, here, and here):

  • Liberalism (or Liberal Institutionalism)

  • Neo-realism (and many variants thereof, such as defensive and offensive realism or neo-classical realism)

  • Constructivism (again, with various versions)

  • English School of IR

  • Critical theories (Marxist IR, Feminist IR, Post-colonial IR, Postmodern IR, etc)

  Also, I think it’s useful to point out that the contrast between “values” and “interests” can be quite misleading, since “interests” cannot be defined without some notion of “the good” and thus pursuing “national interests” also always requires some moral choice from the country in question (or from the country’s leaders). In addition, people who advocate for a foreign policy that promotes human rights protection and/​or other moral values abroad will often have the empirical conviction that this “idealist” promotion of values is in the national interest of their home country (because they think a world without extreme moral infringements is more conducive to overall peace, lower rates of transnational crime and terrorism, etc.). All of this makes me feel rather frustrated (and sometimes also annoyed) when I hear people use labels such as “realism” or “idealism”, suggesting that the former is more empirically grounded or value-free (of course, this is not your fault as the author of this piece, since you didn’t make up these terms and are simply describing how they are used by others in this space).