Tom Chivers

Karma: 256

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 4:54 PM
13 points
0 ∶ 0
on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
Right guys I’m going to have to stop for now because I need to go and help with my kids’ dinner. I’ll try to answer some more tomorrow. I’m really sorry I didn’t do this yesterday: it totally slipped my mind among all the various things I’m doing at the moment (I have a new book out today!). Sorry if I haven’t got to you yet

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 4:52 PM
7 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: kokotajlod’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
So, this is a massive and hard-to-summarise question.
You’re right, a lot of what goes wrong in the media isn’t lies. It’s not even deliberate misinformation. The Chinese Robber fallacy is spot on, but it’s also: if you, say, hear that 180 women are murdered in the UK each year, that sounds dreadful (obviously it is dreadful). And if you’re not used to asking questions like “is that a big number” or “what’s the base rate” then you can easily be misled by large-sounding numbers.
A lot of it is just being unfamiliar with numbers (book plug alert! Out today! In the UK at least). Most journalists aren’t very good with numbers, or with thinking about how they reach the news. Sure, there are plenty of grifters and boring contrarians, but there are also a lot of well-intentioned people who want to do good in the world but aren’t brilliant at thinking “wait, that SOUNDS important, but how would I go about checking whether it is or not?”
(Also there are quite a lot of people who are quite unreflective and just think that fighting the culture war is the most important thing you can do, although they wouldn’t necessarily say it that way.)
Does that sort of answer your question?

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 4:40 PM
15 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: BrianTan’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
1. No, but I’d say I’m rationalist-adjacent. I find the topics interesting and I love the community, but I’m not really part of it. I imagine there being circles of rationalism, with the outermost circle being people who read I Can Tolerate Anything But The Outgroup once and quite enjoyed it, and the innermost circle being literally a room with Eliezer, Luke Muehlhauser, Gwern and Scott Alexander playing Dungeons & Discourse. I’m in a medium-sized circle in between those two.
2. No, partly for similar reasons, and partly because I don’t think I deserve it because I don’t donate enough to charity. I have a small monthly direct debit going to GiveWell and it should be more but it isn’t. In fact I will go and double it after I’ve said bye here because it really should be more.

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 4:36 PM
5 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: RobBensinger’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
This is going to sound like I’m blowing smoke, but: you guys know better than me! I get really interested in various topics, but I’m not systematic about it. I try not to get blown around by whatever the current news fascination is, but I’m not immune to being swept along by whatever media Twitter cares about that day. The value of EA is that you run the numbers and continue to care about it, so that even though British media Twitter has today decided that X is the most important thing in the world, EAs will continue to say “no actually you can probably do the most good by donating money to the Malaria Foundation”.

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 4:32 PM
9 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Linch’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
Honestly I’m not sure. I think those guys do a good job. I might try to approach more rationalist/EA bloggers for external freelance pieces: I’d love to commission, say, Kevin Simler or Sarah Constantin or John Nerst to write things, rather than just do it all in-house. (But maybe they already do that and I haven’t noticed?)

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 4:28 PM
17 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
I think there are a lot of journalists who think EA is very wise and sensible, and there are a lot of journalists who think it’s all neckbeard rationalist techbros, or whatever dismissive term they might use. I think the first journalists are right and the second journalists are wrong.
(TBF I think the largest group of journalists is probably the ones who’ve never heard of EA, and don’t write about things that are anything to do with EA.)
Key errors: ah man. I don’t really want to advise after I got it so badly wrong with the Scott Alexander/NYT stuff, and also I don’t feel I know the EA community well enough to say what they do now. But I do think they could do with finding a few more media-savvy, personable spokespeople who can help you get your stuff into the media when you want it there. I’m always surprised that, say, 80,000 Hours doesn’t act more like a think tank, trying to get journalists reading their latest work. But maybe if EAs start playing the game like think tanks do, they’ll end up drifting away from their purpose and start chasing headlines and so on, and that would be a shame.

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 4:20 PM
5 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Linch’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
yes! Mainly Scott, of course, but also various other rationalist and rationalist-adjacent blogs; Everything Studies, Put A Number On It, the 80,000 Hours podcast, Julia Galef’s podcast. I find LessWrong itself a bit hard to navigate but if an interesting piece comes around I’ll read it. I even try to read Gwern sometimes but usually I’m out of my depth.

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 4:17 PM
7 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Sanjay’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
this is a complex question. But I think I agree with whoever it was (Eliezer?) who said that there are weirdness points: you are allowed to be only so weird before people stop taking you seriously. You can decide to spend those weirdness points how you like, but once you spend them, they’re gone. AI risk is obviously a lot more expensive in weirdness points than, say, deworming. So you’ll be able to talk about it less before people start thinking of you as the weird AI-obsessed guy.
I do think, though, that you can still do it, if you can explain that you’re using the same processes—expected value etc—to reach the conclusions in AI as you did with more prosaic things like bednets or deworming. That’s sort of what I did here. And if you try to pretend that AI/X-risk isn’t part of what you’re worrying about, then it looks like you’re doing a scientology and hiding the weird stuff behind a friendly facade.
All that being said, in your concrete example, I wouldn’t include MIRI unless you’re really sure that that is where you want to go. I speak as someone who really likes MIRI! But if it’s a “this is your first taste of effective altruism” deal, then you’re already asking people to take on board the idea that, actually, donating to Cancer Research UK is severely suboptimal and you should give it all to very specific infectious-disease charities in sub-Saharan Africa or whatever. That’s weird and counterintuitive enough already, and I think taking people along that route one step at a time is probably wisest.

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 4:06 PM
10 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Linch’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
The UK’s outcomes have certainly been bad! Absolutely no argument there.
Before I go into why I think it was, I will say that I suspect there’s quite a lot of randomness in these outcomes, and it’s not straightforward to say it’s because of political responses or whatever.
But that said I think I am pretty comfortable saying that the political response has, in fact, been bad. I think failure to lock down early not once but twice (maybe three times?), the eat out to help out nonsense, the CONTINUED insistence on “washing hands” and so little emphasis on meeting outside, ventilating areas, etc, is really bad and stupid. I think a lot of it stems from bad political leadership (the cabinet mainly chosen for loyalty over brexit rather than talent, a PM who never wants to deliver bad news and always wants to say “I’ve saved Christmas”). And it also probably stems from years of chipping away at state capacity, having a really centralised state with a paradoxically weak centre, etc.
I am, however, quite low-confidence in all this stuff. I think that this set of politicians has been bad, and a randomly selected cabinet from the last 50 years would on average do better, but I don’t know.

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 4:00 PM
7 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Dicentra’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
I’ll answer the last question first, because it’s easiest: BuzzFeed UK had a load of cuts in late 2017, they offered voluntary redundancy to anyone who wanted it, and I took it because I had a book to write (and because I may well have ended up losing the job anyway). After that it turned out to be pretty straightforward to get people to give me money to write things and I’m really glad I did it, but it was a half-jump half-push situation.
Biggest bottleneck: sheesh. Honestly it’s probably coming up with interesting, worthwhile ideas fast enough. But then it’s also having the time to write about them all, so there’s a tension there. I feel like I’m always desperately trying to think of the next piece, while also somehow not having time to do the longer-term projects. So, and this sounds like I’m being flippant, but I think honestly the biggest bottleneck is my own tendency to procrastinate.
HANG ON. I’m going to leave that paragraph up because I think it’s interesting, but I’ve just realised it doesn’t quite answer your question. The biggest bottleneck on IMPACT is probably readership. I can get a few tens of thousands to read a piece; a few hundreds of thousands if it goes really, really well. Assuming that piece is something I think is really important and I want to change some minds with it, what percentage of people actually will change minds? Is it double-digits? Is it even greater than one? I don’t know. So I suppose that’s the most important thing. How do I write something that is 1) about something super important 2) persuasive enough to change minds and 3) exciting enough to be widely read? there are trade-offs there.
The best changes: Hmmmmmmmmm. I am sorry, I really don’t know. I think the lack of numeracy among journalists is a real problem, and that’s why I’ve just written a book about how numbers go wrong in the news. I don’t know if it’s the most important thing, but I think it would make a real difference to public understanding if journalists started thinking about putting numbers in context, absolute vs relative risk, linking to original sources, etc etc. Just being more comfortable with and transparent about the numbers they use in reporting.

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 3:50 PM
19 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Neel Nanda’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
Honestly, I think this is all about finding journalists who you trust. The Vox lot, for instance, you know they’re not going to write a “ha ha look at the weirdos who want you to donate money to stop humans going extinct” piece, even if they don’t agree with the specific position you’re supporting.
“How to frame it” comes down to the same thing. In the end, assuming that you give interviews to journalists, the journalists will be the ones framing it, so choose journalists you trust and feel you can speak freely to. I know that’s kind of unhelpful advice—“be good at choosing people you trust”—but it’s really important.
That said. There are some general tips if you’re, say, writing research papers (and press releases for those research papers). One of them is including a nice clear list at the top of things that your paper doesn’t say: if your paper finds a correlation between doing crosswords and brain health, for instance, it’s worth saying “this does not mean that crosswords prevent alzheimer’s” at the top. That’s been shown (Chris Chambers at Cardiff did some great research) to avoid misunderstandings without reducing press coverage. So I guess that could be relevant. With longtermist ideas, say, you could say prominently “this doesn’t mean we need to dedicate all of our charity resources to preventing X-risk” or whatever. (Assuming you do think that.)
My only advice for talking to different demographics/political biases is to signal that you are on the side of the reader. If you’re trying to convince a right-wing person of a stereotypically left-wing point, or vice versa, it’s worth starting out with some “I come in peace” stuff about how yes, the things right-wing people worry about are OK to worry about, etc. (Scott Alexander is really good at this.) That’s obviously more relevant if you’re writing the piece yourself, but i guess if you’re talking to journalists, you can aim to do something similar.
Is any of that helpful?

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 3:39 PM
11 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: BrianTan’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
No big story! We changed editors between the hardback and the paperback, and the new editor decided that the book wasn’t really centrally about AI. She felt that it was more about the rationalist community, so she wanted to change the title to reflect that. I know sod-all about the publishing industry and I trust her judgment better than mine, so I said “fine”.
If I’m starkly honest with myself I think it’s probably because the sales weren’t great and she thought this would help, but I don’t know.
The positive impacts I guess will be if it sells more copies, but one negative impact is that a few people thought I’d written a new book. I hope no one accidentally buys a second copy but I imagine it might happen.
(It’s not that unusual, I don’t think. At least two of my journalist friends have books with different paperback titles to the original hardback titles.)

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 3:36 PM
9 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Peter Wildeford’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
Ah man! I have THOUGHTS about this.
So. First up, I have indeed made a few concrete forecasts, and it is worth noting that they absolutely stink. I don’t know what my Brier score is but it will definitely suck. That does not exactly make me want to do them more, because it’s a bit embarrassing, although there is a nice virtuous feeling when you hold your hand up and say “I got another one wrong”. And the EA/rationalist community is really good at socially rewarding that behaviour, and being on the fringes of the community I do get some good social feedback for doing it, so it’s not too cringey.
But it’s related to another problem, which is that when I make forecasts, it’s not the day job. I write some article, say, talking about the incentive problems in vaccine manufacturing. Do I stick a forecast on the end of that? Well, I could – “I think it is 60% likely that, I dunno, Covax will use advanced market commitment structures to purchase vaccines by the end of 2021”. But it’s kind of artificial. I’m just whacking it on the end of the piece.
And it also means they will, usually, suck. I know a few superforecasters, and I gather that one of the best predictors of the accuracy of a forecast is how long you spend making it. If I’ve just spent a day writing a piece, interviewing scientists or whatever, and my deadline is 5pm, then I won’t be able to spend much time doing a good forecast. It’s not what I’m being paid for and it’s not what the readers want from me.
I do think it’s valuable, and it means that I have to think carefully about what I actually mean when I say “it’s likely that schools will reopen in May” or whatever. So I try to do it. And sometimes pieces are more about forecasting, and they lend themselves more naturally to concrete predictions (although the problem of me doing it quickly, having spent most of my time chasing interviewees and writing the piece, is still there). I’ll definitely try to keep doing it. But I think the value isn’t always as huge as EAs/forecasters think, or in fact as huge as I used to think before I tried doing them more, so I understand journalists not being super interested. I hope more start doing it, but I doubt it will ever be a standard procedure in every opinion piece.
(That said, maybe I just suck and that’s what a person who sucks would say.)

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 3:25 PM
5 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Tom Chivers’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
I managed to press some button there; I wanted to include this paragraph somewhere:
I suppose that it’s worth being clear that I am mainly an opinion writer; I’ve done news reporting in the past, but my main job is commenting/analysing things in the news, so it’s not that I’m usually out there huntin’ down leads and meeting anonymous sources in underground car parks. I don’t know if the distinction between reporting and comment is really obvious to outsiders.

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 3:24 PM
11 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: BrianTan’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
1. this is a totally fair question! But … hmm. I am (these days) rarely “assigned” work, but obviously I do have to get my editors to agree to let me write things, and I can’t just write “buy antimalarial bednets” every week forever. That said, if I did, no one would read me, so I need to write interesting things that get an audience. So there’s a theoretical tradeoff between “say what’s important” and “say what will get read”, and the greatest impact means finding the right balance.
That said, in reality, it’s not often as though I have two brilliant ideas for a column in the same week and I have to choose between them; it always feels like a miracle that I usually manage to have at least one. And since I don’t always have a really clear idea about what will have the most impact, I rarely feel like I’m writing something I don’t think matters.
(I guess when I do something fun, like this about Warhammer, it doesn’t “matter” in some sense that it probably won’t save lives. But I enjoyed writing it, and people enjoyed reading it, and maybe it gave a few people an idea for how to have a hobby. I doubt it was the most impactful thing I could have done, but I still feel it was net positive in the world just by cheering a few people up.)
2. It’s a conversation with the editors. I come up with ideas, or they suggest something (maybe pegged to some news piece, or a new book out, or whatever. Quite often I’ll say “I’d like to write about X” and the editors will be unconvinced by my pitch, and since that is literally the purpose of editors, I can’t really complain.
But the key thing is I have to find it interesting. I don’t mind whether I’m writing about sperm counts or deworming or stupid economists, it needs to be something I enjoy learning about and then can enjoy telling other people about, even if I’m telling people that this is stupid and you don’t need to worry about it. I think that would be my main recommendation to bloggers/independent writers too: if you aren’t interested, don’t write about it, because it will be obvious, and no one will read it. (And you’ll be bored.)
3. Hmm. You know, this is really hard to answer! I have been lucky in that I’ve almost always been able to write about what I’m interested in, and what I’m interested in shifts over time: I went through a phase a few years ago of being fascinated with linguistics, for instance. Now I’m super obsessed with the replication crisis and statistics. So I have no idea what I’ll be fascinated by in three years time, and the things I’m fascinated by now, I can usually write about without too
much difficulty. This is unusual in journalism and I am super lucky.
Sorry, this is a really rambly answer; I hope it makes some sense.

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 3:06 PM
8 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: RobBensinger’s comment on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
Hi Rob! Loved your post about politics being too meta.
OK so you’re all obviously aware of Kelsey Piper, Dylan Matthews etc. And probably Zeynep Tufekci.
In the UK, I think it’s worth paying attention to Ian Leslie, who is very interested in these topics (he’s a big fan of Julia Galef’s podcast, for instance). The (London) Times’s science correspondent, Tom Whipple, thinks in quite an EA-ish sort of way, I think.
People who are less obviously EA-ish but make me think might include Helen Lewis and Alex Hern – Alex for instance is quite a long way to the left of me but always thoughtful; I love his The World is Yours* newsletter because it either explains tech stuff that I wouldn’t understand, or it approaches things from some quite left-wing angles in ways that make me think about stuff.
That’s entirely off the top of my head. If I think of any more while I’m writing other replies I’ll come back and add them.

Tom Chivers Mar 18, 2021, 2:58 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd
Right! Sorry. I got a bit swamped but am going to have a go at answering questions now! Sorry about the delay.

AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd

Tom ChiversMar 10, 2021, 10:15 AM

73 points

82 comments1 min readEA link

Tom Chivers

AMA: Tom Chivers, sci­ence writer, sci­ence ed­i­tor at UnHerd

AMA: Tom Chivers, science writer, science editor at UnHerd