Hi Luke,
I’m happy to know that your org has better practices. It’s also the feedback part that sucks: despite succeeding at many rounds, I never gotten any feedback!
Vaipan
Karma: 299
Thank you for this post. It is clear and well-written, and clearly shows how effective new orgs can be, right away! Truly admirative of your work.
Does making impact justify a careless attitude about harming the planet?
So, everyone loves EA for impact. However, I often see well-known EA orgs who clearly behave in harmful ways. Read this :
‘We choose to live in sunny, warm places all year long in an endless summer. This year we’ll be staying the winter in the Caribbean then going to EA hubs (Bay Area and London) in the summer time.’, from a famous EA org (that I won’t name and shame, but you can ask me in private if you want to avoid them). This is from a job add to receive funds to create your own EA hiring agency. Moreover, Bay Area and London are very costly and living there clearly increases your carbon footprint. If you have a choice of where to live, shouldn’t you think about this?
It is often that I see EA taking the plane for long distances and not caring a tad about their carbon footprint. These are rich, mobile people who like to travel from conferences to conferences but...for which impact? Does saving a child from malaria allows you to pollute? These things aren’t compatible in my mind.
I wish this community was more sensible to these ideas. It’s not because we don’t deem climate change a priority that we should not bat an eye regarding these behaviours. It is absurd to me. There seem to be little room between fully ascets EA people who live for impact and don’t allow themselves any personal pleasure, and such people who don’t even think about their carbon footprint. Should we follow data and encourage people to include their carbon footprint in their daily thinking? I wish we did better.
I personally offset all my CO2 with Wren
And yet I highly doubt that most EA do that. You say that carbon is offsetable but it’s still a vigorous debate. The measures we take to offset the said carbone often won’t remove carbon before years, if not centuries.
For someone who goes to a conference, how can they really measure the trade-offs? meeting one person who helps them get a EA job with 10 other persons from other contexts? It sounds hypocritical. Truth is, it’s hard to calculate truthfully the impact you’re having at these conferences because the results take years; however, the carbon is spent. Here. Now. And seeing global warming as a ‘marginal’ is a grave error to make IMO.
These folks justify their highly carbonate cost of living by saying they make impact elsewhere,but they can’t really calculate it.
All this doesn’t make my post less relevant : 1) we need to talk about it more and have some kind of pledge/be transparent about it 2) we need to do something about this carelesness because of lack of accountability.
I do hope they are not representative. I’m really hoping that we’ll get statistics about EAs behaviour when it comes to carbon footprint. I know there’s a big silent mass of EAs in low-income countries whose carbon footprint is close to null compared to wealthy notherners. I just wonder what is the part of wealthy notherners in EA—since we hear from them most.
Hey that’s a great post! I’m trying to learn as much as possible before starting a position that belongs to community building and these are really great insights. I’ll try to translate your advice in concrete ways in my job.
I have mixed-feelings concerning your post. I commend it for being so clear and easily understandable. There are trends in EA, and yours go into the ‘Let’s narrow EA because diversity is overrated’. As you say, you have no empirical evidence that diversity is bad ; and I will just give a few qualitative examples to demonstrate the opposite, so my level of confidence is around 55%, no more. Sorry in advance if the arguments I’ll lay will be hard to take in. Again, this is only my hunch.
It is well-known mechanism for people previously on the margins who have succeeded into prestigious, privileged places to be against diversity. I think about Priti Patel or Rishi Sunak ; take me in, but don’t let anyone enter after me. I believe this comes from a desire of being liked by those who you admire and want to feel as an equal—turning back on the very people you could have belonged to if you had been born ten years later is a way to legitimize your ozn belonging to the prestigious, powerful group. To push further, because it’s not you being ‘mean’, it stems from a place of self-doubt. You are not sure you deserve to be here (cf you referring not being better than your Boston pals) so its easier to think others like you don’t. There is a sociological field that explains such attitude, but I can’t find it now sadly. Some kind of survivor bias.
I do think that fellow South Africans or people coming from low-income countries can bring insights EAs in wealthy countries can’t. Thats the reason why the UN recruits people from these countries instead of giving the job to a white, wealthy candidate from a first world country who just got their masters in development. Its because people from these countries have experience living in these countries, and this a major arguments for global aid projects , which remain very important as McAskill said in a post here not a long time ago. AI devouring the rest of EA fields is a great concern for many, and I belong to those who think that AI is a big thing on its own—it requires a set of skills and political connections that must be separated from animal welfare, global aid, etc. I can develop if needed. AI is vastly important. AI is not the core of EA (yet, I hope).
‘Something which is largely just a nod to political correctness or a lost sense of global justice’ and there lies a big worry of mine. As an historian, I know that progress is not linear, and that progress is won by hard work (listen to the 80k podcast about slavery not being inevitable at all). This kind of argument is a pushback from a group of people who do not like to share resources, power and influence. And we see this pushback happening every single time progress is made, every time a group gets rights they were denied previously under false pretenses (racism or misogyny is a false pretense in my opinion). The problem here is that there is a hardcore group of people inside EA who do not relinquish competition from other people. Yeah, I know, EA is not supposed to be political. And I shall not be: my view is very pragmatic and I want the best people to do good.
I know that such discourse isn’t well-viewed in the community. And yet every day I see excellent people from the ‘diversity’ pool (understand women/non-white/non-STEM) being great at their new job, that they would not have gotten ten years ago before all the ‘political correctness’ talks. I intend to write a post giving figures as to why diversity is, in fact, necessary to keep producing the best people. And to give actionable answers. I expect pushback—that is the course of history :)
So, people. Think, I beg you. It is scary to have the feeling that while it is already hard to get an EA job, you have to compete with an always bigger pool of applicants because we give a chance to everyone. But if you care about impact, it is a reality everyone should accept.
I see that I am regularly downvoted, just like I was expecting, but I was expecting people to least answer in response, explaining their reasoning. Because it’s now easy to qssume that I am being downvoted by people who fear competition and refuse diversity for selfish reasons. Ockham razor here.
Edit: I see that either I’m not conveying my point well, or that people aren’t ready to hear this. I still think that this ‘pulling up the ladder behind’ thinking applies to OP, and if it’s offensive to say that, I’m sorry, and I mean it. I don’t see how it is offensive—they don’t know me, they don’t care about what I think of them, so if it’s not on a personal level, I don’t see how this is hurtful. If someone accuses me of being something I don’t think I am, I’ll brush it off—I know myself, and if it bothers me I’ll try to see if it’s because there is a parcel of truth or not at all. I don’t want to be mean or personal, I just think it’s a valuable thinking process to shed light on.
What doesn’t help is tthis feeling of everyone walking on eggshells when it comes to race or women, because one is afraid to say the wrong things/think that approaching these topics is useless and overrated. Even in our EA group which is probably one of the most progressive on earth about these issues, I know people feel these things I just talked about (they told me).
I might also be wrong and misunderstand completely what the author and his supporters think, and maybe all these people are very inclusive and care abot diversity. The focus on impact is absolutely understandable but it feels like an excuse—it doesn’t justify narrowing down and being elitist for me. Both aren’t incompatible, quite the opposite. But we’re not there yet. I don’t know what I should do—I still stand by my comments, but I don’t see the point of discussing this further, and I would not want people to think that I have stopped responding because I realize that I’m wrong but I don’t have the guts to acknowledge it. I just feel very, very tired of meeting hostility when I talk about these topics in this community.
So you cite stats of race, which I don’t believe at all is evidence of good practice. Its not about having a quota of a certain race. It’s about what you do with power. And so far Rishis cabinet has been having very conservative policies that do not benefit the majority of people who share the same skin color. It’s like saying that because you have cabinet full of women it’s diversity. Nope. Someone like Jacinda Ardern does act for women, but someone like Lizz Truss doesnt. It’s all about how you use power, not who uses power.
So you don’t even question the assumption that you are supposed to work harder because of your immutable characteristics, and that you find it normal to be pinned down twice harder because of them than any mediocre white male? Doesn’t seem very constructive to me, and again, it’s this ‘Ill get better myself and won’t care to challenge the norms for others’ mindset that is the reason why minorities keep being treated the way they are.
I think that I am being downvoted for reasons that do not prove that I am wrong, but that are based on a classical impulse that many people have on these topics. And the fact that only two people made an effort to comment on why they thought that I am wrong is evidence that people do not want to justify why they dont like my comment, which again is related to this impulse I was talking about.
The only response I got was that diversity in a cabinet means that diversity is present, but if diversity does not use power to act on the unfairness, it does not matter. I still fail to see how all this is convincing.
Impressive! All of it is a success—the simplicity of the idea, the good implementation, the partnerships with institutions while this topic is far from being culturally obvious...Well done! Truly impressive!
My point was that it’s not because rishi is in power that he will implement policy in favour of diversity. Actually he stays in the conservative lane that is factually detrimental to diversity (least wealthy populations). Rishi’s agenda is : 1) cutting taxes 2) cutting NHS for long-term disabilities and cutting social allowance for NHS 3) Reduce public spending and implement more austerity politics 4)harsher policies for small boats. Just like Priti Patel and Suella Braveman.
This is very much in line with Truss, Johnson and all conservative ministers. So him being from a different racial background doesn’t influence at all the way he uses his power. He rules as a conservative, for the upper class. Rishi’s main interest has nothing to do with his diversity background but rather the economic class to which he now belongs. The author of the post has now reached a good stage in EA, but he wants to narrow EA, which means that even less people from diverse background will be able to com
Great initiative!
I’m happy to read it went well with the mixing of mid-career professionals and students, since mid-career professionals can feel a bit ‘out of place’ in a very young setting. Did you take concrete steps to avoid this? Or did these people all knew each other from the start, as EA can be a bubble? Do you have an idea of what were the benefits of mixing with students for mid-career people?
Your results are very clearly encouraging, bravo! I’m definitely taking notes to reproduce this at EA Sweden :-)
Thanks for your post. Here are a few things that I hope are constructive.
“hey, how do you tell when to release subpar work and when to keep improving?”
This might not work for everybody, but I often get this gut feeling of ‘I could stop working now, even though it is clearly not my best work’ when I finish stuff. So I think that it’s about fighting this impulse of perfectionism to make it it better by focusing on this first assessment of alright-ness. And quite often, I receive very good feedback on such works. Of course I could get even better feedback with even better pieces, but then my mental health sinks.
Next to Andy’s hippy friends I am a titan of industry.
Yeah but the issue is that when it comes to grants or work, you are not competing with Andy’s lovely hippies friends, but with people as intense/if not more intense than you. So I would separate two things here. Comparison is good, when it highlights a strength of yours : like, observing that you social abilities and agreeableness are much higher than many EAs or a few that you have in mind. But when it comes to actual work (I’m thinking technical/niche skills), I agree that comparisons are always a thief of joy. Personally, I tend to always evaluate myself less clever/less technically gifted than many of my colleagues or even people working at positions under mine.
You will never impress them until you give up on doing so.
Yeah I agree! But I’d like to see EA working on being able to compliment others/say when they are impressed by someone instead of thinking of it as a vulnerable thing to do. Of course its vulnerable, but I so often felt impressed towards people, then worried that they didn’t find me good enough, to finally learn by someone else that they were actually impressed by my contributions. This ‘not feeling good enough’ is a big anxiety issue among EA, even those who have an established professional status. Being able to express to each other how impressed we are by each other would probably lessen this anxiety. The few times I tried to do that, people showed signs of embarrassment though, so I’m not sure everyone agrees with me here!
Better yet, get curious about why you don’t seem to want to work on it, with “I hate it and want to quit” being one of many options.
And here I feel particularly targeted when I think about my way-too-long-and-painful PhD process! Some things require spite though, and I’m happy I didn’t give up. But this might also not apply to the majority of things.
Thank you, this is enlightening and helps understand the thinking process when you have been on the other side of the counter as an applicant. So you got 35% of people having experience as senior managers. Is that a confirmation that EA lacks people with experience as senior managers? At EA Sweden we are targeting mid-career professionals for this reason among others, so would be nice to see confirmed or infirmed.
Would love to read some concrete examples of cases where the CHT made a difference, despite the ‘if it’s invisible it means that it is successful’ line of thinking that I fully understand. I also understand why some people say that CHT did not intervene in instances where it would have been necessary because the official line remains ‘CHT isn’t the EA police/conflict solver’ when confronted with these questions.
I agree! And this might be a hot take (especially for those who are already deep into AI issues), but I also see the need, first and foremost, to advocate for AI within our EA community.
People interacting on this forum do not, IMO, give a fully representative picture of EAs and tend to be very focused on AI while the broader EA community didn’t enter EA for ‘longtermist’ (as much as I hate using this label that could apply to so many causes labelled as neartermists) purposes/did not make the change between what they think is highly impactful and the recent turning point from CEA to focus a large amount of EA resources on longtermism.
People who have been making career switches and reading about global aid/animal welfare who suddenly find out that more than 50 percent of the talks at EA globals and resources are dedicated to AI rather than other causes, are lost. As a community builder, I am in a weird position where I have to explain why and convince many in my local community that EA’s focus is changing (focus coming from the top, the top being closely related to funding decisions etc, not saying these are the same people and it’s obv more complex than that but the change towards longtermism and focus on AI is indisputable) for the better.
This results in many EAs feeling highly skeptical about the new focus. It is good that 80k is making simple videos to explain the risks associated with EA, but I still feel that community epistemics are poor when it comes to justify this change, despite 80k very clear website pages about AI safety. The content is there; outreach, not so much.
And my resulting feeling (because its very hard to have actual numbers to gauge the truth) is that on one side we have AI afficionados, ready to switch careers and already in a deep level of knowledge about these topics (usually with the convenient background in STEM, machine learning etc), the same ones that do comment a lot on the forum, and the rest of the EA community that doesn’t feel much sense of belonging towards the EA community lately. I was planning to write a post about that but I still need to clarify my thoughts and sharpen my arguments, as you can see how poorly structured my comment is.
So I guess that my take is : before (or at the same time, but it seems more strategic for me to do this before in terms of allocating resources) advocating for AI safety outside of the community, let’s do it inside the community.
Footnote : I know about the RethinkPriorities survey that indicates that 70 percent of EAs do consider AI safety as the most impactful thing to work on (I might remember it badly though, not confident at all), but I have my reservations on how representative the survey actually is.
Would be nice to know what you are basing these diagrams on, other than intuition. If you are very present on the forum and mainly focused on AI of course that is going to be your intuition. Here are the dangers of this intuition I find to exist about this topic :
It’s a self-reenforcing thing : people deep into AI or newly converted are much more likely to think that EA revolves essentially around AI, and people outside of AI might think ‘Oh that’s what the community is about now’ and don’t feel like they belong here. Someone who just lurks out there and see that the forum is now almost exclusively filled with posts on AI will now think that EA is definitely about longtermism.
Funding is also a huge signal. With OpenPhil funding essentially AI and other longtermist projects, for someone who is struggling to find a job (yes we have a few talents who are being aked out everywhere but that’s not the case of the majority even for highly-educated EAs), it is easy to think in a opportunistic way and switch to AI out of necessity instead of conviction, see McAskill quote very relevantly cited by someone in the comments.
And finally, the message given by people at the top. If CEA focuses a lot of Ai career switches and think of other career switches as neutral, of course community builders will focus on AI people. Which means, factually, more men with a STEM background (we have excellent women working at visible and prestigious jobs in AI that’s true, but unless we consciously try to find a concrete way of making women entering the field it is going to be difficult to maintain this, and this is not a priority so far) since the ratio men/women in STEM is still very not in favor of women. The community might thus become even more masculine, and even more STEM (exception made to philosophers and policy-makers but the funds for such jobs are still scarce). I know this isn’t a problem for some here as many of the posts about diversity and their comments attest it, but for those who do see the problem with narrowing down even further, the point is made. And it’s just dangerous to focus on helping people switching to AI if in the need the number of jobs doesn’t grow as expected.
So all the ingredients are there for EA to turn into a practically exclusively AI community, but as D. Nash said, differentiating between the two might actually be more fruitful.
Also I’m not sure that I want to look back in five years and realize that what made the strength of EA—a highly diverse community in terms of interests and centers of impact, and a measurable impact in the world (I might be very wrong here but so far measuring impact for all these new AI orgs is difficult as we clearly lack data and it’s a new field of understanding--, has just disappeared. It’s OK to be seen as nerds and elitist (because let’s face it, that is how EA is seen in the mainstream) is fine as long as we have concrete impact to show for it, but if we become an exclusively technical community that is all about ML and AI governance, it is going to be even more difficult to get traction outside of EA (and we might want to care about that, as explained in a recent post on AI advocacy).
I know I’m going against the grain here, but I like to think that all these ‘EA open to criticism’ thinggy is not a thing of the past. And I truly think that these points need to be addressed, instead of being drown under the new enthusiasm for AI. And if needed to be said : I do realize how important AI is, and how impactful working on it is. I just think that it is not enough to go all-AI, and that many here tend to forget other dynamics and factors playing because of the AI takeover in the community.
Yes my bad!
Hi Kaleem!
I hope you have found your fit by now! No, I don’t have any evidence that my work has been used, but the assignments were so specific that it gave me this impression. However, it is only an impression!