This is a frame that I have found useful and I'm sharing in case others find it useful.
EA has arguably gone through several waves:
Waves of EA (highly simplified model — see caveats below) | |||
First wave | Second wave | Third wave | |
Time period | 2010[1]-2017[2] | 2017-2023 | 2023-?? |
Primary constraint | Money | Talent |
??? |
Primary call to action | Donations to effective charities | Career change | |
Primary target audience | Middle-upper-class people | University students and early career professionals | |
Flagship cause area | Global health and development | Longtermism | |
Major hubs | Oxford > SF Bay > Berlin (?) | SF Bay > Oxford > London > DC > Boston |
The boundaries between waves are obviously vague and somewhat arbitrary. This table is also overly simplistic – I first got involved in EA through animal welfare, which is not listed at all on this table, for example. But I think this is a decent first approximation.
It’s not entirely clear to me whether we are actually in a third wave. People often overestimate the extent to which their local circumstances are unique. But there are two main things which make me think that we have a “wave” which is distinct from, say, mid 2022:
- Substantially less money, through a combination of Meta stock falling, FTX collapsing, and general market/crypto downturns[3]
- AI safety becoming (relatively) mainstream
If I had to choose an arbitrary date for the beginning of the third wave, I might choose March 22, 2023, when the FLI open letter on pausing AI experiments was published.
It remains to be seen if public concern about AI is sustained – Superintelligence was endorsed by a bunch of fancy people when it first came out, but they mostly faded away. If it is sustained though, I think EA will be in a qualitatively new regime: one where AI safety worries are common, AI safety is getting a lot of coverage, people with expertise in AI safety might get into important rooms, and where the field might be less neglected.
Third wave EA: what are some possibilities?
Here are a few random ideas; I am not intending to imply that these are the most likely scenarios.
Example future scenario | Politics and Civil Society[4] | Forefront of weirdness | Return to non-AI causes |
Description of the possible “third wave” — chosen to illustrate the breadth of possibilities | There is substantial public appetite to heavily regulate AI. The technical challenges end up being relatively easy. The archetypal EA project is running a grassroots petition for a moratorium on AI. | AI safety becomes mainstream and "spins out" of EA. EA stays at the forefront of weirdness and the people who were previously interested in AI safety turn their focus to digital sentience, acausal moral trade, and other issues that still fall outside the Overton window. | AI safety becomes mainstream and "spins out" of EA. AI safety advocates leave EA, and vibes shift back to “first wave” EA. |
Primary constraint | Political will | Research | Money |
Primary call to action | Voting/advocacy | Research | Donations |
Primary target audience | Voters in US/EU | Future researchers (university students) | Middle-upper class people |
Flagship cause area | AI regulation | Digital sentience | Animal welfare |
Where do we go from here?
- I’m interested in organizing more projects like EA Strategy Fortnight. I don’t feel very confident about what third wave EA should look like, or even that there will be a third wave, but it does seem worth spending time discussing the possibilities.
- I'm particularly interested in claims that there isn't, or shouldn't be, a third wave of EA (i.e. please feel free to disagree with the whole model, argue that we’re still in wave 2, argue we might be moving towards wave 3 but shouldn’t be, etc.).
- I’m also interested in generating cruxes and forecasts about those cruxes. A lot of these are about the counterfactual value of EA, e.g. will digital sentience become “a thing” without EA involvement?
This post is part of EA Strategy Fortnight. You can see other Strategy Fortnight posts here.
Thanks to a bunch of people for comments on earlier drafts, including ~half of my coworkers at CEA, particularly Lizka. “Waves” terminology stolen from feminism, and the idea that EA has been through waves and is entering a third wave is adapted from Will MacAskill, though I think he has a slightly different framing, but he still deserves a lot of the credit here.
- ^
Starting date is somewhat arbitrarily chosen from the history listed here.
- ^
Arbitrarily choosing the coining of the word “longtermism” as the starting event of the second wave
- ^
Although Meta stock is back up since I first wrote this; I would be appreciative if someone could do an update on EA funding
- ^
Analogy from Will MacAskill: Quakers:EA::Abolition:AI Safety
If it were the case that belief in utilitarianism predictably causes the world to have less utility, then under basically any common moral system there's no strong case for spreading utilitarianism[1]. In such a world, there is of course no longer a utilitarian case for spreading utilitarianism, and afaik the other common ethical systems would not endorse spreading utilitarianism, especially if it reduces net utility.
Now "historically utilitarianism has led to less utility" does not strictly imply that in the future "belief in utilitarianism predictably causes the world to have less utility." But it is extremely suggestive, and more so if it looks overdetermined rather than due to a specific empirical miscalculation, error in judgement, or bad actor.
I'm personally pretty neutral on whether utilitarianism has been net negative. The case against is that I think Bentham was unusually far-seeing and correct relative to his contemporaries. The strongest case for in my opinion probably comes from people in our cluster of ideas[2] accelerating AI capabilities (runner ups include FTX, some specific culty behaviors, and well-poisoning of good ideas), though my guess is that there isn't much evidence that the more utilitarian EAs are more responsible.
On a more theoretical level, Askell's distinction between utilitarianism as a criterion of rightness vs decision procedure is also relevant here.
And depending on details, there might indeed be a moral obligation to reduce utilitarianism.
Note that even if utilitarianism overall is a net positive moral system for people to have, if it were the case that EAs specifically would be destructive with it, there's still a local case against it.