This is a linkpost for https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hjGKy7kuefJ97xFQo/a-few-questions-about-recent-developments-in-ea
(Sorry; I forgot to cross-post when I made this post)
Having recognized that I have asked these same questions repeatedly across a wide range of channels and have never gotten satisfying answers for them, I'm compiling them here so that they can be discussed by a wide range of people in an ongoing way.
- Why has EV made many moves in the direction of decentralizing EA, rather than in the direction of centralizing it? In my non-expert assessment, there are pros and cons to each decision; what made EV think the balance turned out in a particular direction?
- Why has Open Philanthropy decided not to invest in genetic engineering and reproductive technology, despite many notable figures (especially within the MIRI ecosystem) saying that this would be a good avenue to work in to improve the quality of AI safety research?
- Why, as an organization aiming to ensure the health of a community that is majority male and includes many people of color, does the CEA Community Health team consist of seven white women, no men, and no people of color?
- Has anyone considered possible perverse incentives that the aforementioned CEA Community Health team may experience, in that they may have incentives to exaggerate problems in the community to justify their own existence? If so, what makes CEA as a whole think that their continued existence is worth the cost?
- Why do very few EA organizations do large mainstream fundraising campaigns outside the EA community, when the vast majority of outside charities do?
- Why have so few people, both within EA and within popular discourse more broadly, drawn parallels between the "TESCREAL" conspiracy theory and antisemitic conspiracy theories?
- Why do university EA groups appear, at least upon initial examination, to focus so much on recruiting, to the exclusion of training students and connecting them with interested people?
- Why is there a pattern of EA organizations renaming themselves (e.g. Effective Altruism MIT renaming to Impact@MIT)? What were seen as the pros and cons, and why did these organizations decide that the pros outweighed the cons?
- When they did rename, why did they choose to rename to relatively "boring" names that potentially aren't as good for SEO as one that more clearly references Effective Altruism?
- Why aren't there more organizations within EA that are trying to be extremely hardcore and totalizing, to the level of religious orders, the Navy SEALs, the Manhattan Project, or even a really intense start-up? It seems like that that is the kind of organization you would want to join, if you truly internalize the stakes here.
- When EAs talk about the "unilateralist's curse," why don't they qualify those claims with the fact that Arkhipov and Petrov were unilateralists who likely saved the world from nuclear war?
- Why hasn't AI safety as a field made an active effort to build large hubs outside the Bay, rather than the current state of affairs in which outside groups basically just function as recruiting channels to get people to move to the Bay?
I'm sorry if this is a bit disorganized, but I wanted to have them all in one place, as many of them seem related to each other.
I'll take a crack at some of these.
On 3, I basically don't think this matters. I hadn't considered it largely because it seems super irrelevant. It matters far more if any individual people shouldn't be there or some individuals should be there who aren't. AFAICT without much digging, they all seem to be doing a fine job and I don't see the need for a male/poc though feel free to point out a reason. I think nearly nobody feels they have a problem to report and then upon finding out that they are reporting to a white woman feel they can no longer do so. I would really hate to see EA become a place where we are constantly fretting and questioning demographic makeups of small EA organizations to make sure that they have enough of all the traits. It's a giant waste of time, energy and other resources
On 4, this is a risk with basically all nonprofit organizations. Do we feel AI safety organizations are exaggerating the problem? How about SWP? Do you think they exaggerate the number of shrimp or how likely they are to be sentient? How about Givewell? Should we be concerned about their cost-effectiveness analyses? It's always a question to ask but usually, a concern would come with something more concrete or a statistic. For example, the charity Will Macaskill talks about in the UK that helps a certain kind of Englishperson who is statistically ahead (though I can't remember if this is Scotts or Irishmen or another group)
On 7, university groups are limited in resources. Very limited. It is almost always done part-time while managing a full time courseload and working on their own development among other things and so they focus on their one comparative advantage of recruitment (since it would be difficult for others to do that) and outsource the training to other places (80k, MATS, etc.).
On 10, good point, I would like to see some movement within EA to increase the intensity.
On 11, another good point. I'd love to read more about this.
On 12, another good point but this is somewhat how networks work, unfortunately. There's just so many incentives for hubs to emerge and then to have a bunch of gravity. It kinda started in the Bay area and then for individual actors, it nearly always makes sense to go around there and then there is a feedback loop.