Question for AIM folks: what's the thinking behind running a very involved process twice per year, as opposed to recruiting from near-misses from previous rounds?
Are there savings to be made here? Asking as someone deeply concerned with cost effectiveness as a vital principle of EA... and a former finalist!
Quick FYI for anyone still waiting to hear back re: EAG London. I learned today that my acceptance email from March never reached me, and apparently there have been a few email hiccups this year.
Might be worth checking spam/alternative inboxes or contacting admissions if you're still waiting.
What would need to happen for you to stand down on AI safety?
I’m not saying you should. I’m not saying you will. But what evidence would make you substantially less concerned than you are today?
I’ve been asking people at EAG London some variation of two questions:
This may seem leading, as if I’m implying that I’m not fully convinced by the broader arguments. Well, I’m not… not. My position is that I’m under-informed. But I still want to know how those better informed than I think about the limits of their concern.
So… is it a matter of time? If nothing substantially bad has happened in 10 years, will we stop fearing? Or is it a matter of meeting certain benchmarks of cooperation? Could it be when governments figure out a method of wealth redistribution that doesn’t result in societal decline?
Let me know your thoughts!
Is anybody here doing something about the most recent ebola outbreak?
This could be of interest: support reporting projects that document and explain the opportunities, harms, and regulatory and labor issues surrounding AI systems https://pulitzercenter.org/blog/open-call-proposals-pulitzer-centers-ai-accountability-fellowships-2026-2027
I wanted to flag an upcoming Netflix limited series, The Altruists, which dramatises the collapse of FTX and centres on Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison. Filming wrapped late last year, and the series is expected to release in 2026.
Regardless of how carefully or poorly the show handles the facts, the title and premise alone are likely to renew public association between effective altruism, crypto, and the FTX collapse. Given Netflix’s reach, this will almost certainly shape first impressions for many people encountering EA-adjacent ideas for the first time.
It seems worth thinking early about what’s likely to follow. This won’t primarily be about factual accuracy. Even a relatively balanced dramatisation will compress nuance and foreground irony, because that is how narrative television works. A Netflix drama will travel faster and wider than any later attempts at nuance. Silence may be read as evasiveness, while reactive defensiveness would likely make things worse.
I don’t have a fully formed proposal for how the community should respond, but it seems worth beginning the conversation early, before others frame it for us.
I’d be interested to hear how others are thinking about this.
Hi Siobhan, thanks for raising this! I lead media relations work at CEA now, and we’re actively planning our response strategy for this series (as well as other known shows/documentaries currently in development.) We're working to ensure we're prepared to engage thoughtfully with the coverage and any criticisms, questions or interest that may result from it.
We're currently in the planning phase, so if you or others have suggestions, feel free to reach out to the Marketing and Communications team at: comms [at] centreforeffectivealtruism [dot] org
There was some discussion of this a few months ago: see here.
Although, maybe your main point—which I agree the existing discussion doesn’t really have answers to—is, “How, if at all, should we be getting ahead of things and proactively setting a framing for the social media conversation that will surely follow (as opposed to just forming some hypotheses over what that conversation will be like, but not particularly doing anything yet)? Who within our community should lead these efforts? How high priority is this compared to other forms of improving the EA brand?[1]”
Fwiw, I personally mostly disagree with efforts to improve EA’s brand/reputation. I endorse embodying our principles and not focusing too much on how that is perceived; IMO, this is an indirect/long-game way of ~optimising for reputation. I’m generally suspicious of actors who try to control their reputations. (Will MacAskill said something similar here.)
I brought this up a few months ago in a larger comment on optics and it did not go over well. Glad to see people upvoting this (your phrasing of the issue is much better than mine!).
Another element I've thought of since, is that we're continuing to evolve our understanding and approaches of altruism - so to label the one approach/one attempt of FTX as representative of all "altruists" is potentially limiting the entire space. They could have called it just FTX or "Consequential" (similar to the Uber series being called "Superpumped" and Wework show called "wecrashed") the fact that altruists is in the name suggests they will center that in the storyline.
To be fair, all groups go through this, and I'm not sure what direct interventions can be done at this point barring legal action...which typically has strong negative connotations associated with it.
i doubt it will be very consequential for EA either way. I think what matters is the discursive impact (effect on prevailing social opinion) not total viewers. and people don't care very much about Netflix shows. would be different if it was a movie that got traction.
fwiw there is a movie coming out this year by Luca Guadagnino (written by Simon Rich) called artificial. It is solely focused on the events surrounding Sam Altman's 2023 attempted firing by OpenAI's non-profit board.
This is probably not a great idea, but throwing it out here anyway: since Netflix now has ads, we could buy commercials that run before the start of each episode. We could use this to give viewers a very brief intro to what effective altruism really is.
If my recollection is correct, the Mormon church had a similar strategy for showings of The Book of Mormon musical.