epistemic status: quickly written mini-memo, not Claude-generated
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This is possibly a (good) remnant from my past weightlifting-coaching backgrounds. I found lots of success with adopting this "Coaching" mindset framing going into my mentorship calls, that can strike the "firm but patient" balance:
accountability
so much value of paid coaching clients is from the social accountability of showing up to the scary arena together
where you're coming from as a mentor...
from a place of "i'm rooting for you and i want you to succeed which is why i'm giving you this feedback" and "i believe you can win the Olympic gold medal if you fix xyz"
give concrete pointers
as often as possible, don't be nebulous
eg. say less "go to gym"; say more "show up every Monday at 10am to 11am and do these five workouts, three sets of 10 reps each in this specific order."
points out errors with immediacy;
build a relationship where error-correction is the norm
eg. "[mid-screen share] ... wait wait go back, i think you should remove the picture of Terminator on the poster, because-"
result in: leaving mentees feeling like they worked with (an actual) coach and not someone they just answer to ;)
Crossposted to Less Wrong
‘Like most of life’s dangers, the dangers of artificial intelligence are not easily identified from the armchair.’
J Dmitri Gallow
Epistemic status
I’m not an expert in this field, and herein I make some sweeping generalisations educated guesses about the overall...
Let’s imagine it’s November 2031. We’re both still here, AI is much more capable than it is today, but governments are governing, civilisation is still (mostly) civilised, and there has been no catastrophic loss of control. It just kind of didn’t happen.
What happens to the AI safety field then?
I expect people who currently believe catastrophe could happen within two or three years will start saying five or ten years. Then 15. Then ‘who cares if we’re a few decades of...
Thanks to Bruce Friedrich, Seth Ariel Green, Tobias Leenaert, Jan Willem Bolderdijk, Martine van Haperen, Herman Rohrbach, Chris Popa and Elizabeth Alvarez for comments. Claude helped structure the text. Ideas and mistakes are my own. I currently work with ProVeg International. The prize I propose would be defined and judged by an independent committee, and its money would fund scaling the winning solution(s), not ProVeg or the winner.
TL/DR
* EA could d...
Thank you for writing this up, Tzu!