I have known Gergo for quite a few years now, having worked together with my foundation in his capacity as ED of EA Hungary. I look forward to working with and supporting his goals at EA UK. Congrats, Gergo, I'm glad we both made the jump to the UK and can continue collaborating :)
Thanks for your thoughtful comment and recommendation!
To give some clarity and perhaps put your mind at ease: we don't intend to redesign it in a way that makes us copycats. We intend to find, optimize, and refine programs that would benefit from a residential space, while also enhancing our residents' experiences, and provide them with the necessary structure (when and for whom it is useful), support (academic, professional, emotional, cognitive), and resources (tools, compute, referrals, career development, etc) so that they can thrive. The goal is not to become yet another incubator or one-off program, but to leverage the best parts of various other institutions and create the right blend of the above-mentioned things. Simply giving space is indeed beneficial. But we can do better.
Indeed, we want to expand the number of people we can host, but that requires more common space to avoid overcrowding. We're working on that. And while the place doesn't need to be luxurious, the baseline needs to be raised so that more people accustomed to higher standards are willing to come and experience what the community has to offer without feeling they're sacrificing their quality of life. It has to be more than just a functional community; if that were all we were, it would narrow the kind of people who would come.
We are becoming an institution where people from all walks of life come to work on the world's biggest problems. In the community, with each other, in a pleasant and productive environment, where they can become the best version of themselves, and have the greatest impact on the world. That requires more than a well-intentioned community.
Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Arepo. A few clarifications:
We're definitely not abandoning open-ended residencies. We're trying to find the right balance between open residency and structured programming. That's exactly why we're polling: we don't have the answer yet and want community input as one data point among many.
On AI safety focus: I think there's a misread here. We're not narrowing to short-timelines AI doom. Our scope is AI safety, reducing global catastrophic risks, and remaining roughly cause-neutral but EA-aligned. We're following where both talent and high-impact opportunities are concentrated, not locking ourselves into a single timeline view.
You're right that we need to align with funding realities to keep operations running, but we're actively working to avoid being locked into any single cause area. The goal is to remain responsive to what the ecosystem needs as things evolve. That is why we're doing very rudimentary market research that directly reaches the end user above, using the poll.
I am keenly wary of duplicating efforts when there is no demand. However, I suspect (pending actual market research and confirmation) that there are still uncovered use cases and needs that we could — and should — fill. Duplication is not the goal. Finding a niche that is underserved and provides value is.
Thanks for being open to this, Ryan! We would be delighted to work with MATS on making this happen; it is precisely the sort of partnership and programming we're hoping to cultivate in the coming year. I'll reach out next week.
I have known Gergo for quite a few years now, having worked together with my foundation in his capacity as ED of EA Hungary. I look forward to working with and supporting his goals at EA UK. Congrats, Gergo, I'm glad we both made the jump to the UK and can continue collaborating :)
Thanks for your thoughtful comment and recommendation!
To give some clarity and perhaps put your mind at ease: we don't intend to redesign it in a way that makes us copycats. We intend to find, optimize, and refine programs that would benefit from a residential space, while also enhancing our residents' experiences, and provide them with the necessary structure (when and for whom it is useful), support (academic, professional, emotional, cognitive), and resources (tools, compute, referrals, career development, etc) so that they can thrive. The goal is not to become yet another incubator or one-off program, but to leverage the best parts of various other institutions and create the right blend of the above-mentioned things. Simply giving space is indeed beneficial. But we can do better.
Indeed, we want to expand the number of people we can host, but that requires more common space to avoid overcrowding. We're working on that. And while the place doesn't need to be luxurious, the baseline needs to be raised so that more people accustomed to higher standards are willing to come and experience what the community has to offer without feeling they're sacrificing their quality of life. It has to be more than just a functional community; if that were all we were, it would narrow the kind of people who would come.
We are becoming an institution where people from all walks of life come to work on the world's biggest problems. In the community, with each other, in a pleasant and productive environment, where they can become the best version of themselves, and have the greatest impact on the world. That requires more than a well-intentioned community.
We look forward to hosting you, Joey!
Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Arepo. A few clarifications:
We're definitely not abandoning open-ended residencies. We're trying to find the right balance between open residency and structured programming. That's exactly why we're polling: we don't have the answer yet and want community input as one data point among many.
On AI safety focus: I think there's a misread here. We're not narrowing to short-timelines AI doom. Our scope is AI safety, reducing global catastrophic risks, and remaining roughly cause-neutral but EA-aligned. We're following where both talent and high-impact opportunities are concentrated, not locking ourselves into a single timeline view.
You're right that we need to align with funding realities to keep operations running, but we're actively working to avoid being locked into any single cause area. The goal is to remain responsive to what the ecosystem needs as things evolve. That is why we're doing very rudimentary market research that directly reaches the end user above, using the poll.
I am keenly wary of duplicating efforts when there is no demand. However, I suspect (pending actual market research and confirmation) that there are still uncovered use cases and needs that we could — and should — fill. Duplication is not the goal. Finding a niche that is underserved and provides value is.
Thanks for being open to this, Ryan! We would be delighted to work with MATS on making this happen; it is precisely the sort of partnership and programming we're hoping to cultivate in the coming year. I'll reach out next week.