Denis
Posts 3
Comments115
I think you may greatly understate your case. I would argue that, especially in the US, the lack of credible "public intellectuals" is one of the greatest problems of our age, and that there is a huge opportunity for the right people to fill this role.
EAs with the right communication skills could be perfect public intellectuals, and if they could move the debate, or even the Overton window, a bit more towards effective positions, that would be a massive contribution to the world.
True, there are plenty of opinionated people out there, but it feels like mostly they are trotted out to support the party line rather than to provide genuine insight. They are more like lawyers arguing their "side" - and realistically, people don't trust lawyers to give honest insight.
If I look at France or Italy, for comparison, there have always been a few figures who tend to be asked for opinions about major topical questions, and their views carry weight. In other countries and in previous times, church leaders play or played a similar role - rarely with positive consequences ...
Today there are so many questions where public "debate" consists of people shouting slogans at each other, and whoever shouts loudest wins. I don't think most people like this. There are a few journalists (e.g. David Brooks in the NY Times) who have the confidence and authority to express opinions that are not necessarily partisan, and are presented with careful arguments, evidence and reference to critical thinking by others, including those who do not support him.
This is the work of the public intellectual, and when it is done well, it can still help people to change their minds or at least to understand both sides of an argument. It feels like philosophy (and maybe history) are the most obvious fields in which this kind of skillset and credibility can be achieved and earned.
I see this as a great opportunity for effective altruists because, unlike so many knee-jerk positions, EA's tend to have very carefully and analytically investigated every question, and to have done so with a very clear and tangible criterion. We need more EA's writing and being interviewed in places where the general public can hear them - and we need those people to be trained in the art of communicating to the general public (not just other EAs) without dumbing down (which would defeat the purpose of aiming to be seen as a public intellectual. The best speak in such a way that other people share their ideas, in part, as a sign that they are smart enough to understand them.
I see support for philosophers as very valuable if it can lead not just to new insights, but more importantly, to new voices ready to communicate in the public domain.
Good analysis of this from PauseAI:
I don't want to presume to paraphrase their analysis into one phrase, but if I were forced to, it would seem to be that there was a lot of pressure on Governor Newsom from powerful AI companies and interests, who also threatened to ruin the bill's sponsor Scott Wiener.
Still a pity that he couldn't resist the pressure.
It's kind of pathetic, but this is the reality of politics today. With their money, they really can either make or break a politician, and we voters are not smart enough to avoid being taken in by their negative advertising and dirt-digging.
It's clear that we need a much stronger movement on this. The other reason he was able to veto this bill is that the vast majority of people do not agree that AI poses a major / existential risk, and so they do not insist on the urgent action we need.
This is where we need a broad perspective.
Long-term, we solve the problem of meat-eating with artificial protein, which also solves many other problems.
Medium-term, we work to end factory-farming, which needlessly increases the suffering of animals. (I don't want to get into it because there are many experts here and I'm not one of them, but it may be arguable that an animal which is bred for food but gets to live a decent life in a field is better off than if it hadn't been born because people didn't need to eat it. However, in the case of factory-farming, such an argument seems totally untenable).
Short-term, we accept that we live in an imperfect world and that most people value saving human lives, even at the cost of animal lives. So we work to save human lives and improve health and improve quality of life, and instead of losing sleep over the calculation of the net impact on animals, we support the amazing organisations who are working to end factory-farming (like Farmkind) and to develop alternative protein (like GFI).
It's valuable to discuss questions like this, and I absolutely do not claim to have a definitive answer - all I say is that when I think about this, that's how I rationalise it.
Hi,
I'm not sure if you've had any interactions with the "EU Technical Policy Fellowship" led by Training for Good. You can find a lot of information online, and I could put you in contact with the trainers/organisers if that would be helpful.
They take 12 people (out of about 300 applicants) through an intense 8-week program about how to influence EU policy towards better AI Safety Governance. I was lucky enough to be a fellow earlier this year. Many of the fellows then do a 6-month internship at an AI-focused think-tank or Civil Society organisation.
IMHO this group may be of interest to some of the fellows and/or they may be interested in volunteering to support some of the activities. I'm not sure, as the focus of the fellowship is very much on getting people into the bodies that you do not want to duplicate.
They may also just have a good network of others who may be interested - again, possibly you already have access to the same network (Brussels isn't so big!)
There may also be potential to work with the new AI Office. I'm sure they are totally understaffed and over-worked at the moment - however, it sounds like you're planning to do some things that they would support, so maybe they would see enabling this organisation as an effective way to meet some of their needs.
On this subject, it was nice to see Nick Kristof in the New York Times write on a related theme, comparing how we treat and respect dogs and pigs.
Opinion | Dogs Are the Best! But They Highlight Our Hypocrisy. - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
@Leonie Falk I'm not clear if this is what you're looking for, but ... during Covid, there was obviously a lot of need for oxygen solutions, and one result of this is a lot of great work, mostly open-source in optimal design of oxygen concentrators.
At least one group in the U. of Cambridge set up with the view to optimising the supply and distribution of oxygen concentrators in developing countries, mainly in Africa. I was involved only at the start of the project, so I don't have the latest status. Part of the team was located in Kenya (?). The vision was to mass-produce these in Kenya. There are regions there with very suitable zeolite rocks, which (in an oxygen concentrator) are used to adsorb Nitrogen from a stream of air, so that the stream coming out is very rich in Oxygen, up to 95% or in some cases even 99%.
The reason this is interesting is that oxygen concentrators are relatively low-tech, and while they need electricity, they do not need to be refilled with oxygen. They also avoid many of the safety issues related to handling oxygen containers, which work great in London hospitals but maybe not in small, rural clinics with no experts present.
You probably know all this, but if not, definitely feel free to ask me more about the technology of oxygen concentrators. The point you might not know is about the project run with Cambridge, which is just a 40-minute train journey from London. I'd be happy to introduce you to Professor David Fairen-Jimenez, who is a global expert on adsorption technologies and was a colleague of mine for several years.
Congratulations on founding this amazing charity! When we worked on this, one thing I recall was all the people saying "Even without Covid, there is a massive need for oxygen!" It's brilliant that you're helping to address that!