I think applying to EAG makes sense in your position, but do not be too disappointed if your application will not be accepted.
I recommend applying for an EA summit or EAGx too! For example, EAGxSingapore might be a good fit, and it is closer than NYC: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ea-global/events/eagxsingapore-2026
EAGx and EA summit have a lower bar to entry, and many people first attended an EAGx event before attending an EAG event.
Maybe you should inform yourself a little bit more about EA principles before going there, but you do not need to have expert EA knowledge to attend. Regarding your Oikko project, you should be open-minded when attending EAGx or EAG, maybe other participants will try to convince you to work on completely different projects instead.
Whether that is through IT, HR, or providing food.
Not everyone needs to be a high-level researcher, and I think it is fine to list jobs that have very different skill requirements than the typical 80k-advertized job.
Is there a reason why you are focusing on compute and not salaries? The example numbers you use are rather low compared to the yearly salary of a single AIS researcher.
If you and me and all of humanity gets killed by AI and turned into paperclips, that would be an unprecedented moral catastrophe. If the AIs that killed all of us stay around and enjoy having more paperclips, that is still extremely bad. The very act of killing us makes these AIs not a worthy successor of the human species.
This suggests that proposing to pause AI today is like proposing to pause electricity in 1880
The prospect of AI killing all of us makes these very different. Yes, in both cases a pause will probably slow GDP growth. But humans should be willing to accept lower GDP if this notably reduces the chance of all humans being killed.
warning the Tesla founder his wealth would go to “left-wing nonprofits that will be chosen by Bill Gates."
Am I missing something or does this argument make no sense? As far as I can tell, Musk can easily fulfill his giving pledge by giving to his preferred not-left-wing nonprofits without deferring to Bill Gates.
EAs concerned about animal welfare have typically focused on farmed animals, as opposed to animal testing, because of the much larger scale of the suffering
EAs mostly haven't heard of it.
Maybe some EAs have heard about it, but they don't think it is worth the effort to write a post about it.
But tribalistic explanations could be a factor too (e.g. MAHA has anti-science vibes, and EAs like to stay on the pro-science side).
(This is probably not the most constructive feedback, but my initial reaction to this short form was that it felt like a right-wing analog of left-wing "Why don't the EAs tweet about Gaza?"-style criticisms).
I think halting undecidability and Rice's theorem are being misapplied here.
It is true that no algorithm can determine, for every possible program and input, whether that program will halt. But for specific programs and inputs, it is often possible to figure out whether they halt or not.
I agree that there is no method that allows us to check all possible AGI designs for a specific nontrivial behavioral property. But this does not forbid us to select an AGI design for which we can prove that it has a specific behavioral property!
Can you say more on why you think a 1:24 ratio is the right one (as opposed to lower or higher ratios)? And how might this ratio differ for people who have different beliefs than you, for example about xrisk, LTFF, or the evilness of these companies?
Once upon a time, some people were arguing that AI might kill everyone, and EA resources should address that problem instead of fighting Malaria.
So OpenPhil poured millions of dollars into orgs such as EpochAI (they got 9 million).
Now 3 people from EpochAI created a startup to provide training data to help AI replace human workers.
Some people are worried that this startup increases AI capabilities, and therefore increases the chance that AI will kill everyone.
I think applying to EAG makes sense in your position, but do not be too disappointed if your application will not be accepted.
I recommend applying for an EA summit or EAGx too! For example, EAGxSingapore might be a good fit, and it is closer than NYC: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ea-global/events/eagxsingapore-2026 EAGx and EA summit have a lower bar to entry, and many people first attended an EAGx event before attending an EAG event.
Maybe you should inform yourself a little bit more about EA principles before going there, but you do not need to have expert EA knowledge to attend. Regarding your Oikko project, you should be open-minded when attending EAGx or EAG, maybe other participants will try to convince you to work on completely different projects instead.
Helping high-impact orgs can be high-impact.
Whether that is through IT, HR, or providing food.
Not everyone needs to be a high-level researcher, and I think it is fine to list jobs that have very different skill requirements than the typical 80k-advertized job.
Is there a reason why you are focusing on compute and not salaries? The example numbers you use are rather low compared to the yearly salary of a single AIS researcher.
If you and me and all of humanity gets killed by AI and turned into paperclips, that would be an unprecedented moral catastrophe. If the AIs that killed all of us stay around and enjoy having more paperclips, that is still extremely bad. The very act of killing us makes these AIs not a worthy successor of the human species.
The prospect of AI killing all of us makes these very different. Yes, in both cases a pause will probably slow GDP growth. But humans should be willing to accept lower GDP if this notably reduces the chance of all humans being killed.
Am I missing something or does this argument make no sense? As far as I can tell, Musk can easily fulfill his giving pledge by giving to his preferred not-left-wing nonprofits without deferring to Bill Gates.
I don't think so.
Some less tribalistic hypotheses I can think of:
But tribalistic explanations could be a factor too (e.g. MAHA has anti-science vibes, and EAs like to stay on the pro-science side).
(This is probably not the most constructive feedback, but my initial reaction to this short form was that it felt like a right-wing analog of left-wing "Why don't the EAs tweet about Gaza?"-style criticisms).
I think halting undecidability and Rice's theorem are being misapplied here. It is true that no algorithm can determine, for every possible program and input, whether that program will halt. But for specific programs and inputs, it is often possible to figure out whether they halt or not.
I agree that there is no method that allows us to check all possible AGI designs for a specific nontrivial behavioral property. But this does not forbid us to select an AGI design for which we can prove that it has a specific behavioral property!
Can you say more on why you think a 1:24 ratio is the right one (as opposed to lower or higher ratios)? And how might this ratio differ for people who have different beliefs than you, for example about xrisk, LTFF, or the evilness of these companies?
I do not recall seeing this usage in AI safety or LW circles. Can you link to examples?
Once upon a time, some people were arguing that AI might kill everyone, and EA resources should address that problem instead of fighting Malaria. So OpenPhil poured millions of dollars into orgs such as EpochAI (they got 9 million). Now 3 people from EpochAI created a startup to provide training data to help AI replace human workers. Some people are worried that this startup increases AI capabilities, and therefore increases the chance that AI will kill everyone.