I don't have anything super wise to say here, but I stumbled upon this post and found it moving and radically original, definitely of the most memorable and daring things I've read on the Forum this year. Well done!

Compelling and moving linkpost. However, the first footnote is broken for some reason, and says "Here the best AI system is shown as Claude 3.7 Sonnet, though note that a more recent evaluation finds that OpenAI’s o3 may be above trend, also broadly at a 1-2h time horizon." when I slide my mouse over it. However, at the bottom, the footnote appears correctly. I wonder what causes this.

There is a strong chance that the sum total of what I do due to EA will end up having no impact (due to short AGI timelines) or being net-negative (due to flow-through effects). However, EA has also convinced me that all but a few altruistic endeavors are strongly likely to be beneficial for the world. My donations of a few K a year (and occasional volunteering) for these endeavors would have been extremely unlikely had I not engaged deeply with EA.
The counterfactual seems pretty bleak. Before getting convinced overnight of EA's importance by stumbling onto the pdf of Suffering-focused Ethics, I was convinced that it was impossible to be positive for the world, and I felt diseased by guilt (the latter turned out to be useful fuel to get into doing good, so I don't regret it). 

"It doesn’t cost you anything!" - oh, not in monetary terms it doesn't, not in monetary terms!

I'm curious to understand what you mean by this. I don't know if the implication is meant to be self-evident, but I have trouble getting it.

Thank you for this post! It's quite clear and illustrates all the different "reflexes" in the face of potential TAI development that I've observed in the movement. Since we can often jump to a mode of action and assume it's the correct path, I find it useful to get the opportunity to carefully read the assumptions and show all the possible responses. 

Right now, my decision parliament tries to accommodate "Optimise harder for immediate results" and "Focus on building capacity to prepare for TAI". Though it is frustrating to know that one of the ways of responding to AI developments you list here will be the "best" path for sentient beings... but that we can't actually be sure of which one it is.

While the formatting might deter some, now that the author has become a successful and controversial blogger, quite literally EA's bulldog, it is interesting to see the earlier theoretical considerations that seems to have led them where they are now (making fun of anti-shrimp welfare advocates online). 

Some of the densest and most action-focused conversations I've ever had were in the two days of the Unconference, I was quite impressed with how well-organized and successful this was. And I admire how the budget was handled! I definitely encourage joining the Slack community if you are eager to understand the issues better and take action.

I'm giving a conference in a few days, and I'm coming back to this post for helpful tips on how to avoid being completely obtuse, as I have a tendency to aim for a mix of concision and EA-style hedging and precision which makes the output super confusing. In short: a helpful and action-guiding post.

(A bit disjointed)

This is a suggestion I found interesting and exciting. However, perhaps its implementation might be... too early? As you mentioned, there are few in-person orgs, and they don't seem to be constrained by the amount of motivated individuals (though I might be wrong there, esp if people at the AASF were interested). 

I was a bit surprised by the "steep dropoff after graduation" claim. I think this is very likely to be true, but this could give the - very false - impression that there are many motivated students in the movement, which is not what I've observed. At most animal advocacy protests I've attended (or other non-EA pro-animal in-person event), it's very hard to find people under 25. 

I'm actually the president of an animal ethics student org, which is part of a network that was created with the idea of filling that gap. It's less ambitious for sure (and way less costly), but it has the perk of trying to motivate students to take more basic steps to join the movement or build a pro-animal identity, because in my understanding, people who would currently feel motivated to do such a fellowship after graduating are probably rare.

Tentative feedback: you cite other bottlenecks in animal advocacy, and I feel like they are likely to affect the impact of such a program were it too exist (too little funding, too few orgs). I'd also suggest that the "in-person" criteria is demanding and might be counter-productive (though I understand why you find it critical). If so much animal advocacy work is currently remote, it might be better to own up to it and see if there are some motivated individuals who can still give their all in remote jobs (hopefully with strong connections in other ways, such as having opportunities to attend conferences and retreats, go to sanctuaries, etc).

Though if the "in-person" part is crucial, it might be better, on the margin, to work on ways to strengthen the in-person aspects of animal advocacy (though I'm not sure of robust ways to do that, and I assume it could be very costly).

Overall, I think this post is particularly valuable for highlighting the sort of things the movement should be aiming for: I'd also be very interested in more data on how many individuals are currently involved in animal advocacy in any way, shape, or form.

Very transparent, concise, and action-guiding, thank you Constance! Bookmarked to re-read it before the next conference I'll attend. I'm pretty confident that at least some of the tips here will be concretely useful to me in the future!

Do you expect an additional aspiring super-connector to be more useful: 

a) In a large hub (say, Bay Area) where other competent, value-aligned connectors might already dwell?

b) In a smaller hub (say, Amsterdam), where it seems that no one has currently picked up the ball?

c) As a nomad who goes from hub to hub at different times of the year, while never remaining for more than a few months in any major city?

(I guess the crux here is whether one thinks that there are already competent "connectors" in the largest hubs)