Is THAT the problem? Not being involved in the hiring, I actually didn't know WHO was getting hired. If they are the most qualified and the most capable of creating the positive outcome I'm hoping for, then I'm happy for them and the system.
If we frame the problem as a talent gap, it's more about which roles aren't filled - not only in the sense of positions remaining vacant but also including cases where the process takes a long time, seniority gets lowered or organizations work around the lack of talent, e.g. by shifting tasks to other roles or resigning from certain growth directions.
Who is getting hired (and more importantly: who isn't) is a highly correlated but a different issue in my eyes. Even if all the vacancies got easily filled by people perceived as the most qualified, I'd argue that keeping the ecosystem closed to outsiders is still a major problem. Beyond the obvious equitability angle, it also encourages the homogeneity of thought and reinforces the perception of EA living in a bubble.
Overall I feel like communications is a very specific edge case here. Forgive me if I oversimplify but "understanding what and how to signal in order to convince a group of people from a different culture to take certain action" sounds exactly like the job description of a communications specialist, especially for an area like AI safety.
A recruitment process requiring this skillset to navigate does actually optimize for good comms specialists. At the same time, it will filter out talented software engineers, project managers, subject matter experts, etc. based on gaps in an area that has little impact on their actual on the job performance.
I feel like it's a circular problem. The hiring pipelines within EA are heavily optimized towards "traditional" hires - fresh grads of elite universities and people jumping from one EA org to another. Recruiting experienced professionals from the outside world requires a significantly different approach. In organizations comprised primarily of traditional hires, few people can even see that problem, much less solve it.
I don't think the EA community at large really understands just how insulated this ecosystem is.
This doesn't make any sense to me at all. There's a ton of hidden assumptions there that are glossed over, e.g.
Larger animals might have more capacity for suffering, but intuitively they might have 10x more or 100x more at most. Meanwhile, small animals are 1000x or 10000x more numerous than large animals. So the scale advantage of small animals is more important, and thus we should prioritize small animals.
This implicitly assumes that whatever resources we have will (a) help the same percentage of global population, no matter which animals we select and (b) reduce their suffering by the same percentage.
> Higher-frequency information is valuable, but a quarterly survey is 4x more expensive than an annual survey, and its information is probably not 4x more valuable. So the cost advantage of less frequent surveys is more important, and thus we should fund the survey annually rather than quarterly.
This assumes that the value of the information from the survey is only slightly higher than its cost. Let's imagine that the cost to conduct the survey is $10k and the information gained is worth $1M. In that case doing the survey quarterly (+$30k) would only need to increase the value of the information gained by 3% to break even
I've just ran into this, so excuse a bit of grave digging. As someone who has entered the EA community with prior career experience I disagree with your premise
"It's very awkward to go from "manager of a small team" to "intern," but that can be necessary if you want to learn a new domain, for instance."
To me this kind of situation just shouldn't happen. It's not a question of status, it's a question of inefficiency. If I have managerial experience and the organization I'd be joining can only offer me the exact same job they'd be offering to a fresh grad, then they are simply wasting my potential. I'd be better off at a place which can appreciate what I bring and the organization would be better off with someone who has a fresher mind and less tempting alternatives.
IMO the problem is not with the fact that people are unwilling to take a step down. The problem is with EA orgs unwilling or unable to leverage the transferrable skills of experienced professionals, forcing them into entry-level positions instead.
While the post and this comment are now both ancient, I feel compelled to at least leave a short note here after reading them.
My background is in many ways similar to Sarah's and I've came into the contact with the EA community about half a year ago. Unfortunately, 2.5 years later, most of the points raised here resonate heavily with my experiences. Especially the hive mentality, heavy focus on students (with little efforts towards professionals) and overemphasis on AI safety (or more generally - highly-specialized cause areas overshadowing the overall philosophy).
I don't know what the solutions are but the problem seems to be still present.
If we frame the problem as a talent gap, it's more about which roles aren't filled - not only in the sense of positions remaining vacant but also including cases where the process takes a long time, seniority gets lowered or organizations work around the lack of talent, e.g. by shifting tasks to other roles or resigning from certain growth directions.
Who is getting hired (and more importantly: who isn't) is a highly correlated but a different issue in my eyes. Even if all the vacancies got easily filled by people perceived as the most qualified, I'd argue that keeping the ecosystem closed to outsiders is still a major problem. Beyond the obvious equitability angle, it also encourages the homogeneity of thought and reinforces the perception of EA living in a bubble.
Overall I feel like communications is a very specific edge case here. Forgive me if I oversimplify but "understanding what and how to signal in order to convince a group of people from a different culture to take certain action" sounds exactly like the job description of a communications specialist, especially for an area like AI safety.
A recruitment process requiring this skillset to navigate does actually optimize for good comms specialists. At the same time, it will filter out talented software engineers, project managers, subject matter experts, etc. based on gaps in an area that has little impact on their actual on the job performance.
I feel like it's a circular problem. The hiring pipelines within EA are heavily optimized towards "traditional" hires - fresh grads of elite universities and people jumping from one EA org to another. Recruiting experienced professionals from the outside world requires a significantly different approach. In organizations comprised primarily of traditional hires, few people can even see that problem, much less solve it.
I don't think the EA community at large really understands just how insulated this ecosystem is.
This doesn't make any sense to me at all. There's a ton of hidden assumptions there that are glossed over, e.g.
This implicitly assumes that whatever resources we have will (a) help the same percentage of global population, no matter which animals we select and (b) reduce their suffering by the same percentage.
> Higher-frequency information is valuable, but a quarterly survey is 4x more expensive than an annual survey, and its information is probably not 4x more valuable. So the cost advantage of less frequent surveys is more important, and thus we should fund the survey annually rather than quarterly.
This assumes that the value of the information from the survey is only slightly higher than its cost. Let's imagine that the cost to conduct the survey is $10k and the information gained is worth $1M. In that case doing the survey quarterly (+$30k) would only need to increase the value of the information gained by 3% to break even
I've just ran into this, so excuse a bit of grave digging. As someone who has entered the EA community with prior career experience I disagree with your premise
"It's very awkward to go from "manager of a small team" to "intern," but that can be necessary if you want to learn a new domain, for instance."
To me this kind of situation just shouldn't happen. It's not a question of status, it's a question of inefficiency. If I have managerial experience and the organization I'd be joining can only offer me the exact same job they'd be offering to a fresh grad, then they are simply wasting my potential. I'd be better off at a place which can appreciate what I bring and the organization would be better off with someone who has a fresher mind and less tempting alternatives.
IMO the problem is not with the fact that people are unwilling to take a step down. The problem is with EA orgs unwilling or unable to leverage the transferrable skills of experienced professionals, forcing them into entry-level positions instead.
While the post and this comment are now both ancient, I feel compelled to at least leave a short note here after reading them.
My background is in many ways similar to Sarah's and I've came into the contact with the EA community about half a year ago. Unfortunately, 2.5 years later, most of the points raised here resonate heavily with my experiences. Especially the hive mentality, heavy focus on students (with little efforts towards professionals) and overemphasis on AI safety (or more generally - highly-specialized cause areas overshadowing the overall philosophy).
I don't know what the solutions are but the problem seems to be still present.