I am helping co-run the Generator Residency, which enables generalist talent into AIS, and we will soon be posting lots of ideas we think generalists in AIS could work on. Be on the lookout! 

Lots of people in the Bay seem to be thinking about/preparing for/making funding decisions based on the idea that lots of philanthropy will be given to AIS/EA cause areas very soon (i.e. end of year-ish). I would love for someone to write the comprehensive steel man case against this, as I think it’s probably underrated (some reasons to think they won’t give the money/it won’t be as much as some assume. Happy to comment/ speak to whoever is interested in doing this.  

Post this on LW and youll prob get more offers 

This is a very good post.

Lucas! How r u?? 

I wonder how much value there would be in a company that principally doesn't engage in sports betting. From my understanding, lots of people that bet on these markets like betting on non-sports claims but just hate the sports market component. 

The EA Forum seems super dead, which is pretty bad. I think part of the reason is that much of the Forum gets cross-posted to LessWrong, so you get EA Forum content there plus everything else (especially AI stuff) — which means there's little reason to actually come here.

One take: don't cross-post to LessWrong. There are real benefits to having two intellectual communities that take the same kinds of ideas seriously but develop distinct cultures, emphases, and standards around them.

Other ways to help:

• Do lots of cause prio out loud — especially the parts that haven't been written about much
• If your private doc doesn't need to be private, don't make it private

More EA in da news: https://x.com/DavidSacks/status/2034047505336295904

And the spicy CAIS take: https://x.com/cais/status/2034389842076025164?s=46

Experts currently treat being persuaded as reasonably good evidence that something is true — their judgment is calibrated enough that when they find an argument convincing, that's correlated with the argument actually being correct. This allows them to update readily in light of new evidence, and is a big part of how intellectual progress happens: lots of innovation and advances in basically every subject come down to experts taking sometimes weird new ideas seriously.

One worry I have about superpersuasive AI is that it could erode this. If a superpersuasive AI can convince experts of things regardless of whether those things are true, experts may cease to see themselves being persuaded as good evidence that something is true — and start treating it the way laypeople do. Laypeople are typically hesitant to take on new, truth-tracking beliefs in light of new information, and (to some degree) rationally so: the fact that someone was able to convince a layperson of something is just not very strong evidence that it is in fact true. Experts might end up in the same position — only updating rarely, and in ways that are often unrelated to the truth.

This would be quite bad. If experts lose their capacity to reliably update on genuine evidence, we could significantly slow the rate of intellectual progress (which could be very important for making AI go well!). This is, I think, an underappreciated argument for caring about AI for epistemics — curious what others think.