This could be of interest: support reporting projects that document and explain the opportunities, harms, and regulatory and labor issues surrounding AI systems https://pulitzercenter.org/blog/open-call-proposals-pulitzer-centers-ai-accountability-fellowships-2026-2027 

Given how many people apply for these roles, I don't understand the struggle. I just attended EAG, which was packed to the rafters with people who have done the bootcamps/courses/programs looking for a way in to a high-impact org; many of them with serious experience in things like journalism, business operations, and academic publishing. EA appears well-manned enough to treat such valuable talent as volunteers/metrics for their career programs; I don't believe that there is an under-supply issue. I think there aren't enough jobs. 

Understood. I was responding to what I assumed OP was getting at, regardless of how poorly framed, and your specific naming of chemicals threw me off. Thanks for clarifying. 

What would need to happen for you to stand down on AI safety?

I’m not saying you should. I’m not saying you will. But what evidence would make you substantially less concerned than you are today?

I’ve been asking people at EAG London some variation of two questions:

• How worried are you about the economic and existential risks from AI?
• What is the 'expiry date' of those worries?

This may seem leading, as if I’m implying that I’m not fully convinced by the broader arguments. Well, I’m not… not. My position is that I’m under-informed. But I still want to know how those better informed than I think about the limits of their concern.

So… is it a matter of time? If nothing substantially bad has happened in 10 years, will we stop fearing? Or is it a matter of meeting certain benchmarks of cooperation? Could it be when governments figure out a method of wealth redistribution that doesn’t result in societal decline?

Let me know your thoughts!

Change 'alternative proteins' to 'cultivated meat' and then I agree almost entirely. 

I don't think humanity will ever give up meat of our own volition. I'm not even sure that all the collective efforts and actions of vegans/vegetarians/advocates have caused a counterfactual decrease in meat production. I'm thinking about posing that question on here in its own post. 

But once there's an alternative to slaughter meat that tastes the same, is priced the same, and enjoys enough public acceptance to be bought in small-at-first, then swiftly increasing volumes... only then will factory farming stop existing. If there's another path to ending factory farming in our lifetimes, then I don't see it. And the downvotes I get when I talk about this dun't help me see it, neither (grumpy cat face). 

All else is re-arranging furniture on the Titanic, I fear. 

Of course, the path is far from guaranteed. I'm personally on a quest to get to the fundamentals of what the path truly entails, what are the things holding it back, how do we win the fight for public acceptance (perhaps this is the most challenging potential 'failure mode'), what are the tech barriers, how can they be overcome, how much investment is still needed (a lot), and on and on. 

Good post, perhaps we can move towards being less apologetic in stating our conviction for alternative proteins and/or cultivated meat. I'm fine with APs, I just think they're a stop-gap on the train to cultivated-town. 

Can you explain how they're the same? 

Great post, not sure what to suggest. Thanks for publishing. 

Thanks for this post! It’s clear, clever, and thought-provoking.

I’d push back on the moralising of salespeople. The reason they don’t necessarily worry about whether it will be ‘good’ for you to buy what they’re selling, and why that’s okay, is because you are the authority on that. Salespeople are not responsible for everyone’s experience of the world or the varying degree of appetite-to-be-sold-to among different people. What you find jarring, others might find refreshing.

In any case, thanks for showing that working with freelancers is often far more cost-effective than hiring an employee, due to reduced discovery costs. I’m all for orgs making quicker decisions to reduce the true cost of engagement from their side; why, you could book a call with me right now if you happened to need a good writer. 

If you don’t book a call, and later discover you needed a good writer after all, you’ll have to pay the discovery costs you just described. So, is the marginal benefit of continuing the search (assuming, for argument's sake, that more time spent tracks linearly to a better result) worth the additional transaction costs of looking beyond this comment?

EA orgs should work with freelancers more often and, moreover, start applying a true cost effectiveness analysis to the way hiring is done. They seem to under-account for the transaction costs they themselves impose. For example, I know of an EA org with a specific policy against screening candidates during EAG, prioritising their remote process instead. A whole room full of potential hires who have already been somewhat screened for alignment, and basically no evidence that their in-house process produces better results for the extra cost. What could the counter-factual impact of those savings be? Small in the big scheme of things, perhaps, but worth considering. 

Is anybody here doing something about the most recent ebola outbreak? 

I am, yeah. I don't think reasonable enquiry or more discussion is likely to shift the dominant narrative on a topic this inflammatory. The reactions to the CEA post made that clear.