On it being surprisingly hard, do you have a rough ballpark estimate of the number of hires you've seen that ended up being net negative?
If 0% of hires were net negative, I would guess that a lot of value is being left "on the table", while if 100% of hires were net negative, how is the org even still around lol? So the sweet spot is somewhere in between, and obviously it sucks to go through hiring someone who's, to be blunt, a dud, but it seems like more can get done in an org with a few superstars, a ton of solid folks and a few duds than an org with a few superstars who are kept from their potential cause they have to do work that probably even duds could handle if needed.
edit: another thought, have you considered hiring more with strict firing policies in the first, idk, 6 months? Or first year? Probably leads to a bad culture but idk
Just read the substack comment, I think that does clarify things, but my complaint isn't that lots of people get rejected, it's that people who seem like great fits even if they're not perfect fits get rejected and then the role gets left unfilled.
Yeah it's super important to be clear about what you're looking for and minimum requirements. I think many orgs have a bad habit of saying "even if you think you may not be a good fit, please apply!". They're targeting the amazing candidate who's anxious or has imposter syndrome, without considering the huge group of people who accurately think they shouldn't apply, but end up spending time on an application for something they had no chance of getting.
Hmm, on your question about what I'm unhappy with, in part I think that some bar hirers have unrealistic expectations of talent. There's the meme of a job application looking for 6 years of experience in a technology that's only been around for 3. And I think in turn, having the bar too high means that it is actually problematic to do bar hiring. In theory you could hire the perfect candidate who's 10x better than everyone else, and get 10x the value per dollar, but if refusing to hire anyone less than that means everyone else has to do what they'd be doing and miss other opportunities, then you probably end up worse off than just hiring the 1x person. There are probably situations where you might be better off hiring the 0.5x person, but imo the number of very smart, talented people trying to get into EA makes me think that ~5x people are getting missed due to the search for the 10x person. And I get it, we want to maximize the value per dollar, it's "EA" not just "A", but it's also important that we not turn it into a red queen race. I don't actually know what the best solution or tradeoff is either, and it probably varies a lot per situation.
Sorry just realized I should've read you substack comment before writing all this 😅 I'll take a look at that!
Love this article, it's such a solid point but I see it rarely discussed. We are trying to tell AI "do as I say, not as I do". Ask any parent how well that works.
Minor nitpick: "This is the exact principle that superintelligent AI cannot learn" maybe use "must not" instead of "cannot"?
I'm biased in that I found my current partner on veggly and she's great, but I would seriously recommend using it. Yes, it's pretty dead, but that's also kind of a good thing. Sort by new, check it once a week, and expand your surface area for luck, especially if you'd be aligned with someone interested in veggly enough to try it out
I would also add to point 3: don't go "whale fishing" and search in ways that generates a ton of "bycatch" (excuse the fishing analogies, it's too useful to not use for this point but irl leave the fish alone). Putting out huge calls saying "we need all hands on deck, we're heavily talent constrained and can't find people, you should apply even if you don't think you're a good fit" is going to reach a ton of people who really are not a good fit, who will think this is a worthwhile pivot because they are talented and the field is talent constrained, and waste a bunch of time applying and considering ways to orient their life to the new direction. Then when they inevitably are not a good fit, and talent constrained means something along the lines of "we're having trouble hiring the top 99.9% talent" and not "we're having trouble hiring the top 80% talent", they will get more bitter and cynical about the movement and doing good effectively, and may even miss opportunities that would be a good fit.
On it being surprisingly hard, do you have a rough ballpark estimate of the number of hires you've seen that ended up being net negative?
If 0% of hires were net negative, I would guess that a lot of value is being left "on the table", while if 100% of hires were net negative, how is the org even still around lol? So the sweet spot is somewhere in between, and obviously it sucks to go through hiring someone who's, to be blunt, a dud, but it seems like more can get done in an org with a few superstars, a ton of solid folks and a few duds than an org with a few superstars who are kept from their potential cause they have to do work that probably even duds could handle if needed.
edit: another thought, have you considered hiring more with strict firing policies in the first, idk, 6 months? Or first year? Probably leads to a bad culture but idk
Just read the substack comment, I think that does clarify things, but my complaint isn't that lots of people get rejected, it's that people who seem like great fits even if they're not perfect fits get rejected and then the role gets left unfilled.
Yeah it's super important to be clear about what you're looking for and minimum requirements. I think many orgs have a bad habit of saying "even if you think you may not be a good fit, please apply!". They're targeting the amazing candidate who's anxious or has imposter syndrome, without considering the huge group of people who accurately think they shouldn't apply, but end up spending time on an application for something they had no chance of getting.
Hmm, on your question about what I'm unhappy with, in part I think that some bar hirers have unrealistic expectations of talent. There's the meme of a job application looking for 6 years of experience in a technology that's only been around for 3. And I think in turn, having the bar too high means that it is actually problematic to do bar hiring. In theory you could hire the perfect candidate who's 10x better than everyone else, and get 10x the value per dollar, but if refusing to hire anyone less than that means everyone else has to do what they'd be doing and miss other opportunities, then you probably end up worse off than just hiring the 1x person. There are probably situations where you might be better off hiring the 0.5x person, but imo the number of very smart, talented people trying to get into EA makes me think that ~5x people are getting missed due to the search for the 10x person. And I get it, we want to maximize the value per dollar, it's "EA" not just "A", but it's also important that we not turn it into a red queen race. I don't actually know what the best solution or tradeoff is either, and it probably varies a lot per situation.
Sorry just realized I should've read you substack comment before writing all this 😅 I'll take a look at that!
I'm not very happy with arguments about how talent constrained orgs are compared to how many talented people apply and get rejected. See also this comment by Scott Alexander https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/B6d8Wzk4gNzHsXvdi/ai-safety-is-extremely-bottlenecked-on-grantmakers?commentId=n2Rd7RR4y9EnKP42F
Love this article, it's such a solid point but I see it rarely discussed. We are trying to tell AI "do as I say, not as I do". Ask any parent how well that works.
Minor nitpick: "This is the exact principle that superintelligent AI cannot learn" maybe use "must not" instead of "cannot"?
I'm biased in that I found my current partner on veggly and she's great, but I would seriously recommend using it. Yes, it's pretty dead, but that's also kind of a good thing. Sort by new, check it once a week, and expand your surface area for luck, especially if you'd be aligned with someone interested in veggly enough to try it out
I would also add to point 3: don't go "whale fishing" and search in ways that generates a ton of "bycatch" (excuse the fishing analogies, it's too useful to not use for this point but irl leave the fish alone). Putting out huge calls saying "we need all hands on deck, we're heavily talent constrained and can't find people, you should apply even if you don't think you're a good fit" is going to reach a ton of people who really are not a good fit, who will think this is a worthwhile pivot because they are talented and the field is talent constrained, and waste a bunch of time applying and considering ways to orient their life to the new direction. Then when they inevitably are not a good fit, and talent constrained means something along the lines of "we're having trouble hiring the top 99.9% talent" and not "we're having trouble hiring the top 80% talent", they will get more bitter and cynical about the movement and doing good effectively, and may even miss opportunities that would be a good fit.
Depends on what you mean by the term "consciousness"
As I understand, many key players are explicitly anthropocentrists. Hell, some key players care more about money than humans, let alone non-humans.
Understanding how they learn is how we get insights into methods of teaching them good values