EA's meta-strategy is 'simp for tech billionaires and AI companies'. EA systematically attracts people who enjoy this strategy. So no it does not attract the best. Maybe a version of EA with more integrity would attract the best people.
Im not trying to get dignity points. Im just trying to have a positive impact. At this point if AI is hard to align we all die (or worse!). I spent years trying to avoid contributing to the problem and helping when I could. But at this point its better to just hope alignment isn't that hard (lost cause timelines) and try to steer the trajectory positively.
Ime you can induce much more torture than a tattoo relatively safely. Though all the best 'safe' forms of torture do cause short term damage to the skin.
At this point, unless you are very talented and/or working at Anthropic/OpenAI/Deepmind, I dont see much reason to avoid working in AI. The timeline is already burnt. The people who burnt it, often in the name of altruism, should be ashamed. But at some point the benefits of trying to do good things with a dangerous technology outweigh the downsides of accelerating progress. Prior to ~now it was quite bad to work on AI in more or less any capacity. But the train is leaving the station anyway. Marginal impacts are now smaller than the plausible positive impact of using the tech for good. Accelerating AI was an incredibly dumb strategy but at this point might as well play to the out where alignment isn't that hard.
I mean that 'at what income do GWWC pledgers actually start donating 10%+'. Or more precisely 'consider the set of GWWC pledge takers who make at least X per year, for what value X does is the mean donation at least X/10'. The value of X you get is around one million per year. Donations are of course even lower for people who didn't take the pledge! Giving 10% when you make one million PER YEAR is not a very big ask. You will notice EAs making large, but not absurd salaries, like 100-200K give around 5%. Some EAs are extremely altruistic, but the average EA isn't that altruistic imo.
I agree with the thrust of the argument but I think its a little too pessimistic. A lot of EAs aren't especially altruistic people. Tons of EAs got involved because of Xrisk. And it requires very little altruism to care about whether you and everyone you know will die. You can look at the data on EA donations and notice they aren't that high. EAs dont donate 10% until they have a pre-tax income of around one million dollars per year!
I would encourage anyone reading this to remember [Qhapna] has truly horrible opinions on what is a reasonable way to treat people. He was literally one of the last rationalists defending Brent. Neither his personal behavior nor his habit of defending abusers has improved over time. I'd recommend reading something I wrote some time ago:
No one has a right to be a leader. If leaders mismanaged abuse situations they should be removed from positions of leadership. The point of leadership is supposed to be service.
Im in favor of just saying out loud who you think is harmful. The culture of silence is very strong. But you are allowed to say things you believe and share information available to you! Don't share information given to you in confidence. But if you want to speak up you can.
FWIW I posted on my facebook and twitter that I think a relatively major figure behaves abusively. People are free to disagree. But I think its important to share information and analysis. Silence protects bad behaviors.
EA's meta-strategy is 'simp for tech billionaires and AI companies'. EA systematically attracts people who enjoy this strategy. So no it does not attract the best. Maybe a version of EA with more integrity would attract the best people.
Im not trying to get dignity points. Im just trying to have a positive impact. At this point if AI is hard to align we all die (or worse!). I spent years trying to avoid contributing to the problem and helping when I could. But at this point its better to just hope alignment isn't that hard (lost cause timelines) and try to steer the trajectory positively.
Ime you can induce much more torture than a tattoo relatively safely. Though all the best 'safe' forms of torture do cause short term damage to the skin.
At this point, unless you are very talented and/or working at Anthropic/OpenAI/Deepmind, I dont see much reason to avoid working in AI. The timeline is already burnt. The people who burnt it, often in the name of altruism, should be ashamed. But at some point the benefits of trying to do good things with a dangerous technology outweigh the downsides of accelerating progress. Prior to ~now it was quite bad to work on AI in more or less any capacity. But the train is leaving the station anyway. Marginal impacts are now smaller than the plausible positive impact of using the tech for good. Accelerating AI was an incredibly dumb strategy but at this point might as well play to the out where alignment isn't that hard.
I mean that 'at what income do GWWC pledgers actually start donating 10%+'. Or more precisely 'consider the set of GWWC pledge takers who make at least X per year, for what value X does is the mean donation at least X/10'. The value of X you get is around one million per year. Donations are of course even lower for people who didn't take the pledge! Giving 10% when you make one million PER YEAR is not a very big ask. You will notice EAs making large, but not absurd salaries, like 100-200K give around 5%. Some EAs are extremely altruistic, but the average EA isn't that altruistic imo.
I agree with the thrust of the argument but I think its a little too pessimistic. A lot of EAs aren't especially altruistic people. Tons of EAs got involved because of Xrisk. And it requires very little altruism to care about whether you and everyone you know will die. You can look at the data on EA donations and notice they aren't that high. EAs dont donate 10% until they have a pre-tax income of around one million dollars per year!
I would encourage anyone reading this to remember [Qhapna] has truly horrible opinions on what is a reasonable way to treat people. He was literally one of the last rationalists defending Brent. Neither his personal behavior nor his habit of defending abusers has improved over time. I'd recommend reading something I wrote some time ago:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTGEnE4k6cFE3E_LW2_MfCXps7LbK1xoCrvpUW3PLI-c3QDHMlDKIMLP1W37DWAm2mkE4tSQ-tX8Aic/pub
Terrible judgment, a habit of feeling oppressed, and extreme arrogance is a very toxic combination.
No one has a right to be a leader. If leaders mismanaged abuse situations they should be removed from positions of leadership. The point of leadership is supposed to be service.
I posted that I do not think how [Qhapna] treats people, including publicly on facebook, is remotely ok and is abusive imo.
Im in favor of just saying out loud who you think is harmful. The culture of silence is very strong. But you are allowed to say things you believe and share information available to you! Don't share information given to you in confidence. But if you want to speak up you can.
FWIW I posted on my facebook and twitter that I think a relatively major figure behaves abusively. People are free to disagree. But I think its important to share information and analysis. Silence protects bad behaviors.