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I think that EA is a lot more decentralized than you think it is. You could totally be an effective altruist devoted to climate issues, public health, and democ

I think that EA is a lot more decentralized than you think it is. You could totally be an effective altruist devoted to climate issues, public health, and democratization. Just pop down (or move sideways from) the pillar that states that AI Safety is paramount and chug away!

joshuamorton 4y ago
I think the issue is that while the majority of funding through EA and EA-adjacent orgs still goes to poverty-reduction work, the majority of mindshare and interest (among EA!) is in primarily AI- but also pandemic-risk. The first of these especially avoids addressing many real, pressing, ML/AI problems in the world today for philosophizing (and getting paid to do it by people who were previously donating their money to global poverty reduction). If you consider EA Global as a charity, and the money donated to longtermist AI to be, functionally, salaries paid to employees, the overhead of EA jumps by like 15%. That's not admirable, by EAs own metrics.
- not-my-account 4y ago
  Sure, but these people and others truly believe that AI safety is an important issue. There are a lot of really smart people who have thought a lot about it, and I have not looked deeply into it so I can't say, but it doesn't seem like that would invalidate EA entirely. I.E. I still don't understand why you can't just dislike the fact that some people are devoting time, energy, and money to AI safety, and just be an effective altruist for the issues that you think are most important. In other words, don't throw the EA baby out with the AI Safety bathwater.
  - joshuamorton 4y ago
    > In other words, don't throw the EA baby out with the AI Safety bathwater. I don't! I donate (lots of) money to GiveWell, and I credit EA members for convincing me to do that. The parts of EA that are functionally "hey donate money to effective charities" are good things that make the world better. I do think that it is dangerous to EA as a movement to be discolored by self-dealing AI longtermism.
    - not-my-account 4y ago
      Ah! Gotcha, I misunderstood your position. Sorry for the misunderstanding! I think we are in more-or-less the same / similar position.

joshuamorton 4y ago

I think the issue is that while the majority of funding through EA and EA-adjacent orgs still goes to poverty-reduction work, the majority of mindshare and interest (among EA!) is in primarily AI- but also pandemic-risk. The first of these especially avoids addressing many real, pressing, ML/AI problems in the world today for philosophizing (and getting paid to do it by people who were previously donating their money to global poverty reduction). If you consider EA Global as a charity, and the money donated to longtermist AI to be, functionally, salaries paid to employees, the overhead of EA jumps by like 15%. That's not admirable, by EAs own metrics.

not-my-account 4y ago
Sure, but these people and others truly believe that AI safety is an important issue. There are a lot of really smart people who have thought a lot about it, and I have not looked deeply into it so I can't say, but it doesn't seem like that would invalidate EA entirely. I.E. I still don't understand why you can't just dislike the fact that some people are devoting time, energy, and money to AI safety, and just be an effective altruist for the issues that you think are most important. In other words, don't throw the EA baby out with the AI Safety bathwater.
- joshuamorton 4y ago
  > In other words, don't throw the EA baby out with the AI Safety bathwater. I don't! I donate (lots of) money to GiveWell, and I credit EA members for convincing me to do that. The parts of EA that are functionally "hey donate money to effective charities" are good things that make the world better. I do think that it is dangerous to EA as a movement to be discolored by self-dealing AI longtermism.
  - not-my-account 4y ago
    Ah! Gotcha, I misunderstood your position. Sorry for the misunderstanding! I think we are in more-or-less the same / similar position.