EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

Tl;dr:
I identified 15 pieces of advice that I wish knew earlier in my animal advocacy career, and provided personal stories to show how they were relevant in my life. This article will be most useful for early career professionals, especially those considering roles in animal advocacy, and people who like reading personal accounts.

1. Choose work experience over post-Bachelor's education when possible
2. Start doing relevant work, even if unpaid, to showcase skills and test fit
3. Be open to changing jobs for better opportunities, but consider financial security
4. Use current jobs to build career capital for future animal advocacy roles
5. Consider earning to give as a way to support the movement financially
6. Offer concrete skills to solve specific problems when seeking roles
7. Network actively, including with senior people, and learn to ask good questions
8. Seek growth opportunities beyond what your employer provides
9. Don't be afraid to be ambitious [...]

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Outline:

(03:38) Getting work:

(03:41) Choose work experience over post-Bachelor's education

(05:25) Sometimes you just have to start doing something

(08:36) Don’t be afraid of leaving your job for other opportunities (with caveats!)

(12:42) Your current/next job can be for career capital

(14:56) Consider earning to give

(18:03) Offer a concrete skill or solution to those who need it

(20:02) Maximising your growth

(20:06) Speak to people outside of your organisation and learn what's going on in the movement.

(22:36) Start building your network as soon as possible (including very senior people) and learn to ask good questions

(25:35) Ask your employer to help you grow. If they don’t, help yourself.

(26:44) Don’t be afraid to be ambitious (if you want to be) and you don’t always have to follow other people's advice

(28:23) Don’t take rejections too seriously or personally

(30:37) Invest in improving your productivity

(31:30) Logistics and “boring stuff” I wish I knew starting out as an animal advocate

(31:37) Spend more time with your family and friends: there is always more work to be done

(34:04) Prioritise your physical and mental health

(35:51) Even if your salary is low, consider putting money towards your pension, emergency fund, buying a house and other big purchases

(36:16) Pension

(39:11) Buying a house

(41:06) Having a solid emergency fund

(41:59) Budgeting and learning how to save money

The original text contained 2 images which were described by AI.

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First published:

July 30th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JtExMoxdkSfiajiwo/what-i-wish-i-knew-when-i-started-out-in-animal-advocacy

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Executive Summary

Plenty of attention rests on artificial intelligence developers’ non-technical contributions to ensuring safe development of advanced AI: Their corporate structure, their internal guidelines (‘RSPs’), and their work on policy. We argue that strong profitability incentives increasingly force these efforts into ineffectiveness. As a result, less hope should be placed on AI corporations’ internal governance, and more scrutiny should be afforded to their policy contributions.

TL;DR

Only Profit-Maximizers Stay At The Frontier

• Investors and compute providers have extensive leverage over labs and need to justify enormous spending 
• As a result, leading AI corporations are forced to maximize profits
• This leads them to advocate against external regulatory constraints or shape them in their favor

Constraints from Corporate Structure Are Dangerously Ineffective

• Ostensibly binding corporate structures are easily evaded or abandoned
• Political and public will cannot be enforced or ensured via corporate structure
• [...]

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Outline:

(00:09) Executive Summary

(00:41) TL;DR

(02:14) Introduction

(04:13) Only Profit-Maximizers Stay At The Frontier

(09:48) Constraints from Corporate Structure Are Dangerously Ineffective

(13:12) Hope In RSPs Is Misguided

(17:58) For-Profit Policy Work Is Called Corporate Lobbying

(24:09) Conclusion

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First published:

July 29th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6K3Azzhqboiqjt7tX/corporate-ai-labs-odd-role-in-their-own-governance

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Summary

1. Consider a pill that would cause a happy person with a fulfilling life to abandon their most important desires and cherished attachments, including goals, career and loved ones, but increase their lifetime subjective well-being. If what's best for someone is just higher subjective well-being (including even higher lifetime preference/desire satisfaction), then it would be better for them to take the pill. However, it seems to me that if they prefer not to take such a pill, to honour their current specific desires and attachments, it could be worse for them to take it (more).
2. I anticipate some responses and reply to them:
   1. People aren’t always right about what's best for themselves. R: That's true, but attitude manipulation is quite different from other cases, where individuals neglect, discount or otherwise misweigh attitudes they do or will have (more).
   2. Deontological constraints against involuntary manipulation. R: Deontological constraints could oddly [...]

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Outline:

(00:06) Summary

(02:26) Acknowledgements

(02:45) Manipulating desires and abandoning attachments

(10:49) Responses and replies

(10:53) People aren’t always right about what's best for themselves

(13:22) Deontological constraints

(14:38) Indirect reasons

(15:56) Incomparability

(17:18) Why should I care?

(18:30) Avoiding manipulation with preference-affecting views

The original text contained 18 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

July 27th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/erPPy3A3uG7HEdKzu/utilitarianism-and-the-replaceability-of-desires-and

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Prepared by James Fodor and Miles Tidmarsh
EAGxAustralia 2023 Committee

Abstract

EAGx conferences are an important component of the effective altruism community, and have proven a popular method for engaging EAs and spreading EA ideas around the world. However, to date relatively little publicly available empirical evidence has been collected regarding the long term impact of such conferences on attendees. In this observational study we aimed to assess the extent to which EAGx conferences bring about change by altering EA attitudes or behaviours. To this end, we collected survey responses from attendees of the EAGxAustralia 2023 conference both before and six months after the conference, providing a measure of changes in EA-related attitudes and behaviours over this time. As a control, we also collected responses to the same survey questions from individuals on the EA Australia mailing list who did not attend the 2023 conference. Across 20 numerical measures [...]

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Outline:

(00:17) Abstract

(01:48) Background

(05:40) Methods

(12:39) Results

(12:42) Conference attendees differ from non-attendees

(14:58) EA attitudes and behaviours are highly stable over time

(16:38) Discussion

(24:18) Recommendations

The original text contained 17 images which were described by AI.

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First published:

July 27th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fGAnywCekpgHoaLc5/case-control-survey-of-eagx-attendees-finds-no-behavioural

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I asked the Constellation Slack channel how the technical AIS landscape has changed since I last spent substantial time in the Bay Area (September 2023), and I figured it would be useful to post this (with the permission of the contributors to either post with or without attribution). Curious if commenters agree or would propose additional changes!

This conversation has been lightly edited to preserve anonymity.

Me: One reason I wanted to spend a few weeks in Constellation was to sort of absorb-through-osmosis how the technical AI safety landscape has evolved since I last spent substantial time here in September 2023, but it seems more productive to just ask here "how has the technical AIS landscape evolved since September 2023?" and then have conversations armed with that knowledge. The flavor of this question is like, what are the technical directions and strategies people are most excited about, do we [...]

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First published:

July 26th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zsMnxJpeiiytDrAss/how-the-ai-safety-technical-landscape-has-changed-in-the

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

The purpose of this post is to share data from a survey that the EA Forum team ran last year. Though we used this survey as one of many sources of information for internal analyses, I did not include any particular takeaways from this survey data in this post. I leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Overview

In August 2023, the EA Forum team ran a survey to learn more about how people use the Forum and how the Forum impacted them. We got 609 valid responses.

Thank you to everyone who responded - we really appreciate you taking the time. The results have been important for helping us understand the ways that the Forum creates value and disvalue that are otherwise hard for us to track. We’ve used it to evaluate the impact of the Forum and the marginal impact of our work, update our team's [...]

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Outline:

(00:25) Overview

(01:36) Some Forum usage data, for context

(02:57) Demographic reweighting

(05:02) Results

(05:05) In the last year, which of the following have you done on the EA Forum?

(05:13) Are you significantly engaged in any of the following cause areas or fields of work?

(05:23) What proportion of the time you spend on the EA Forum do you think is useful?

(06:17) How likely are you to recommend the EA Forum to someone getting interested in EA or an EA cause area?

(06:37) In the past 12 months, how useful was the EA Forum to you as a general source of information on the EA Community?

(07:21) In the past 12 months, how useful was the EA Forum as a source of information on specific cause areas or topics that are important to you?

(07:54) In the past 12 months, how much has content or discussion on the EA Forum significantly changed your thinking on topic areas you consider important?

(08:43) In the past 12 months, how has the EA Forum affected your likelihood of staying engaged with EA?

(09:33) In the last year, did the EA Forum lead to any of the following career related changes for you?

(10:29) In the last year, how was posting or commenting valuable to you?

(10:43) A selection from free responses

The original text contained 5 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

The original text contained 10 images which were described by AI.

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First published:

July 26th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6hxMxCf3zcmfjtKeK/data-from-the-2023-ea-forum-user-survey

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Some rewards and challenges of working as an EA NYC community builder over the past two years

Motivations

I wanted to share these thoughts for a few reasons:

1. I hope this serves as a reference point for people considering careers in EA community building (though this is only one reference point, of course).
2. EA NYC is hiring an Executive Director! If you're interested, apply here by the end of July 28th (Eastern Time).
3. I think there's often value in people discussing their jobs.[1]

By the way, I have a few relevant disclaimers/caveats that I encourage you to check out at the bottom of this post. For now, I'd just like to say that I'm writing this in a personal capacity and do not claim to represent the views of any of my employers, past, present, or future.

Otherwise, I may occasionally update this post to correct any misleading/inaccurate [...]

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Outline:

(00:14) Motivations

(01:22) Summary

(03:19) Context

(05:43) My reflections

(05:46) The good

(10:37) The mixed

(22:51) Conclusion

(23:34) Disclaimers

The original text contained 19 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

July 25th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6jwMHczhX6ZXRMe7D/my-experience-as-a-full-time-ea-community-builder-in-nyc

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This post lays out a framework I’m currently using for thinking about when AI systems will seek power in problematic ways. I think this framework adds useful structure to the too-often-left-amorphous “instrumental convergence thesis,” and that it helps us recast the classic argument for existential risk from misaligned AI in a revealing way. In particular, I suggest, this recasting highlights how much classic analyses of AI risk load on the assumption that the AIs in question are powerful enough to take over the world very easily, via a wide variety of paths. If we relax this assumption, I suggest, the strategic trade-offs that an AI faces, in choosing whether or not to engage in some form of problematic power-seeking, become substantially more complex.

Prerequisites for rational takeover-seeking

For simplicity, I’ll focus here on the most extreme type of problematic AI power-seeking – namely, an AI or set of [...]

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Outline:

(00:50) Prerequisites for rational takeover-seeking

(02:48) Agential prerequisites

(06:40) Goal-content prerequisites

(09:10) Takeover-favoring incentives

(13:29) Recasting the classic argument for AI risk using this framework

(26:04) What if the AI can’t take over so easily, or via so many different paths?

The original text contained 16 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

The original text contained 1 image which was described by AI.

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First published:

July 24th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dZ2WvJierisi8jzFi/a-framework-for-thinking-about-ai-power-seeking

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Version 1.1 - July 2024

Thanks to everyone who contributed directly or indirectly, e.g. our board, our peers from the Community Building Grants Program, our group organizers and community members.

Overview

This document offers an overview of the strategic vision for EA Switzerland. It is intended to be aspirational—a resource to guide our thinking when we consider our work on a higher level. We intend to review this document yearly. In this document, “we” is EA Switzerland's team.

Who?

• We start with a brief history of EA Switzerland.
• Then, we follow with an analysis of the characteristics of Switzerland, and in particular the EA Switzerland subcommunity, that we anticipate to be comparative advantages and disadvantages.
• We describe our values as an association and a community.

Why?

In this section, we describe our approach to Effective Altruism (EA) and community building.

• We lay out our framework, based on the definition of EA [...]

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Outline:

(00:22) Overview

(02:52) Who? - EA Switzerland

(02:56) Our History

(03:24) Our Comparative Advantages and Disadvantages

(03:30) Financial Comfort and Wealth

(05:22) Multicultural Community and International Hub

(06:38) Low Emigration

(07:49) Our Values

(09:32) Why? - Our approach to Effective Altruism and community building

(09:39) Our Framework

(09:50) Trajectories: What are people's journey to impact?

(13:07) Tracks: What structures do we build to support people in their journey?

(16:47) Our Priorities

(16:51) Track Portfolio

(19:06) Operational Work

(19:44) What? - Activities we want to be doing

(19:49) Our Theory of Change

(20:34) Annual Calendar

(21:02) Resources

(21:29) How? - Processes we follow

(21:36) Staff Handbook

(21:39) Impact Framework

(22:22) Team Framework

(24:17) Logistics

(24:28) Operational Handbook

(24:40) Annexes

(24:43) Annex 1: Strategizing Considerations

(24:49) Funding Considerations

(26:51) Additional Considerations

(28:33) Annex 2: Maintain and Improve vs. Develop and Create

(30:49) Annex 3: Social Support Ecosystems and EA Community Building

(33:23) Annex 4: Team Dynamics - Details

(37:05) Glossary

The original text contained 8 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

July 22nd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dFFt62acoktuLDCvh/ea-switzerland-strategy-v2024

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Very short post. This is not my area of expertise at all. But it seems like an opportunity.

The Olympics start this week. In the UK, the biggest Olympic story is not about any runner or swimmer or gymnast. It is about animal rights. But, as with most animal-rights stories which make the front-pages (bull-fighting, hunting), it misses the real problem, factory-farming.

The story: Apparently a famous Olympian equestrian has been forced to withdraw from the Olympics after footage emerged of her whipping a horse during training, 4 years ago. Cue the standard apologies, the "error of judgment" comment, the universal condemnation - and of course the video is shared with a warning that people might find this shocking.

I think it would be wonderful if someone with the right moral stature (which is not me, I'm not even a vegan ...) were to [...]

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First published:

July 24th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KzZ9Qt4RTyJeb4s85/it-s-ok-to-kill-and-eat-animals-but-don-t-get-caught

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.