Tl;dr

I argue that maintaining nonpartisan norms on the EA Forum, in public communications by influential community members, and in funding decisions may be more costly than people realize. Lack of discussion in public means that people don’t take political issues as seriously as they should, research which depends on understanding the political situation doesn’t get done, and the community moves forward with a poor model of probably the most consequential actor in the world for any given cause area - the US government. Importantly, I don’t mean to say most community members shouldn’t maintain studious nonpartisanship! I merely want to argue that we should be aware of the downsides and do what we can to mitigate them.

Why nonpartisan norms in EA are a big deal

Individual politicians (not naming names) are likely the most important single actors affecting the governance of AI. The same goes [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) Tl;dr

(00:55) Why nonpartisan norms in EA are a big deal

(05:28) Why EAs tend not to engage much with politics

(06:41) Many should remain nonpartisan but improvements can be made

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.