Do you worry about Torchbearers being a high demand group? ControlAI (the parent organization) recommended it to me after I did an interview with them. I looked at the signup funnel, and it was “read these two documents about our ideals and how we want to run this community, then commit to producing legible AI safety output in a way you will report on regularly. Also, attend an all-hands video call meeting every two weeks.” It kind of gave me a funny feeling, and I was reminded of the history of some of the more notorious high demand EA adjacent groups, so I bounced off it.
I think one reason Torchbearers can be supportive and invest in their members, is because they ask for this type of engagement up front.
I’m not very good at volunteer management, but one thing I learned is that if you make it too easy to join, you get a bunch of (probably well meaning) people who don’t do anything, which is worse than no help at all. These people will take up your time, and derail plans by promise to do things and then don’t do them.
Lot’s of people will just sign up for stuff, without thinking it through.
But this also goes both ways. As someone looking to volunteer or join some group, you want the person or org to prove that they respect your time, that you will actually get to do meaningful stuff, and not have your time wasted. I think the best way to do this is to ask potential new volunteers/member to do some task that is intrinsically valuable to them, given that they are the sort of person who would be a good fit.
Probably the sort of person who are a good fit for Torchbearer would like to know about the organisation their joining (this reading will probably not be useful for you if you decide not to join, but it’s useful for your decision of weather you want to join), and also wants some accountability to produce AI safety outputs. If these sounds like burdensome demands to you, then you’re probably not a good fit. Either that or their pipeline is bad. But just from what you wrote, these seems like reasonable requests, if what they want to build is a highly engaged community.
I don’t know what “more notorious high demand EA adjacent” you’re talking about? The only thing fitting that description I can think of is Leverage, and that was a full time commitment while living together, so a completely different level. The level of commitment Torchbearers asks for seams similar to joining a non professional but still somewhat ambitious sports team.
I think one reason Torchbearers can be supportive and invest in their members, is because they ask for this type of engagement up front.
I’m not very good at volunteer management, but one thing I learned is that if you make it too easy to join, you get a bunch of (probably well meaning) people who don’t do anything, which is worse than no help at all. These people will take up your time, and derail plans by promise to do things and then don’t do them.
Lot’s of people will just sign up for stuff, without thinking it through.
But this also goes both ways. As someone looking to volunteer or join some group, you want the person or org to prove that they respect your time, that you will actually get to do meaningful stuff, and not have your time wasted. I think the best way to do this is to ask potential new volunteers/member to do some task that is intrinsically valuable to them, given that they are the sort of person who would be a good fit.
Probably the sort of person who are a good fit for Torchbearer would like to know about the organisation their joining (this reading will probably not be useful for you if you decide not to join, but it’s useful for your decision of weather you want to join), and also wants some accountability to produce AI safety outputs. If these sounds like burdensome demands to you, then you’re probably not a good fit. Either that or their pipeline is bad. But just from what you wrote, these seems like reasonable requests, if what they want to build is a highly engaged community.
I don’t know what “more notorious high demand EA adjacent” you’re talking about? The only thing fitting that description I can think of is Leverage, and that was a full time commitment while living together, so a completely different level. The level of commitment Torchbearers asks for seams similar to joining a non professional but still somewhat ambitious sports team.