One challenge in AI safety field-building is that otherwise-useful resources – like lists of courses or funders or local groups – generally become outdated over time. We’ve tried to solve this by collecting a bunch of resources together at AISafety.com and dedicating considerable bandwidth to keeping them updated.
Until recently, this maintenance has been largely ad hoc, making additions and changes as we learned of them. To ensure nothing slips through the cracks, we’ve now added a schedule for doing thorough sweeps through the entire database for each resource. Below is our current plan:
We’re also continuing to make immediate updates whenever we become aware of them. In other words, this is just the minimum you can expect for regular maintenance. If you spot a correction or want to add something new, please get in touch via the form on the relevant resource page. Our goal is to keep AISafety.com’s resources as accurate and up to date as possible.
Recommendation: make the “Last updated” timestamp on these pages way more prominent, e.g. by moving them to the top below the page title. (Like what most news websites nowadays do for SEO, or like where timestamps are located on LW posts.) Otherwise absolutely no-one will know that you do this, or that these resources are not outdated but are actually up-to-date.
The current timestamp location is so unusual that I only noticed it by accident, and was in fact about to write a comment suggesting you add a timestamp at all.
This is really terrific, thank you for doing the unglamorous but incredibly valuable work of keeping these up to date.
One suggestion re: funders[1]: it would be really high-value to track (per-funder) ‘What percent of applications did you approve in the past year?’ I think most people considering entering the field as a researcher worry a lot about how feasible it is to get funded[2], and having this info out there and up-to-date would go a long way toward addressing that worry. There are various options for more sophisticated versions, but just adding that single byte of info to each funder, updated >= annually, would be a huge improvement over the status quo.
Thanks, I’ve put that in our feedback database. I do wonder though whether it might have the opposite (demotivating) effect if the acceptance rate is lower than they expect.
Maybe! I’ve talked to a fair number of people (often software engineers, and especially people who have more financial responsibilities) who really want to contribute but don’t feel safe making the leap without having some idea of their chances. But I don’t think I’ve talked to anyone who was overconfident about getting funding. That’s my own idiosyncratic sample, though, hard to know whether it’s representative.
One challenge in AI safety field-building is that otherwise-useful resources – like lists of courses or funders or local groups – generally become outdated over time. We’ve tried to solve this by collecting a bunch of resources together at AISafety.com and dedicating considerable bandwidth to keeping them updated.
Until recently, this maintenance has been largely ad hoc, making additions and changes as we learned of them. To ensure nothing slips through the cracks, we’ve now added a schedule for doing thorough sweeps through the entire database for each resource. Below is our current plan:
Courses
Every 3 months: general sweep
Communities
Every 3 months: general sweep
(maybe) Every 6 months: request update from organisers
Projects
Every 3 months: general sweep
Every 6 months: request update from owners of active projects
Jobs
[This is a filtered subset of 80k’s database and updates automatically]
Events & training
Twice weekly: check for new events and programs
Every 2 weeks: add any dates previously unannounced and check for changes to application deadlines
Funders
Every 2 weeks: check for changes to “applications open/closed” status
Every 3 months: general sweep
Landscape map
Every 1 month: check no links are broken
Every 3 months: general sweep
Donation guide
Every 3 months: check no links are broken
Every 6 months: review entire guide
Speak to an Advisor
Every 3 months: general sweep
We’re also continuing to make immediate updates whenever we become aware of them. In other words, this is just the minimum you can expect for regular maintenance. If you spot a correction or want to add something new, please get in touch via the form on the relevant resource page. Our goal is to keep AISafety.com’s resources as accurate and up to date as possible.
Perhaps you’d be interested in adding a page on AI Safety & Entrepreneurship?
Yeah, this seems probably a good idea. Though some of these would be best on existing resource pages, like the funders list.
I’ve put it on our list of possible future pages, and added some of the things from that doc to our Funders page. Thanks Chris!
Recommendation: make the “Last updated” timestamp on these pages way more prominent, e.g. by moving them to the top below the page title. (Like what most news websites nowadays do for SEO, or like where timestamps are located on LW posts.) Otherwise absolutely no-one will know that you do this, or that these resources are not outdated but are actually up-to-date.
The current timestamp location is so unusual that I only noticed it by accident, and was in fact about to write a comment suggesting you add a timestamp at all.
That’s great feedback, thanks! I’ve gone ahead and put it under the page title for each resource.
This is really terrific, thank you for doing the unglamorous but incredibly valuable work of keeping these up to date.
One suggestion re: funders[1]: it would be really high-value to track (per-funder) ‘What percent of applications did you approve in the past year?’ I think most people considering entering the field as a researcher worry a lot about how feasible it is to get funded[2], and having this info out there and up-to-date would go a long way toward addressing that worry. There are various options for more sophisticated versions, but just adding that single byte of info to each funder, updated >= annually, would be a huge improvement over the status quo.
Inspired by A plea for more funding shortfall transparency
(and/or how feasible it is to get a job in the field, but that’s a separate issue)
Thanks, I’ve put that in our feedback database. I do wonder though whether it might have the opposite (demotivating) effect if the acceptance rate is lower than they expect.
Maybe! I’ve talked to a fair number of people (often software engineers, and especially people who have more financial responsibilities) who really want to contribute but don’t feel safe making the leap without having some idea of their chances. But I don’t think I’ve talked to anyone who was overconfident about getting funding. That’s my own idiosyncratic sample, though, hard to know whether it’s representative.
That’s useful data, thanks – I’ve put it as added context to your feedback