Without the question at the end it would feel less ad-like, like it doesn’t to me feel like you are honestly asking that question.
It’s also that this correlates with applications opening for the next MATS, and your last post had a very similar statistic correlating with the same window, so my guess is there is indeed some ad-like motivation (I think it’s fine for MATS to advertise a bit on LW, though shortform is a kind of tricky medium for that because we don’t have a frontpage/personal distinction for shortform and I don’t want people to optimize around the lack of that distinction).
I don’t know, it feels to me like a relatively complicated aggregate of a lot of different things. Some messages that would have caused me to feel less advertised towards:
“FYI, applications to MATS have been increasing 70% a year: [graph]. ARENA has seen also quite high growth rates [graph or number]. We’ve also seen a lot of funding increase over the same period, my best guess something similar like X. I wonder whether ~70% or something is aggregate growth rate of the field.” (Of course one would have to check here, and I am not saying you have to do all of this work)
“MATS applications have been growing 70% a year. I think this correlates with AI Safety going mainstream a bunch. Also pretty clear from the applications that people are coming in with much less background context. We’ll see how this plays out.”
I also think on the margin having it be a more straightforward ad would be marginally better? Like, I think it would make me feel a bit less paranoid about stuff.
I’ve updated the OP to reflect my intention better. Also, thanks for reminding me re. advertising on LW; MATS actually hasn’t made an ad post yet and this seems like a big oversight!
Without the question at the end it would feel less ad-like, like it doesn’t to me feel like you are honestly asking that question.
It’s also that this correlates with applications opening for the next MATS, and your last post had a very similar statistic correlating with the same window, so my guess is there is indeed some ad-like motivation (I think it’s fine for MATS to advertise a bit on LW, though shortform is a kind of tricky medium for that because we don’t have a frontpage/personal distinction for shortform and I don’t want people to optimize around the lack of that distinction).
I don’t know, it feels to me like a relatively complicated aggregate of a lot of different things. Some messages that would have caused me to feel less advertised towards:
“FYI, applications to MATS have been increasing 70% a year: [graph]. ARENA has seen also quite high growth rates [graph or number]. We’ve also seen a lot of funding increase over the same period, my best guess something similar like X. I wonder whether ~70% or something is aggregate growth rate of the field.” (Of course one would have to check here, and I am not saying you have to do all of this work)
“MATS applications have been growing 70% a year. I think this correlates with AI Safety going mainstream a bunch. Also pretty clear from the applications that people are coming in with much less background context. We’ll see how this plays out.”
I also think on the margin having it be a more straightforward ad would be marginally better? Like, I think it would make me feel a bit less paranoid about stuff.
I’ve updated the OP to reflect my intention better. Also, thanks for reminding me re. advertising on LW; MATS actually hasn’t made an ad post yet and this seems like a big oversight!
Agree! IMO seems like there should be one.