[Epistemic status: speculation from scant evidence, take with an appropriate grain of salt.]
It seems plausible to me that country-wide EA groups are much more favorable to pausing/slowing down AGI-ward progress than the general collective EA geist, according to which (I think) it’s still “not a thing people like us do”[1]. This is definitely the case with EA Poland.
I don’t have direct evidence that it’s true more generally of, say, EA foundations in other EU countries, but it’s worth noting that historically, a major (maybe the biggest?) source of funding for local chapters was the EA Infrastructure Fund, which was a part of EA Funds. After EA Funds got largely defunded in the recent quarters, they cannot afford to give out money to local EA chapters via the EA Infrastructure Fund. As plex says:
Their new problem looks to be more like “they’re not giving away much money, probably because they don’t have much money because OpenPhil defunded them (related to issues with OpenPhil)”
Might be partly due to other issues there? But my bet is on most of this is a defunding issue.
Now, to somewhat uncarefully speculate a bit, the cutting of the money pipeline OP/cG→EA Funds→local EA groups might be lifting pressure on the local EA groups to stay away from anything that OP/cG might have issues with, including pause advocacy (given OP/cG’s close ties to Anthropic).
Ergo, it’s maybe worth keeping in mind country-wide EA groups as possible actors of influence in pushing the local Overton windows to include pause advocacy.
Is there something specifically about EA groups that make them more favorable to an AI pause compared to national AI safety groups? AI safety groups seem like potentially more credible actors regarding this (and indeed, at least CeSIA in France has already done stuff regarding this)
Fair enough. EA groups were on my mind because I noticed the contrast between the Polish community and the general diffuse global EA vibe[1] and so it seemed worth pointing out as a potentially tappable resource.
Yeah, AI safety groups might be seen as more credible, but I’m not sure about that (but they’re surely at least as credible as the local countrywide EA, unles something weird happens?).
[Epistemic status: speculation from scant evidence, take with an appropriate grain of salt.]
It seems plausible to me that country-wide EA groups are much more favorable to pausing/slowing down AGI-ward progress than the general collective EA geist, according to which (I think) it’s still “not a thing people like us do”[1]. This is definitely the case with EA Poland.
I don’t have direct evidence that it’s true more generally of, say, EA foundations in other EU countries, but it’s worth noting that historically, a major (maybe the biggest?) source of funding for local chapters was the EA Infrastructure Fund, which was a part of EA Funds. After EA Funds got largely defunded in the recent quarters, they cannot afford to give out money to local EA chapters via the EA Infrastructure Fund. As plex says:
Now, to somewhat uncarefully speculate a bit, the cutting of the money pipeline OP/cG→EA Funds→local EA groups might be lifting pressure on the local EA groups to stay away from anything that OP/cG might have issues with, including pause advocacy (given OP/cG’s close ties to Anthropic).
Ergo, it’s maybe worth keeping in mind country-wide EA groups as possible actors of influence in pushing the local Overton windows to include pause advocacy.
Though the vibe is also shifting (if more slowly), e.g., 80KH interviewed Max Harms and Toby Ord signed FLI’s SoS.
Is there something specifically about EA groups that make them more favorable to an AI pause compared to national AI safety groups? AI safety groups seem like potentially more credible actors regarding this (and indeed, at least CeSIA in France has already done stuff regarding this)
Fair enough. EA groups were on my mind because I noticed the contrast between the Polish community and the general diffuse global EA vibe[1] and so it seemed worth pointing out as a potentially tappable resource.
Yeah, AI safety groups might be seen as more credible, but I’m not sure about that (but they’re surely at least as credible as the local countrywide EA, unles something weird happens?).
though I might also be miscalibrated on the latter, as I don’t spend time on EA Forum