(Caveat: it’s been a while since I’ve visited Constellation, so if things have changed recently I may be out of touch.)
I’m not sure that Constellation should be doing anything differently. I think there’s a spectrum of how much your culture is like blue-skies thinking vs highly prioritized on the most important things. I think that FHI was more towards the first end of this spectrum, and Constellation is more towards the latter. I think that there are a lot of good things that come with being further in that direction, but I do think it means you’re less likely to produce very novel ideas.
To illustrate via caricatures in a made-up example: say someone turned up in one of the offices and said “OK here’s a model I’ve been developing of how aliens might build AGI”. I think the vibe in Constellation would trend towards people are interested to chat about it for fifteen minutes at lunch (questions a mix of the treating-it-as-a-game and the pointed but-how-will-this-help-us), and then say they’ve got work they’ve got to get back to. I think the vibe in FHI would have trended more towards people treat it as a serious question (assuming there’s something interesting to the model), and it generates an impromptu 3-hour conversation at a whiteboard with four people fleshing out details and variations, which ends with someone volunteering to send round a first draft of a paper. I also think Constellation is further in the direction of being bought into some common assumptions than FHI was; e.g. it would seem to me more culturally legit to start a conversation questioning whether AI risk was real at FHI than Constellation.
I kind of think there’s something valuable about the Constellation culture on this one, and I don’t want to just replace it with the FHI one. But I think there’s something important and valuable about the FHI thing which I’d love to see existing in some more places.
(In the process of writing this comment it occurred to me that Constellation could perhaps decide to have some common spaces which try to be more FHI-like, while trying not to change the rest. Honestly I think this is a little hard without giving that subspace a strong distinct identity. It’s possible they should do that; my immediate take now that I’ve thought to pose the question is that I’m confused about it.)
(I work out of Constellation and am closely connected to the org in a bunch of ways)
I think you’re right that most people at Constellation aren’t going to seriously and carefully engage with the aliens-building-AGI question, but I think describing it as a difference in culture is missing the biggest factor leading to the difference: most of the people who work at Constellation are employed to do something other than the classic FHI activity of “self-directed research on any topic”, so obviously aren’t as inclined to engage deeply with it.
I think there also is a cultural difference, but my guess is that it’s smaller than the effect from difference in typical jobs.
I’ll also note that if you want to show up anywhere in the world and get good takes from people on the “how aliens might build AGI” question, Constellation might currently be the best bet (especially if you’re interested in decision-relevant questions about this).
To anyone reading this who wants to work on or discuss FHI-flavored work: Consider applying to Constellation’s programs (the deadline for some of them is today!), which include salaried positions for researchers.
I think that you’re right that people’s jobs are a significant thing driving the difference here (thanks), but I’d guess that the bigger impact of jobs is via jobs --> culture than via jobs --> individual decisions. This impression is based on a sense of “when visiting Constellation, I feel less pull to engage in the open-ended idea exploration vs at FHI”, as well as “at FHI, I think people whose main job was something else would still not-infrequently spend some time engaging with the big open questions of the day”.
What is Constellation missing or what should it do? (Especially if you haven’t already told the Constellation team this.)
(Caveat: it’s been a while since I’ve visited Constellation, so if things have changed recently I may be out of touch.)
I’m not sure that Constellation should be doing anything differently. I think there’s a spectrum of how much your culture is like blue-skies thinking vs highly prioritized on the most important things. I think that FHI was more towards the first end of this spectrum, and Constellation is more towards the latter. I think that there are a lot of good things that come with being further in that direction, but I do think it means you’re less likely to produce very novel ideas.
To illustrate via caricatures in a made-up example: say someone turned up in one of the offices and said “OK here’s a model I’ve been developing of how aliens might build AGI”. I think the vibe in Constellation would trend towards people are interested to chat about it for fifteen minutes at lunch (questions a mix of the treating-it-as-a-game and the pointed but-how-will-this-help-us), and then say they’ve got work they’ve got to get back to. I think the vibe in FHI would have trended more towards people treat it as a serious question (assuming there’s something interesting to the model), and it generates an impromptu 3-hour conversation at a whiteboard with four people fleshing out details and variations, which ends with someone volunteering to send round a first draft of a paper. I also think Constellation is further in the direction of being bought into some common assumptions than FHI was; e.g. it would seem to me more culturally legit to start a conversation questioning whether AI risk was real at FHI than Constellation.
I kind of think there’s something valuable about the Constellation culture on this one, and I don’t want to just replace it with the FHI one. But I think there’s something important and valuable about the FHI thing which I’d love to see existing in some more places.
(In the process of writing this comment it occurred to me that Constellation could perhaps decide to have some common spaces which try to be more FHI-like, while trying not to change the rest. Honestly I think this is a little hard without giving that subspace a strong distinct identity. It’s possible they should do that; my immediate take now that I’ve thought to pose the question is that I’m confused about it.)
(I work out of Constellation and am closely connected to the org in a bunch of ways)
I think you’re right that most people at Constellation aren’t going to seriously and carefully engage with the aliens-building-AGI question, but I think describing it as a difference in culture is missing the biggest factor leading to the difference: most of the people who work at Constellation are employed to do something other than the classic FHI activity of “self-directed research on any topic”, so obviously aren’t as inclined to engage deeply with it.
I think there also is a cultural difference, but my guess is that it’s smaller than the effect from difference in typical jobs.
I’ll also note that if you want to show up anywhere in the world and get good takes from people on the “how aliens might build AGI” question, Constellation might currently be the best bet (especially if you’re interested in decision-relevant questions about this).
To anyone reading this who wants to work on or discuss FHI-flavored work: Consider applying to Constellation’s programs (the deadline for some of them is today!), which include salaried positions for researchers.
I think that you’re right that people’s jobs are a significant thing driving the difference here (thanks), but I’d guess that the bigger impact of jobs is via jobs --> culture than via jobs --> individual decisions. This impression is based on a sense of “when visiting Constellation, I feel less pull to engage in the open-ended idea exploration vs at FHI”, as well as “at FHI, I think people whose main job was something else would still not-infrequently spend some time engaging with the big open questions of the day”.
I might be wrong about that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯