it's hard to put into words, but like there were cocktails and nice background music and all the events transitioned super smoothly. It's like when you watch the Oscars or something and everything seems like it's been rehearsed--that's how this felt. EA conferences, on the other hand, usually seem more hectic and improvisational.
You know that's what I thought as well, but I've found the community to be more open to caution than I initially thought. Derek Thompson in particular (the main organizer for the event) harped on safety quite a bit. And if more EAs got involved (assuming they don't get amnesia) I assume they can carry over some of these concerns and shift the culture.
Strong upvote.
To me, this seems more relevant for more established groups. Perhaps thinking about operational tasks vs skilling up shouldn't be thought of in terms of percentages, but in terms of necessary vs supplemental tasks. I would imagine things like sending emails, doing 1:1s, buying food for events, etc. are necessary for any group to stay alive. So if you are the only HEA for your uni group, you might have to spend 90% of your time doing these (and tbh I think this would be the right call). But when it comes to things like doing an egregious amount of marketing or anything else that doesn't seem necessary, perhaps skilling up should be prioritized.
Also, I didn't see the multiplier effect come up anywhere, and I'm interested to hear how heavily you weight it.
The problem here is that it's still overtly utilitarian, with just a bit more wiggle room. It still forces people to weigh one thing against the other, which is what I think they might be uncomfortable doing. Buck Shlegeris says' everything is triage' and I think you'd agree with this sentiment. However, I don't think everyone likes to think this way, and I don't want that hiccup to be the reason they don't further investigate EA.
Good point. Yeah, i think the question was worded better in Chinese. The question, literally translated, is: "Do you agree or disagree that the safe development of artificial intelligence requires cooperation between China and the United States?" (你是否赞同人工智能的安全发展需要中美两国的合作?) This is essentially your translation, but a bit different in that it frames the question as "requires" instead of "does not require," which anchors the respondent a bit differently.