EA - AI Safety Field Building vs. EA CB by kuhanj

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: AI Safety Field Building vs. EA CB, published by kuhanj on June 27, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.SummaryAs part of the EA Strategy fortnight, I am sharing a reflection on my experience doing AI safety movement building over the last year, and why I am more excited about more efforts in the space compared to EA movement-building. This is mostly due to the relative success of AI safety groups compared to EA groups at universities with both (e.g. read about Harvard and MIT updates from this past year here). I expect many of the takeaways to extend beyond the university context. The main reasons AI safety field building seems more impactful are:Experimental data from universities with substantial effort put into EA and AI safety groups: Higher engagement overall, and from individuals with relevant expertise, interests, and skillsStronger object-level focus encourages skill and knowledge accumulation, offers better career capital, and lends itself to engagement from more knowledgeable and senior individuals (including graduate students and professors).Impartial/future-focused altruism not being a crux for many for working on AI safetyRecent developments increasing the salience of potential risks from transformative AI, and decreasing the appeal of the EA community/ideas.I also discuss some hesitations and counterarguments, of which the large decrease in neglectedness of existential risk from AI is most salient (and which I have not reflected too much on the implications of yet, though I still agree with the high-level takes this post argues for).Context/Why I am writing about thisI helped set up and run the Cambridge Boston Alignment Initiative (CBAI) and the MIT AI Alignment group this past year. I also helped out with Harvard’s AI Safety team programming, along with some broader university AI safety programming (e.g. a retreat, two MLAB-inspired bootcamps, and a 3-week research program on AI strategy). Before this, I ran the Stanford Existential Risks Initiative and effective altruism student group and have supported many other university student groups.Why AI Safety Field Building over EA Community BuildingFrom my experiences over the past few months, it seems that AI safety field building is generally more impactful than EA movement building for people able to do either well, especially at the university level (under the assumption that reducing AI x-risk is probably the most effective way to do good, which I assume in this article). Here are some reasons for this:AI-alignment-branded outreach is empirically attracting many more students with relevant skill sets and expertise than EA-branded outreach at universities.Anecdotal evidence: At MIT, we received ~5x the number of applications for AI safety programming compared to EA programming, despite similar levels of outreach last year. This ratio was even higher when just considering applicants with relevant backgrounds and accomplishments. Around two dozen winners and top performers of international competitions (math/CS/science olympiads, research competitions) and students with significant research experience engaged with AI alignment programming, but very few engaged with EA programming.This phenomenon at MIT has also roughly been matched at Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, and I’d guess several other universities (though I think the relevant ratios are slightly lower than at MIT).It makes sense that things marketed with a specific cause area (e.g. AI rather than EA) are more likely to attract individuals highly skilled, experienced, and interested in topics relevant to the cause area.Effective cause-area specific direct work and movement building still involves the learning, understanding, and application of many important principles and concepts in EA:Prioritization/Optimization are relevant,...