CFAR relies heavily on selection effects for finding workshop participants. In general we do very little marketing or direct outreach, although AIRCS and MSFP do some of the latter; mostly people hear about us via word of mouth. This system actually works surprisingly (to me) well at causing promising people to apply.
But I think many of the people we would be most happy to have at a workshop probably never hear about us, or at least never apply. One could try fixing this with marketing/outreach strategies, but I worry this would disrupt the selection effects which I think have been a necessary ingredient for nearly all of our impact.
So I fantasize sometimes about a new organization being created which draws loads of people together, via selection effects similar to those which have attracted people to LessWrong, which would make it easier for us to find more promising people.
(I also—and this isn’t a wish for an organization, exactly, but it gestures at the kind of problem I speculate some organization could potentially help solve—sometimes fantasize about developing something like “scouts” at existing places with such selection effects. For example, a bunch of safety researchers competed in IMO/IOI when they were younger; I think it would be plausibly valuable for us to make friends with some team coaches, and for them to occasionally put us in touch with promising people).
I expect there are a bunch which never hear about us due to language barrier, and/or because they’re geographically distant from most of our alumni. But I would be surprised if there weren’t also lots of geographically-near, epistemically-promising people who’ve just never happened to encounter someone recommending a workshop.
CFAR relies heavily on selection effects for finding workshop participants. In general we do very little marketing or direct outreach, although AIRCS and MSFP do some of the latter; mostly people hear about us via word of mouth. This system actually works surprisingly (to me) well at causing promising people to apply.
But I think many of the people we would be most happy to have at a workshop probably never hear about us, or at least never apply. One could try fixing this with marketing/outreach strategies, but I worry this would disrupt the selection effects which I think have been a necessary ingredient for nearly all of our impact.
So I fantasize sometimes about a new organization being created which draws loads of people together, via selection effects similar to those which have attracted people to LessWrong, which would make it easier for us to find more promising people.
(I also—and this isn’t a wish for an organization, exactly, but it gestures at the kind of problem I speculate some organization could potentially help solve—sometimes fantasize about developing something like “scouts” at existing places with such selection effects. For example, a bunch of safety researchers competed in IMO/IOI when they were younger; I think it would be plausibly valuable for us to make friends with some team coaches, and for them to occasionally put us in touch with promising people).
What kind of people do you think never hear about CFAR but that you want to have at your workshops?
I expect there are a bunch which never hear about us due to language barrier, and/or because they’re geographically distant from most of our alumni. But I would be surprised if there weren’t also lots of geographically-near, epistemically-promising people who’ve just never happened to encounter someone recommending a workshop.
It seems to me like being more explicit about what kind of people should be there would make it easier for other people to send them your way.