Also worth noting that there are a few different claims of the sort OP mentions that people make, I think. One thing people sometimes mean by this is “CFAR no longer does the sort of curriculum development which would be necessary to create an ‘Elon Musk factory.’”
CFAR never had the goal of hugely amplifying the general effectiveness of large numbers of people (which I’m happy about, since I’m not sure achieving that goal would be good). One should not donate to CFAR in order to increase the chances of an Elon Musk factory.
That is, we were always focused on high-intensity interventions for small numbers of people—especially the people who are the very easiest to impact (have free time; smart and reflective; lucky in their educational background and starting position). We did not expect things to generalize to larger sets.
(Mostly. We did wonder about books and things for maybe impacting the epistemics (not effectiveness) of some larger number of people a small amount. And I do personally think that if there ways to help with the general epistemic, wisdom, or sanity of larger sets of people, even if by a small amount, that would be worth meaningful tradeoffs to create. But we are not presently aiming for this (except in the broadest possible “keep our eyes open and see if we someday notice some avenue that is actually worth taking here” sense), and with the exception of helping to support Julia Galef’s upcoming rationality book back when she was working here, we haven’t ever attempted concrete actions aimed at figuring out how to impact larger sets of people).
I agree, though, that one should not donate to CFAR in order to increase the chances of an Elon Musk factory.
But then again, so is Y-combinator, and every other incubator, as well as pretty much every leadership retreat (ok maybe not the leadership retreats, because Elon Musk is a terrible leader, but they’re trying to do something like create a factory for what people imagine Elon Musk to be like). It seems like a very competitive space to create an Elon Musk factory, because its’ so economically valuable.
This is a drive-by, but I don’t believe this statement, based on the fact that Elon has successfully accomplished several hard things via the use of people organized in hierarchies (companies). I’m sure he has foibles, and it might not be fun to work for him, but he does get shit done.
I think that there are many rare and positive qualities of Musk that I try to emulate, and some rare qualities that are damaging and that I shouldn’t emulate. Importantly, from many broad perspectives (like thinking that economic growth is a robust good) it’s pretty weird to think that Elon Musk is bad. I presume you think Musk is pretty unilateralist and think that he probably did net damage with the building of OpenAI?
I think Musk is impressive in many ways. I didn’t really intend to express skepticism of him in particular, so much as of what might happen if one created loads more people as agenty as him. For example, I can easily imagine this accelerating capabilities progress relative to safety progress, which strikes me as bad.
Also worth noting that there are a few different claims of the sort OP mentions that people make, I think. One thing people sometimes mean by this is “CFAR no longer does the sort of curriculum development which would be necessary to create an ‘Elon Musk factory.’”
CFAR never had the goal of hugely amplifying the general effectiveness of large numbers of people (which I’m happy about, since I’m not sure achieving that goal would be good). One should not donate to CFAR in order to increase the chances of an Elon Musk factory.
That is, we were always focused on high-intensity interventions for small numbers of people—especially the people who are the very easiest to impact (have free time; smart and reflective; lucky in their educational background and starting position). We did not expect things to generalize to larger sets.
(Mostly. We did wonder about books and things for maybe impacting the epistemics (not effectiveness) of some larger number of people a small amount. And I do personally think that if there ways to help with the general epistemic, wisdom, or sanity of larger sets of people, even if by a small amount, that would be worth meaningful tradeoffs to create. But we are not presently aiming for this (except in the broadest possible “keep our eyes open and see if we someday notice some avenue that is actually worth taking here” sense), and with the exception of helping to support Julia Galef’s upcoming rationality book back when she was working here, we haven’t ever attempted concrete actions aimed at figuring out how to impact larger sets of people).
I agree, though, that one should not donate to CFAR in order to increase the chances of an Elon Musk factory.
Do you have any advice on who to donate to in order to increase the chances of an Elon Musk factory?
It seems like paradigm academy is trying to do something like create an Elon Musk Factory:
http://paradigmacademy.co/
But then again, so is Y-combinator, and every other incubator, as well as pretty much every leadership retreat (ok maybe not the leadership retreats, because Elon Musk is a terrible leader, but they’re trying to do something like create a factory for what people imagine Elon Musk to be like). It seems like a very competitive space to create an Elon Musk factory, because its’ so economically valuable.
This is a drive-by, but I don’t believe this statement, based on the fact that Elon has successfully accomplished several hard things via the use of people organized in hierarchies (companies). I’m sure he has foibles, and it might not be fun to work for him, but he does get shit done.
I claim that Elon has done this despite his leadership abilities.
I think that it’s possible to be a bad leader but an effective CEO.
It seems to me unclear what exactly do you mean with the terms. What do you mean with leadership as compared to being a CEO?
Leadership (as for instance leadership retreats are trying to teach it) is the intersection between management and strategy.
Another way to put it, its’ the discipline of getting people to do what’s best for your organization.
Do you think that Elon doesn’t get his employees to do what’s best for his companies?
I think he’s bad at this.
You can see this in some aspects of his companies.
High micromanagement. High turnover. Disgruntled former employees.
I’m not aware of existing organizations that seem likely to me to create such a factory.
I think that there are many rare and positive qualities of Musk that I try to emulate, and some rare qualities that are damaging and that I shouldn’t emulate. Importantly, from many broad perspectives (like thinking that economic growth is a robust good) it’s pretty weird to think that Elon Musk is bad. I presume you think Musk is pretty unilateralist and think that he probably did net damage with the building of OpenAI?
I think Musk is impressive in many ways. I didn’t really intend to express skepticism of him in particular, so much as of what might happen if one created loads more people as agenty as him. For example, I can easily imagine this accelerating capabilities progress relative to safety progress, which strikes me as bad.