I thought CFAR had already largely pivoted away from trying to solve “the problem of making humans and groups more rational” to (optimistic version) “the problem of making people working on AI safety more rational” or (cynical version) “the problem of persuading smart people to work on AI safety through rationality training”. So someone wanting to prioritize solving the original problem already shouldn’t have been relying on CFAR to do it.
This rhymes with some comments by Duncan Sabien and Anna Salamon I just found:
In the last two years, CFAR hasn’t done much outward-facing work at all, due to COVID, and so has neither been a MIRI funnel nor definitively not a MIRI funnel.
Yes, but I would predict that we won’t be the same sort of MIRI funnel going forward. This is because MIRI used to have specific research programs that it needed to hire for, and it it was sponsoring AIRCS (covering direct expenses plus loaning us some researchers to help run the thing) in order to recruit for that, and those research programs have been discontinued and so AIRCS won’t be so much of a thing anymore.
Also, more broadly, CFAR has adopted different structures for organizing ourselves internally, and we are bigger now into “if you work for CFAR, or are a graduate of our instructor training program, and you have a ‘telos’ that you’re on fire to do, you can probably do it with CFAR’s venue/dollars/collaborations of some sorts” (we’re calling this “platform CFAR,” Elizabeth Garrett invented it and set it up maybe about a year ago, can’t remember), and also into doing hourly rather than salaried work in general (so we don’t feel an obligation to fill time with some imagined ’supposed to do CFAR-like activity” vagueness, so that we can be mentally free) and are also into taking more care not to have me or anyone speak for others at CFAR or organize people into a common imagined narrative one must pretend to believe, but rather into letting people do what we each believe in, and try to engage each other where sensible. Which makes it a bit harder to know what CFAR will be doing going forward, and also leaves me thinking it’ll have a bit more variety in it. Probably.
This constrains my projection of what CFAR does well enough that my curiosity is not as ravenously hungry anymore, but if anyone “in the know” still wants to chime in with recent info I’d be still happy about it.
I think the conclusion I take from it is ~”There’s a bunch of individual people who were involved with CFAR still doing interesting stuff, but there is no such public organisation anymore in a meaningful sense (although shards of the organisation still help with AIRCS workshops); so you have to follow these individual people to find out what they’re up to. Also, there is no concentration of force working towards a public accessible rationality curriculum anymore.”
Maybe that comes out as too pessimistic? But I don’t know how to better express it. And these decisions probably make more sense if you assume short AI timelines.
Also, there is no concentration of force working towards a public accessible rationality curriculum anymore.
This is true but also there is a growing cluster of people who are considering various collaborative possibilities here (more than six that I’m occasionally in contact with and surely nonzero that I am not).
I think the conclusion I take from it is ~”There’s a bunch of individual people who were involved with CFAR still doing interesting stuff, but there is no such public organisation anymore in a meaningful sense (although shards of the organisation still help with AIRCS workshops); so you have to follow these individual people to find out what they’re up to. Also, there is no concentration of force working towards a public accessible rationality curriculum anymore.”
This seems about right to me personally, although as noted there is some network / concentration of force working toward… things individuals affiliated with us see as worth working toward, in loose coordination. (But “a publicly accessible rationality curriculum” is not a thing we’ve been concentrating force toward, so far.)
I’m a person who has lived in the Bay area almost the whole time CFAR has existed, and am also moderately (though not intensely) intertwined with that part of the rationalist social network. I was going to write up my own answer but I think you pretty much nailed it with your conclusion here, especially with the part about distinguishing individual people from the institution.
Agreed, although as I noted a bit above, my guess is that we’re a bit more focused on human rationality/similar overall now (vs in previous years when gjm’s comment was more true), but not that people ought to count on “CFAR” as as having that covered in any way.
A different point, which others in this comment thread have also mentioned, is that the people who used to work at CFAR are still around, many are doing things, and a number of CFAR-esque workshops are being run by various ex-instructors and other groups. So if you go with the “CFAR dissolved” narrative (which fits for me more than “CFAR is defunct” actually, for whatever reason, I guess because when I hear “CFAR is” I think of the people currently upstairs in the venue, who seem pretty real, but when I hear “CFAR dissolved” I think more of the people and curriculum-bits and such that were here in 2018 or 2014), it’s worth noting that the people and memories and units and such are still floating around in a lot of cases, as opposed to the memories and capacities having been mostly lost.
I thought CFAR had already largely pivoted away from trying to solve “the problem of making humans and groups more rational” to (optimistic version) “the problem of making people working on AI safety more rational” or (cynical version) “the problem of persuading smart people to work on AI safety through rationality training”. So someone wanting to prioritize solving the original problem already shouldn’t have been relying on CFAR to do it.
This rhymes with some comments by Duncan Sabien and Anna Salamon I just found:
from here and
from here.
The clearest recent statement for CFARs vision is
from the same comment.
This constrains my projection of what CFAR does well enough that my curiosity is not as ravenously hungry anymore, but if anyone “in the know” still wants to chime in with recent info I’d be still happy about it.
I think the conclusion I take from it is ~”There’s a bunch of individual people who were involved with CFAR still doing interesting stuff, but there is no such public organisation anymore in a meaningful sense (although shards of the organisation still help with AIRCS workshops); so you have to follow these individual people to find out what they’re up to. Also, there is no concentration of force working towards a public accessible rationality curriculum anymore.”
Maybe that comes out as too pessimistic? But I don’t know how to better express it. And these decisions probably make more sense if you assume short AI timelines.
This is true but also there is a growing cluster of people who are considering various collaborative possibilities here (more than six that I’m occasionally in contact with and surely nonzero that I am not).
This seems about right to me personally, although as noted there is some network / concentration of force working toward… things individuals affiliated with us see as worth working toward, in loose coordination. (But “a publicly accessible rationality curriculum” is not a thing we’ve been concentrating force toward, so far.)
I’m a person who has lived in the Bay area almost the whole time CFAR has existed, and am also moderately (though not intensely) intertwined with that part of the rationalist social network. I was going to write up my own answer but I think you pretty much nailed it with your conclusion here, especially with the part about distinguishing individual people from the institution.
If this is the case, it would be really nice to have confirmation from someone working there.
Agreed, although as I noted a bit above, my guess is that we’re a bit more focused on human rationality/similar overall now (vs in previous years when gjm’s comment was more true), but not that people ought to count on “CFAR” as as having that covered in any way.
A different point, which others in this comment thread have also mentioned, is that the people who used to work at CFAR are still around, many are doing things, and a number of CFAR-esque workshops are being run by various ex-instructors and other groups. So if you go with the “CFAR dissolved” narrative (which fits for me more than “CFAR is defunct” actually, for whatever reason, I guess because when I hear “CFAR is” I think of the people currently upstairs in the venue, who seem pretty real, but when I hear “CFAR dissolved” I think more of the people and curriculum-bits and such that were here in 2018 or 2014), it’s worth noting that the people and memories and units and such are still floating around in a lot of cases, as opposed to the memories and capacities having been mostly lost.