FWIW, the “Future Plans” list seems to me somewhat understating the value of a donation. I realize it’s fairly accurate in that it represents the activities of SI. Yet it seems like it could be presented better.
For example, the first item is “hold the Summit”. But I happen to know that the Summit generally breaks even or makes a little money, so my marginal dollar will not make or break the Summit. Similarly, a website redesign, while probably important, isn’t exciting enough to be listed as the second item. The third item, publish the open problems document, is a good one, though you should make it seem more exciting.
I think the donation drive page should thoroughly make the case that SI is the best use of someone’s charity dollars—that it’s got a great team, great leadership, and is executing a plan with the highest probability of working at every step. That page should probably exist on its own, assuming the reader hasn’t read any of the rest of the site, with arguments for why working explicitly on rationality is worthwhile; why transparency matters; why outreach to other researchers matters; what the researchers are currently spending time on and why those are the correct things for them to be working on; and so on. It can be long: long-form copy is known to work, and this seems like a correct application for it.
In fact, since you probably have other things to do, I’ll do a little bit of copywriting myself to try to discover if this is really a good idea. I’ll post some stuff here tomorrow after I’ve worked on it a bit.
Totally unedited. Please give feedback. If it’s good, I can spend a couple more hours on it. If you’re not going to use it, please don’t tell me it’s good, because I have lots of other work to do.
The connection between AI and rationality could be made stronger.
Indeed, that’s been my impression for a little while. I’m unconvinced that AI is the #1 existential risk. The set of problems descending from the fact that known life resides in a single biosphere — ranging from radical climate change, to asteroid collisions, to engineered pathogens — seems to be right up there. I want all AI researchers to be familiar with FAI concerns; but there are more people in the world whose decisions have any effect at all on climate change risks — and maybe even on pathogen research risks! — than on AI risks.
But anyone who wants humanity to solve these problems should want better rationality and better (trans?)humanist ethics.
FWIW, the “Future Plans” list seems to me somewhat understating the value of a donation. I realize it’s fairly accurate in that it represents the activities of SI. Yet it seems like it could be presented better.
For example, the first item is “hold the Summit”. But I happen to know that the Summit generally breaks even or makes a little money, so my marginal dollar will not make or break the Summit. Similarly, a website redesign, while probably important, isn’t exciting enough to be listed as the second item. The third item, publish the open problems document, is a good one, though you should make it seem more exciting.
I think the donation drive page should thoroughly make the case that SI is the best use of someone’s charity dollars—that it’s got a great team, great leadership, and is executing a plan with the highest probability of working at every step. That page should probably exist on its own, assuming the reader hasn’t read any of the rest of the site, with arguments for why working explicitly on rationality is worthwhile; why transparency matters; why outreach to other researchers matters; what the researchers are currently spending time on and why those are the correct things for them to be working on; and so on. It can be long: long-form copy is known to work, and this seems like a correct application for it.
In fact, since you probably have other things to do, I’ll do a little bit of copywriting myself to try to discover if this is really a good idea. I’ll post some stuff here tomorrow after I’ve worked on it a bit.
I shall not complain. :)
OK, here’s my crack: http://techhouse.org/~lincoln/singinst-copy.txt
Totally unedited. Please give feedback. If it’s good, I can spend a couple more hours on it. If you’re not going to use it, please don’t tell me it’s good, because I have lots of other work to do.
It’s good enough that if we use it, we will do the editing. Thanks!
The connection between AI and rationality could be made stronger.
Indeed, that’s been my impression for a little while. I’m unconvinced that AI is the #1 existential risk. The set of problems descending from the fact that known life resides in a single biosphere — ranging from radical climate change, to asteroid collisions, to engineered pathogens — seems to be right up there. I want all AI researchers to be familiar with FAI concerns; but there are more people in the world whose decisions have any effect at all on climate change risks — and maybe even on pathogen research risks! — than on AI risks.
But anyone who wants humanity to solve these problems should want better rationality and better (trans?)humanist ethics.