“I’m pretty sure that most EAs I know have ~100% confidence that what they’re doing is net positive for the long-term future”
Fwiw, I think this is probably true for very few if any of the EAs I’ve worked with, though that’s a biased sample.
I wonder if the thing giving you this vibe might be they they actually think something like “I’m not that confident that my work is net positive for the LTF but my best guess is that it’s net positive in expectation. If what I’m doing is not positive, there’s no cheap way for me to figure it out, so I am confident (though not ~100%) that my work will keep seeming positive EV to me for the near future.” One informal way to describe this is that they are confident that their work is net positive in expectation/ex ante but not that it will be net positive ex post
I think this can look a lot like somebody being ~sure that what they’re doing is net positive even if in fact they are pretty uncertain.
“I’m pretty sure that most EAs I know have ~100% confidence that what they’re doing is net positive for the long-term future”
Fwiw, I think this is probably true for very few if any of the EAs I’ve worked with, though that’s a biased sample.
I wonder if the thing giving you this vibe might be they they actually think something like “I’m not that confident that my work is net positive for the LTF but my best guess is that it’s net positive in expectation. If what I’m doing is not positive, there’s no cheap way for me to figure it out, so I am confident (though not ~100%) that my work will keep seeming positive EV to me for the near future.” One informal way to describe this is that they are confident that their work is net positive in expectation/ex ante but not that it will be net positive ex post
I think this can look a lot like somebody being ~sure that what they’re doing is net positive even if in fact they are pretty uncertain.