So the first step to good outreach is not treating AI capabilities researchers as the enemy. We need to view them as our future allies, and gently win them over to our side by the force of good arguments that meets them where they’re at, in a spirit of pedagogy and truth-seeking.
To this effect I have advocated that we should call it “Different Altruism” instead of “Effective Altruism”, because by leading with the idea that a movement involves doing altruism better than status quo, we are going to trigger and alienate people part of status quo that we could have instead won over by being friendly and gentle.
I often imagine a world where we had ended up with a less aggressive and impolite name attached to our arguments. I mean, think about how virality works: making every single AI researcher even slightly more resistant to engaging your movement (by priming them to be defensive) is going to have massive impact on the probability of ever reaching critical mass.
To this effect I have advocated that we should call it “Different Altruism” instead of “Effective Altruism”, because by leading with the idea that a movement involves doing altruism better than status quo, we are going to trigger and alienate people part of status quo that we could have instead won over by being friendly and gentle.
I often imagine a world where we had ended up with a less aggressive and impolite name attached to our arguments. I mean, think about how virality works: making every single AI researcher even slightly more resistant to engaging your movement (by priming them to be defensive) is going to have massive impact on the probability of ever reaching critical mass.