Finding a therapist with deep EA/x-risk/AI safety context, that won’t freak out when you talk about p(doom), is hard, because the majority of therapists that exist come from different intellectual backgrounds to ‘rationalist’, i.e. therapists often, and in fact probably should, value ‘proofs’, truth, efficiency etc less than EAs, and as a result are far less likely to be engaged in the relevant literature/communities. It’s a rare combo of traits for one person to embody, to value both EA values like ‘truth-seeking’ etc, and also believe in or value the principles underpinning many therapy modalities. Which leads me on to my next point…
If somebody does have high EA etc context and these 'therapist qualities', they might be compelled to not become, or leave a career as, a therapist or coach, on the basis that it’s not as impactful as another career is. Therefore, EA rhetoric might have implicitly, unfortunately, encouraged people with the perfect combo of skill sets out of these roles.
Another thought I had is that, with the idea of x-risk/AI safety emotional support groups, I’m always wary, and think reasonably so. EA/AI safety is already a very tight knit professional community, with huge personal overlaps. I think introducing another layer of interaction, whereby people get to know each other in counselling contexts, is probably not a good idea (even if in my ideal world we can all interact with all parts of each other and this functions perfectly. Unfortunately currently I think power dynamics are too integral to the way our society/ies function, society here being s at large and s within EA/AI safety world, and this makes a further dissolution of boundaries hard to advocate for).
This is not to say that group formats shouldn’t be something EAs/AI safety people should consider, since I think peer support is so so valuable, but that we’d want to be careful about trying to ensure no conflicts of interest and preventing other problems etc.
I’m also just sceptical about your suggestion of ‘better norms’. Like, I totally agree that people are working very hard, likely too hard (in the sense that it is burning them out), often driven by terror/panic of impending doom etc, but I’m not sure that most people would actually want to sign off on a cultural shift towards more relaxed working patterns, since most people are genuinely very compelled about the urgency of the things we’re working on. Though, worth noting that even a decade ago lots of early AI safety EAs felt there to be urgency, so potentially we aren’t well calibrated i.e. we always think the situation is dire and immediate. I know you're advocating for an ideal, but it seems important to think concretely/practically about whether we would actually want to implement the ideal. Maybe we could calculate, in collaboration with them, each person's sustainable max output for a unit of time e.g. one week, and help them stay around that mark, instead of advocate for a looser, broader, 'work less, relax more' approach, because different people can work different amounts. I think this then could be used in conjunction with your good management idea, where the manager helps the person stay working within that guideline. I for example know that I can sustain focused creative 'thinky' work time for a max of 3-4 hours a day, where some people can only do 1-2 hours, and some can do more at 5-7.
Which leads me onto a bigger broader potential point of intervention which is helping people reflect more deeply about the type of roles that align with their natural rhythm and capacity. Some people with technical AI safety knowledge/context/excitement might be well placed in a research post, but some others, who realise they don't enjoy constant reading, writing/running code (idk, I'm not a super technical person lol), might be better fitted in an RM position, or as a grantmaker, etc. Not to be too hippy woo woo, but I think some of the problems we are seeing are a result of a more root disconnect from ourselves and reflecting on how we want to spend our 80,000 hours. Instead of deciding just from the head, as in where can I be most maximally effective, we could instead do some combo (the guiding principles for which I am not sure I can elucidate robustly nor compellingly) of 'what am I excited about' and 'what is important', i.e. incorporating the heart too. I guess maybe some EAs think they're doing this and/or just are doing this, but my read is that lots of people actually get swept up in 'what is the hive mind telling me I should do', and whilst I like the idea of the community guiding talent into different positions (even if I'm not convinced it's been done this entirely well in the past), I also want people to retain autonomy over their decisions, and retain connection to the more fluffy, intangible, hard to convey, hard to codify feelings about what they want to do for 40+ hours a week. My reasoning here, which I think has long been buried, is that if more people took a more holistic approach, then perhaps burnout, depression, anxiety, imposter syndrome etc, could be reduced.
Thanks, this is a very thoughtful comment! The objections you raise seem like strong ones. I also really resonate with the last paragraph and I think this is generally an important and underrated point.
I liked reading about this and I'm curious. I've noticed a recent change to Claude's thinking display — it went from first-person relational thinking to impersonal fragments that resemble an old time telegram. Do you know which team typically makes those kinds of decisions? Is it safety?
I'm glad you wrote this! I have some thoughts:
Finding a therapist with deep EA/x-risk/AI safety context, that won’t freak out when you talk about p(doom), is hard, because the majority of therapists that exist come from different intellectual backgrounds to ‘rationalist’, i.e. therapists often, and in fact probably should, value ‘proofs’, truth, efficiency etc less than EAs, and as a result are far less likely to be engaged in the relevant literature/communities. It’s a rare combo of traits for one person to embody, to value both EA values like ‘truth-seeking’ etc, and also believe in or value the principles underpinning many therapy modalities. Which leads me on to my next point…
If somebody does have high EA etc context and these 'therapist qualities', they might be compelled to not become, or leave a career as, a therapist or coach, on the basis that it’s not as impactful as another career is. Therefore, EA rhetoric might have implicitly, unfortunately, encouraged people with the perfect combo of skill sets out of these roles.
Another thought I had is that, with the idea of x-risk/AI safety emotional support groups, I’m always wary, and think reasonably so. EA/AI safety is already a very tight knit professional community, with huge personal overlaps. I think introducing another layer of interaction, whereby people get to know each other in counselling contexts, is probably not a good idea (even if in my ideal world we can all interact with all parts of each other and this functions perfectly. Unfortunately currently I think power dynamics are too integral to the way our society/ies function, society here being s at large and s within EA/AI safety world, and this makes a further dissolution of boundaries hard to advocate for).
This is not to say that group formats shouldn’t be something EAs/AI safety people should consider, since I think peer support is so so valuable, but that we’d want to be careful about trying to ensure no conflicts of interest and preventing other problems etc.
I’m also just sceptical about your suggestion of ‘better norms’. Like, I totally agree that people are working very hard, likely too hard (in the sense that it is burning them out), often driven by terror/panic of impending doom etc, but I’m not sure that most people would actually want to sign off on a cultural shift towards more relaxed working patterns, since most people are genuinely very compelled about the urgency of the things we’re working on. Though, worth noting that even a decade ago lots of early AI safety EAs felt there to be urgency, so potentially we aren’t well calibrated i.e. we always think the situation is dire and immediate. I know you're advocating for an ideal, but it seems important to think concretely/practically about whether we would actually want to implement the ideal. Maybe we could calculate, in collaboration with them, each person's sustainable max output for a unit of time e.g. one week, and help them stay around that mark, instead of advocate for a looser, broader, 'work less, relax more' approach, because different people can work different amounts. I think this then could be used in conjunction with your good management idea, where the manager helps the person stay working within that guideline. I for example know that I can sustain focused creative 'thinky' work time for a max of 3-4 hours a day, where some people can only do 1-2 hours, and some can do more at 5-7.
Which leads me onto a bigger broader potential point of intervention which is helping people reflect more deeply about the type of roles that align with their natural rhythm and capacity. Some people with technical AI safety knowledge/context/excitement might be well placed in a research post, but some others, who realise they don't enjoy constant reading, writing/running code (idk, I'm not a super technical person lol), might be better fitted in an RM position, or as a grantmaker, etc. Not to be too hippy woo woo, but I think some of the problems we are seeing are a result of a more root disconnect from ourselves and reflecting on how we want to spend our 80,000 hours. Instead of deciding just from the head, as in where can I be most maximally effective, we could instead do some combo (the guiding principles for which I am not sure I can elucidate robustly nor compellingly) of 'what am I excited about' and 'what is important', i.e. incorporating the heart too. I guess maybe some EAs think they're doing this and/or just are doing this, but my read is that lots of people actually get swept up in 'what is the hive mind telling me I should do', and whilst I like the idea of the community guiding talent into different positions (even if I'm not convinced it's been done this entirely well in the past), I also want people to retain autonomy over their decisions, and retain connection to the more fluffy, intangible, hard to convey, hard to codify feelings about what they want to do for 40+ hours a week. My reasoning here, which I think has long been buried, is that if more people took a more holistic approach, then perhaps burnout, depression, anxiety, imposter syndrome etc, could be reduced.
Thanks, this is a very thoughtful comment! The objections you raise seem like strong ones. I also really resonate with the last paragraph and I think this is generally an important and underrated point.
I liked reading about this and I'm curious. I've noticed a recent change to Claude's thinking display — it went from first-person relational thinking to impersonal fragments that resemble an old time telegram. Do you know which team typically makes those kinds of decisions? Is it safety?
If I'm not mistaken, Chris Larkin (https://substack.com/@chrislakin/) has built a niche in exactly this area of therapy, e.g., (https://chrislakin.blog/p/bounty-your-bottleneck)