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aaronsw comments on A cynical explanation for why rationalists worry about FAI - Less Wrong
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There's nothing wrong with arguing on the Internet. I'm merely asking whether the belief that "arguing on the Internet is the most important thing anyone can do to help people" is the result of motivated reasoning.
The argument I see is that donating money to SIAI is the most important thing anyone can do to help people.
Even if one thought SIAI was the most effective charity one could donate to at the present margin right now, or could realistically locate soon, this would not be true. For instance, if one was extremely smart and effective at CS research, then better to develop one's skills and take a crack at finding fruitful lines of research that would differentially promote good AI outcomes. Or if one was extremely good at organization and management, especially scholarly management, to create other institutions attacking the problems SIAI is working on more efficiently. A good social scientist or statistician or philosopher could go work at the FHI, or the new Cambridge center on existential risks as an academic. One could make a systematic effort to assess existential risks, GiveWell style, as some folk at the CEA are doing. There are many people whose abilities, temperament, and background differentially suit them to do X better than paying for others to do X.