How is this differentiated from https://techjobsforgood.com
Job board to work on problems like climate change and food insecurity
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Re: Job board to work on problems like climate change and food insecurity
#32Problems like climate change and food insecurity are not technological problems at this point. They are political problems. The job board you want is the board that organizes people to demand political change.
Re: Job board to work on problems like climate change and food insecurity
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
So a few things here. 1. ML at Facebook and Baidu pay well so you could use that money to fund more effective things. 2. By working in these roles you have the ability to change how things are done. Certainly more than you usually could from the outside. 3. There's a big push in the effective altruism group on safe AI/ML. I disagree with this but that's a factor in their weightings.
There are other high paying jobs out there, and I'd like to know where this "change from the inside" thing comes from. I've not seen anything that indicates that that's true for Facebook, and have seen a few things that show the opposite[1][2]. Working at a company that does these things is no lesser evil in my book. 1: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employ... 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/c…
So the argument does take it to the slight extreme but assume you're good enough to eventually be promoted to lead the department; at that point you're going to be able to introduce change. Certainly the change you could introduce would be greater than taking a similar paid job at a different organization. I appreciate this isn't the case for a lot of people but it's a non-zero chance and therefore a factor to consider!
Re: Job board to work on problems like climate change and food insecurity
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are other high paying jobs out there, and I'd like to know where this "change from the inside" thing comes from. I've not seen anything that indicates that that's true for Facebook, and have seen a few things that show the opposite[1][2]. Working at a company that does these things is no lesser evil in my book. 1: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employ... 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/c…
So the argument does take it to the slight extreme but assume you're good enough to eventually be promoted to lead the department; at that point you're going to be able to introduce change. Certainly the change you could introduce would be greater than taking a similar paid job at a different organization. I appreciate this isn't the case for a lot of people but it's a non-zero chance and therefore a factor to consid…
I disagree that this is even a factor to consider, and that we should be rigorous when assigning probabilities to events.
Seriously, what meaningful and controversial change has the rank-and-file (or even the managerial staff) at Facebook managed to accomplish? I'm not really asking for your opinion here as much as I am asking if you have any reports or information on the matter that contradicts the things I've heard or seen or read.
Why are you so certain? Their own employees feel that public pressure is the only way out, evidenced by their employees publicly speaking out or leaking things to the press to effect change. How, in your eyes, does this come anywhere close to a degree of certainty that change from within is possible?
Re: Job board to work on problems like climate change and food insecurity
#35Like the idea, but I'm confused how companies like: * Primer - Reach your leads everywhere * Andium - Digitizing the Oil & Gas Industry fit into the "problems like climate change and food insecurity" bucket.
Hi, Andium here. Definitely understand the skepticism about our work with the oil and gas industry and its impact on climate change. The high level is that the world doesn't know whether society has reached peak oil. Even if it has, oil consumption will continue to be a major contributor to planet warming gases (CO2 and CO2 equivalents) for decades to come. While regulation plays catch up and alternative energy usage…
Your company may not be actively bad, and maybe it's having a slightly positive effect, but it doesn't sound like it belongs in a list of companies trying to solve problems like climate change.
Re: Job board to work on problems like climate change and food insecurity
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi, Andium here. Definitely understand the skepticism about our work with the oil and gas industry and its impact on climate change. The high level is that the world doesn't know whether society has reached peak oil. Even if it has, oil consumption will continue to be a major contributor to planet warming gases (CO2 and CO2 equivalents) for decades to come. While regulation plays catch up and alternative energy usage…
Your company may not be actively bad, and maybe it's having a slightly positive effect, but it doesn't sound like it belongs in a list of companies trying to solve problems like climate change.
Thanks for offering your perspective on this. Solving climate change is first about getting to net-zero GHG emissions, or as close as possible. There are many companies working to reduce the release of CO2 and CO2 equivalents across different segments of the economy, from ag to construction to transportation. Many are focusing on developing and deploying alternative energies and capture technologies, which are great and needed. Our approach is to reduce the CO2 and equivalent emissions produced by O&G today. This is different from the mainstream viewpoint for sure, but especially in areas like methane venting (see links in my other comments) there is a large opportunity for immediate impact.
Re: Job board to work on problems like climate change and food insecurity
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many of the jobs on the 80,000 hours board actually seem quite evil: "Research Scientist, AI. Facebook" "Data Scientist, Technology and Resource Investment Decision-making. US Government, Central Intelligence Agency" "Deep Learning Researcher, Computer Vision Algorithms. Baidu"
So a few things here. 1. ML at Facebook and Baidu pay well so you could use that money to fund more effective things. 2. By working in these roles you have the ability to change how things are done. Certainly more than you usually could from the outside. 3. There's a big push in the effective altruism group on safe AI/ML. I disagree with this but that's a factor in their weightings.
Can't point 1 be used to justify any unethical job that pays a lot? What's the point of having a job board with "ethical" jobs then?
Re: Job board to work on problems like climate change and food insecurity
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi, Andium here. Definitely understand the skepticism about our work with the oil and gas industry and its impact on climate change. The high level is that the world doesn't know whether society has reached peak oil. Even if it has, oil consumption will continue to be a major contributor to planet warming gases (CO2 and CO2 equivalents) for decades to come. While regulation plays catch up and alternative energy usage…
To be honest, your homepage doesn't exactly give the impression you're a "saving the environment" company but rather you seem to be targeting businesses who wants to save costs. Here are some excerpts from your landing page ( https://andium.com/ ): - "At Andium, we’re saving companies millions of dollars annually, while increasing safety" - "we offer an ecosystem of automated products and services that provide the ne…
To be fair though, if you're targeting a business with marketing (e. g. a website) you probably want to speak to the first-order problems the business is having (e. g. cost savings, safety) not to second-order problems that those outside the business are most concerned with (e. g. climate change, food insecurity), even if your company is _also_ invested in reducing second-order problems.
Re: Job board to work on problems like climate change and food insecurity
#39Looks cool. Where do you source these jobs from? How do you make sure to update these frequently.
Re: Job board to work on problems like climate change and food insecurity
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the argument does take it to the slight extreme but assume you're good enough to eventually be promoted to lead the department; at that point you're going to be able to introduce change. Certainly the change you could introduce would be greater than taking a similar paid job at a different organization. I appreciate this isn't the case for a lot of people but it's a non-zero chance and therefore a factor to consid…
I disagree that this is even a factor to consider, and that we should be rigorous when assigning probabilities to events. Seriously, what meaningful and controversial change has the rank-and-file (or even the managerial staff) at Facebook managed to accomplish? I'm not really asking for your opinion here as much as I am asking if you have any reports or information on the matter that contradicts the things I've heard…
I'm not suggesting software developer #1034643 at Alphabet will be able to influence their AI safety policies, I am suggesting Lead AI Safety Researcher #17 at Alphabet will be able to influence their AI safety policies - possibly not, but there's a strong non-zero chance there. Certainly their chances of influencing AI safety policies at Alphabet, which people argue is important, is far greater than if they were a finance engineer earning the same salary at Jane Street. You could argue that Timnit Gebru was unable to introduce change because she was fired before publishing the paper about Google Brain, but nine congressmen have asked for an investigation and it's hardly over so who knows what'll happen there.
I've read similar evidence about people not being able to do much, but someone (or some committee) is having an impact on research direction somewhere within the company (else they wouldn't have even started that research department to begin with).