The Nonlinear Library LW - Express interest in an "FHI of the West" by habryka
Apr 18, 2024
05:52
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Express interest in an "FHI of the West", published by habryka on April 18, 2024 on LessWrong.
TLDR: I am investigating whether to found a spiritual successor to FHI, housed under Lightcone Infrastructure, providing a rich cultural environment and financial support to researchers and entrepreneurs in the intellectual tradition of the Future of Humanity Institute. Fill out this form or comment below to express interest in being involved either as a researcher, entrepreneurial founder-type, or funder.
The Future of Humanity Institute is dead:
I knew that this was going to happen in some form or another for a year or two, having heard through the grapevine and private conversations of FHI's university-imposed hiring freeze and fundraising block, and so I have been thinking about how to best fill the hole in the world that FHI left behind.
I think FHI was one of the best intellectual institutions in history. Many of the most important concepts[1] in my intellectual vocabulary were developed and popularized under its roof, and many crucial considerations that form the bedrock of my current life plans were discovered and explained there (including the concept of crucial considerations itself).
With the death of FHI (as well as MIRI moving away from research towards advocacy), there no longer exists a place for broadly-scoped research on the most crucial considerations for humanity's future. The closest place I can think of that currently houses that kind of work is the Open Philanthropy worldview investigation team, which houses e.g. Joe Carlsmith, but my sense is Open Philanthropy is really not the best vehicle for that kind of work.
While many of the ideas that FHI was working on have found traction in other places in the world (like right here on LessWrong), I do think that with the death of FHI, there no longer exists any place where researchers who want to think about the future of humanity in an open ended way can work with other people in a high-bandwidth context, or get operational support for doing so. That seems bad.
So I am thinking about fixing it. Anders Sandberg, in his oral history of FHI, wrote the following as his best guess of what made FHI work:
What would it take to replicate FHI, and would it be a good idea? Here are some considerations for why it became what it was:
Concrete object-level intellectual activity in core areas and finding and enabling top people were always the focus. Structure, process, plans, and hierarchy were given minimal weight (which sometimes backfired - flexible structure is better than little structure, but as organization size increases more structure is needed).
Tolerance for eccentrics. Creating a protective bubble to shield them from larger University bureaucracy as much as possible (but do not ignore institutional politics!).
Short-term renewable contracts. [...] Maybe about 30% of people given a job at FHI were offered to have their contracts extended after their initial contract ran out. A side-effect was to filter for individuals who truly loved the intellectual work we were doing, as opposed to careerists.
Valued: insights, good ideas, intellectual honesty, focusing on what's important, interest in other disciplines, having interesting perspectives and thoughts to contribute on a range of relevant topics.
Deemphasized: the normal academic game, credentials, mainstream acceptance, staying in one's lane, organizational politics.
Very few organizational or planning meetings. Most meetings were only to discuss ideas or present research, often informally.
Some additional things that came up in a conversation I had with Bostrom himself about this:
A strong culture that gives people guidance on what things to work on, and helps researchers and entrepreneurs within the organization coordinate
A bunch of logistical and operation...
TLDR: I am investigating whether to found a spiritual successor to FHI, housed under Lightcone Infrastructure, providing a rich cultural environment and financial support to researchers and entrepreneurs in the intellectual tradition of the Future of Humanity Institute. Fill out this form or comment below to express interest in being involved either as a researcher, entrepreneurial founder-type, or funder.
The Future of Humanity Institute is dead:
I knew that this was going to happen in some form or another for a year or two, having heard through the grapevine and private conversations of FHI's university-imposed hiring freeze and fundraising block, and so I have been thinking about how to best fill the hole in the world that FHI left behind.
I think FHI was one of the best intellectual institutions in history. Many of the most important concepts[1] in my intellectual vocabulary were developed and popularized under its roof, and many crucial considerations that form the bedrock of my current life plans were discovered and explained there (including the concept of crucial considerations itself).
With the death of FHI (as well as MIRI moving away from research towards advocacy), there no longer exists a place for broadly-scoped research on the most crucial considerations for humanity's future. The closest place I can think of that currently houses that kind of work is the Open Philanthropy worldview investigation team, which houses e.g. Joe Carlsmith, but my sense is Open Philanthropy is really not the best vehicle for that kind of work.
While many of the ideas that FHI was working on have found traction in other places in the world (like right here on LessWrong), I do think that with the death of FHI, there no longer exists any place where researchers who want to think about the future of humanity in an open ended way can work with other people in a high-bandwidth context, or get operational support for doing so. That seems bad.
So I am thinking about fixing it. Anders Sandberg, in his oral history of FHI, wrote the following as his best guess of what made FHI work:
What would it take to replicate FHI, and would it be a good idea? Here are some considerations for why it became what it was:
Concrete object-level intellectual activity in core areas and finding and enabling top people were always the focus. Structure, process, plans, and hierarchy were given minimal weight (which sometimes backfired - flexible structure is better than little structure, but as organization size increases more structure is needed).
Tolerance for eccentrics. Creating a protective bubble to shield them from larger University bureaucracy as much as possible (but do not ignore institutional politics!).
Short-term renewable contracts. [...] Maybe about 30% of people given a job at FHI were offered to have their contracts extended after their initial contract ran out. A side-effect was to filter for individuals who truly loved the intellectual work we were doing, as opposed to careerists.
Valued: insights, good ideas, intellectual honesty, focusing on what's important, interest in other disciplines, having interesting perspectives and thoughts to contribute on a range of relevant topics.
Deemphasized: the normal academic game, credentials, mainstream acceptance, staying in one's lane, organizational politics.
Very few organizational or planning meetings. Most meetings were only to discuss ideas or present research, often informally.
Some additional things that came up in a conversation I had with Bostrom himself about this:
A strong culture that gives people guidance on what things to work on, and helps researchers and entrepreneurs within the organization coordinate
A bunch of logistical and operation...