EA - I went to the Progress Summit. Here’s What I Learned. by Nick Corvino

Link to original articleWelcome 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: I went to the Progress Summit. Here’s What I Learned., published by Nick Corvino on December 14, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum.I attended the Progress Summit in Hollywood yesterday, hosted by The Atlantic. Progress studies and EA have overlap, so I thought it would be useful to give my thoughts on the event. In general, the main difference I perceived was people attending not because they wanted to maximize their positive impact but rather because they were intellectually interested in socially responsible progress. And some other stuff.Right after I left, I told my friend it felt like a “grown up version of an EA conference.” I’m 22, and was probably the youngest person there. Everything felt more professional (cocktails, food, outfits, etc.) and the operations seemed smoother than any EA event I’ve been to.The facilitators were all Atlantic writers, such as Ross Anderson and Derek Thompson, and they were significantly more eloquent and better at holding people’s attention than any EA event I’ve been to. I could definitely tell the difference in their training. That being said, the talks felt fluffy and often skirted around intellectual issues for the sake of a smooth conversation.Networking was less direct. More small talk, less intensity.The event was catered towards investors/venture capitalists. Speakers were trying to make their product sound appealing so investors will fund them, which I thought was slightly bad for epistemics, often ignoring the risks of their products (e.g. AI slaughter bots).In general, the majority of the attendees seemed bullish on “the progress of technology,” and didn’t touch much on the potential risks of things like AGI or biorisk. If they did address the risks, it was invariably in relation to (1) the economy, (2) climate change, or (3) war. Of the people I spoke with,