This description could apply to many people who have never heard of EA, e.g. medics, social workers, buddhists, other charity workers, politicians...

What about something like:

I work within a movement called effective altruism. The broad idea is to figure out how we can reduce the most suffering. Sometimes that leads to unexpected conclusions. For example, donating to prevent malaria in Africa might save far more lives than giving the same amount to a charity closer to home. We try to work out where our time and money can make the biggest difference, even when the answers aren't intuitive or fashionable.

Given nothing to go on but your explanation, I'd suspect the uncle's job to be more useful in concrete (ha) terms.

Is this a voluntary role?

(Assuming the rejections are real, which I assumed they were because they sound familiar, but the poster below made me question it) This is brilliant! Every person who's thinking of attempting the pivot should see this first and think on how much time/effort they want to invest in it. It tells a completely different story to the 'we desperately need talent, please, apply even if you think it isn't you' claptrap.  

Cool! Sinergia was also recommended a few years ago, right? Where can we find the details of previous recommended charities on your site these days? 

It's a pretty edgy time to suggest that not everybody need have a horse in the AI safety race, since the prevailing view seems to be that we all do, whether we know it or not. But I agree with you! It's just that there is so much money flowing into the space atm, that the incentive is to pivot from whatever you were doing before to '[what you were doing before] for AI safety.' Teachers for AI safety. Nurses for AI safety. Even horses for AI safety, wouldn't surprise me at this point. 

Context ought to be defined in terms of clear knowledge requirements. Things that can be documented, taught and assessed if needed. I expect much of what someone needs to know to do their job well could probably be learned in anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks of focused onboarding. 

If that's not true, and orgs really do need people with years of movement-specific experience, they should say so. Instead, there’s a huge ecosystem of career advice, fellowships, introductory programmes and recruitment campaigns encouraging outsiders to consider AI safety careers.

I think these programmes are creating expectations that the actual hiring market cannot satisfy. Better to leave it to the headhunters if you ask me, and re-allocate the funding behind those programmes to GHD. Hard to justify why another talent-sourcing agency for AI safety is needed, from a cost effectiveness standpoint, when there are still bednets need distributing. 

'Context' seems to be the latest iteration of 'culture fit' or 'mission alignment'. Another nebulous term that EA orgs use to explain why they keep reeling in hundreds, sometimes thousands, of applicants who basically don’t stand a chance.

The burden of proof should be on orgs invoking context as a hiring requirement, not on applicants to demonstrate possession of that indefinable, je ne sais quoi quality of context. 

Thank you! And sorry for delayed response. 

Thanks Yarrow, this is fascinating historical context. I wasn’t aware of those early MIRI predictions.

Thanks, I like your suggestion that 2027 and 2028 feeling less crazy than 2026 might be a useful signal, even if it’s not particularly scientific! I weakly predict 3 to be more or less what happens in terms of funding. 

Thanks Sergio! If the probability of catastrophe falls enough, I’d hope to see a change in how resources are allocated, rather than broadening the definition of AI safety to encompass everything else.