This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. ACX has an unofficial subreddit, Discord, and bulletin board, and in-person meetups around the world. Most content is free, some is subscriber only; you can subscribe here. Also:
1: We’re still looking for EA college meetup organizers. Matt says his highest priority colleges that don’t have an organizer yet are MIT, Claremont, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon, Amherst, Notre Dame, Duke, CalTech, Georgetown, UCLA, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Harvard, NYU, Williams, GWU, American University, Rutgers, and UNC Chapel Hill. If you’re at one of these schools, read the post and decide whether you’re up for organizing.
2: ACX’s Boston meetup group has finished their voting guide for the Greater Boston primary election (early voting in August, election day on September 1). I’m still excited about signal-boosting voting guides from meetup groups in big cities.
3: Jacob Trefethen is looking to hire grantmakers for the OpenAI Foundation, and says the roles “may be a good fit for Substackers or Substack lurkers”. He writes:
Here are a few of the program roles:
Head of Econ Lab, to lead a team figuring out the economics of transformative AI
Program Director, Formal Methods, to support verifiable defense systems as cybersecurity dynamics change
Program Officer/Director on High-Burden Diseases, helping channel R&D to fight the diseases most plaguing humanity
Program Officer/Director on Catalytic Deployment, figuring out how best to apply AI in the social sector
…and more than a dozen others. Please share with friends who you think may be interested! […] Salary ranges are posted on the job descriptions.
I think these getting the best people in these positions would be good even if you otherwise oppose OpenAI or AI in general; if you disagree with me about this, send me an email arguing why and maybe I’ll avoid boosting the next one.
4: Guess I’m advertising MATS again! They say:
MATS is a research fellowship for people who want to get into AI alignment, interpretability, security, and governance. Winter 2027 runs Jan. 19 to Apr. 10 (12 weeks), primarily in Berkeley or London. Fully funded: $6,400/month stipend, $8,000/month compute budget, housing, meals, and travel covered. Fellows work with mentors from Anthropic, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Redwood Research, AI Futures Project, and more. Tracks include Empirical, Theory, Strategy & Forecasting, Systems Security, Policy & Governance, Biosecurity, and Founding & Field-Building. Applications close September 6, apply here.
5: Guess I’m advertising Inkhaven again! This is a learn-to-blog bootcamp at rationalist conference venue Lighthaven. Nov 10 → Dec 11, $3500, I’ll be teaching a short session and occasionally giving people advice on drafts. Official site here, anecdote by former attendee here, data from former attendees below: