Idea: Provide Keen EAGx'ers with Follow-Up Programming

By Chris Leong @ 2022-10-09T15:17 (+11)

Epistemic status: Haven't tested this myself^[1]

I always find myself much more engaged and motivated after an EA conference and I expect that most other people do too. So the time during and after conferences is one of the best times to try to get people signed up for programs, while they're still excited.

An Excessively Long List of Suggestions

Here's a list of possible programs that could be run after an EA conference. Obviously, trying to run everything below would be insane, but I thought it was better to list more ideas rather than less and I'm sure some of these ideas aren't actually good ideas:

• Post-Conference retreat- Possible variations:
  • For attendees new to a cause area
  • For attendees looking to make apply for jobs or grants in a cause area
  • For  people looking to start new projects
• EA In-depth program
• Cause-specific fellowship (ie. AGI Safety Fundamentals course)
• Accountability group
• Introductory Workshop - ie. 3 hour Introduction to AI Governance
• MOOC
• Sharing reflections/updates
• Project ideation workshop
• Hamming Circles
• Next-steps workshop - Discussing possible next steps and handling potential blockers
• Getting Started in X - Q&A or presentation - An activity designed to make it easier for people to shift their career path
• Automated email courses^[2]
• One-on-one advising calls
• Reading groups
• Nudge Competition^[3]
• Selecting a Cause Area Workshop - Helping people think through which cause area they want to focus on
• Email advice
• Office hours
• Support starting a local EA Group:
  • Workshop
  • Mentoring/advice
  • Form for registering interest
• Virtual Careers Fair^[4]
• Virtual unconference
• Forum post-writing workshop
• Follow-up networking day - Schelling point for post-conference one-on-ones
• Virtual topic meetup

In terms of figuring out which programs would be most important, I would suggest that the goal is to provide highly-talented people the opportunity to take their involvement in EA to the next level, so I'd try to understand the blockers of the most talented attendees.

I would also pay heavy attention to the amount of effort involved as people's time is valuable and the people organising such programming may be burnt out after EAGx as well.

One option would be to bundle up a bunch of activities into a mini-virtual conference so that they run one after another. This would make it less confusing than spreading a bunch of talks out.

Advertising:

• Attendees should receive an email a few days after the conference informing them of these opportunities. The email needs to be well-organised to prevent overload.
• Ideally, there would be a physical location at the conference with banners advertising the various programs. It would be great to have some volunteers telling people about the various programs and flyers included in the bag with the programme.

Scheduling:

Epistemic Status: The following suggestions are off the top of my head:

• Single discussion sessions would likely best be held within one or two weeks.
• I think it's important for people to have two weeks after a conference to sign up for longer programs^[5] as it gives people time to think about whether the program would be a good fit and people will often spend the week after recovering.
• I could imagine a fellowship starting 4-6 weeks after a conference, although I wouldn't start one in four weeks unless your ops were watertight
• Retreats would probably run 6-8 weeks after a conference.

Final thoughts

While running such programs could be a lot of work, some of the above programs would also be fairly easy and I'd love to see more discussion of the most effective kind of post-conference follow-up.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Justis for feedback.

1. ^{^}

   I am running a local version of the AGI safety fundamentals course in Australia and New Zealand, with the original idea being to offer this when people were still holding onto the burst of enthusiasm from EAGx Australia, but unfortunately, since I was only persuaded to pursue this after the conference, we missed this period by the time I was ready to run it.

2. ^{^}

   Like the 80,000 Hours In-depth career planning process

3. ^{^}

   I received a grant from the LTFF to organise the AI Safety Nudge competition with assistance from Marc-Everin. People can register a goal and they then go into a draw if they complete the task they specified.

4. ^{^}

   Even though this happens at the conference, I wouldn't be surprised if people were interested in attending one a month later.

5. ^{^}

   Retreats/fellowships