I'm curious about how this is going and how many researchers have used it, now that it has been a few months since opening.
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AI Safety Serbia Hub - Office Space for (Frugal) AI Safety Researchers
(apologies for this being up without a description - Manifund glitch which was fixed now)
Project summary
TLDR: Office in city center of Belgrade, Serbia is offered to our NGO at a discounted price of 550 Euros for ~45m2. It is not lavish, but quite functional with three rooms (standing work, sit-down, and quiet room). We raised 2k from an individual funder, and I added another 2k to push us until December, but we are looking for funding for 2024. The maximum goal gets us to cover costs for 1y, minimum goal is for ~2 months. If you wish to support beyond that, we have a budget (~EUR40K/year), which would include paying a Project Manager 0.25 FTE to manage the office, and review the applications, as well as maintenance staff.
In-depth: The main benefits of the project come from Serbia’s visa policy, which is unique:
Visa-free 3 months per 6 months to Western countries (or holders of EU/US visa)
Unlimited (w/monthly border crossings ie, 25 EUR and 3 hours) for Chinese and Russian citizens
They have a hard time staying long in other countries.
It is also fairly easy/cheap (~500 Eur start+300 Eur/month tax) to get a residency permit/health insurance/social insurance (citizenship after 3-5 years, possibly with renouncing your passport).
This makes it a good gathering point for AIS researchers. As a founder of EA Serbia and ENAIS, I believe to have found a great venue:
Fairly central (20 minutes walk to City Square)
It fits 10-15 people (more in the coffee shop downstairs if need arises)
Activist landlords that agree with our mission
Newly Renovated and can be adjusted to our needs
What are this project's goals and how will you achieve them?
1) Provide an office where people can be close to EU/UK without having problems with Visas/pay as much in living costs.
2) Have the capacity in case of future geopolitical shifts to quickly scale up office (and possibly housing) to help AIS researchers fleeing their countries. (e.g., had this office existed in 2022, it could have been a Schelling point for Russian/Ukrainian researchers while they found more permanent solutions).
3) Having office space is prestigious, and in my current networking efforts within Serbia, saying that AIS Hub Serbia was a physical space and being able to offer it to Serbian researchers has been a boon.
4) Organizing smaller work retreats/gatherings in the office for cheap/free for small projects that benefit from frugal retreats.
5) Office doubles as meeting/working space for EA Serbia members while capacity is not full. This is a side goal and would be phased out if the office was at capacity.
How will this funding be used?
Funding raised here goes directly to rents and utilities and nothing else. Currently, the necessary labor of selecting people/maintaining the office/negotiate with landlords is done by me on a voluntary basis, and I am ok with it, although if the project grows much more, I will likely want to outsource that to a project manager. Still, I do not want to seek funding for that until I see that the venue is seeing more use.
Who is on your team and what's your track record on similar projects?
I am Dušan D. Nešić, (LinkedIn) founder of EA Serbia and ENAIS, Ops Lead at PIBBSS. I have built communities such as student councils and clubs, as well as professional organizations and academic gatherings for ~12 years, and since this project is fairly low-key, I think this is enough expertise for now. I would like to gather a board of trustees to decide on applicants, but the flow currently does not require such a level of governance, yet.
What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails? (premortem)
The only extreme failure scenario is one of geopolitical turmoil capturing Serbia while we have many guests visiting, but the combined probabilities of that are sufficiently low.
Office space not being used by tenants is the most probable failure, but as it is quite cheap, not too much has been lost. I believe the project is still worthwhile based on the value of having a flexible capacity to accept researchers from Russia/China/other countries outside of EU/US/UK. Additionally, even if not many tenants are present, Goal #3 is still achieved, and so far I have found it useful.
What other funding are you or your project getting?
We have gotten 2000 from an individual funder to get started, and I have put 2000 more for three months until January. I am not seeking other funding as the sum is too small for big funds, and I do not wish to strain their decision-making capacity with such a small project.
What if I want to come?
Please apply at this link! :)
donated $1,100
Austin Chen
11 months ago
And approving this project, as furthering our cause of fostering the EA community!
donated $1,100
Renan Araujo
11 months ago
I like the idea of having hubs in various places, especially when they're visa-friendly and geographically close to potentially unstable regions. Based on Austin's comment below, this project seems to have been valuable to at least two people I also respect (even though I didn't ask them directly), which seems like a good enough proof-of-concept for a small grant.
I'd be keen to hear more about:
1) Other people who use or have used it, and what they thought about the experience
2) How many people you expect to serve (based on e.g., trends in previous applicants, expansion plans etc)
🥦
Dusan D Nesic
11 months ago
Thanks @RenanAraujo! I do recommend asking Gavin and Misha to weigh in on the value of this, but I responded to Austin on what my best guess of the value is from the few talks we did.
1) We have not had that many guests - we finished setting up recently, and most people who signed up to come have signed up to come in 2024. I do think we may push ahead with something like "Prague Fall Season" but much much smaller in scale because of our smaller office and no funding, in order to get more people to come at the same time and enjoy the network benefits.
2) We hope to have ~5 people around all the time, and that seems basically sensible from the sign-ups so far, although probably starting from Spring.
donated $1,100
Austin Chen
12 months ago
Funding this to the minimum ask, as it seems like very good bang-for-the-buck and it seems like two people I respect (Gavin and Misha) have gotten value from this. I have lots of uncertainty about the value of starting new hubs vs consolidating in a few regions, but happy to put a bit of funding down towards a cheap experiment.
🥦
Dusan D Nesic
11 months ago
@Austin Thanks! I think the main value for them was a country to work from in which they can both be visa free while they recuperate their visa days for EU/wait for US visa. They also gave a great AIS talk and spoke about prediction markets which is still highly regarded talk by EA Serbia members, so some cross-benefits there. I am unsure how much they used the office as I do not work from there, and we were not fully set-up in October when they were here.
I generally agree - I would not like to have an abundance of hubs, compared to the benefit of having few. I would not start a hub in Serbia has it not been some interest and the offer of this extremely cheap office space. I think CEEALAR and Fixed Point both do important and good work, but they are in the UK and EU respectively and that is prohibitive for some people (hell, I need at least ~3 months to get a UK visa unless I pay ~250 pounds to speed up the process!)
donated $150
Robert Cousineau
12 months ago
Are you able to provide more information about the office space you are looking at, the expected monthly cost, if you have people you know would take you up on it, etc?
🥦
Dusan D Nesic
12 months ago
@RobertCousineau Hi Robert! In the post on LW you can see photos of the space. Cost is about 550 Eur per month with utilities (internet, electricity, water), although we would prefer having ~600 per month so that we can pay someone to clean the office weekly. The office has been used to comfortably work for ~6 people working at the same time without any problems, up to 14 could be done for meetings and such, perhaps not for quiet work. The quality of furniture and such is not up there with fancier workspaces, but is good considering it is the free furniture we inherited in the space - we would improve it if we overcome the funding limit, based on what people want to see here.
So far, we had a PIBBSS fellow come over, @gleech and @yagudin (hopefully tagged the right person :D ), all because they needed time to work near EU but be some time outside of it due to visa limitations for UK/Russian citizens. We have some people who want to come because medical care here is radically cheaper and they need it/don't have it in EU so they can keep working here while taking care of their health, and two MATS alumni want to work from Serbia in ~few months. We also have currently one and possibly more researchers from Russia who already live in Serbia who could use office space which they currently lack.
We have not done much active outreach until now as we were testing the space so this is the passive gathering of people, conceivably there would be more, and depending on geopolitics, there may be much more need in the future.
donated $150
Robert Cousineau
12 months ago
@DusanDNesic that lesswrong writeup is awesome. I've been wanting to set something like CEEALAR (or even just a co=working space like you have) in the US, but finding something that is near/in a major metro and is cheap enough I can fund it is very tough. Quite happy you are doing so in Belgrade!
That is a nice guest list!
Out of personal curiosity, I'd be interested in a write-up (quarterly?) of what is going on, but it seem like you are ahead of the game there so far :)