I’ve been trying to write a persuasive essay about AI risk, but there are already a lot of those out there and I realize I should see if any of them are better before pushing mine. This also ties into a general interest in knowing to what degree persuasive essays really work and whether we can measure that.

So if you have time, I’d appreciate it if you did an experiment. You’ll be asked to read somebody’s essay explaining AI risk and answer some questions about it. Note that some of these essays might be long, but you don’t have to read the whole thing (whether it can hold your attention so that you don’t stop reading is part of what makes a persuasive essay good, so feel free to put it down if you feel like it).

Everyone is welcome to participate in this, especially people who don’t know anything about AI risk and especially especially people who think it’s stupid or don’t care about it.

I want to try doing this two different ways, so:

If your surname starts with A – M, try the first version of the experiment here at https://goo.gl/forms/8quRVmYNmDKAEsvS2

If your surname starts with N – Z, try the second version at https://goo.gl/forms/FznD6Bm51oP7rqB82

Thanks to anyone willing to put in the time.