EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

[Note: I (the primary author) am writing this entirely in a personal capacity. Funding for the bounty and donations mentioned in this post comes entirely from personal savings and the generosity of friends and family. Colleagues at Open Philanthropy (my employer) reviewed this post at my request, but this project is completely unaffiliated with Open Philanthropy.]

In 2023, GiveWell reported that it received over $250M from more than 30,000 donors, excluding Open Philanthropy. I expect (though haven’t confirmed) that at least $50M of this came from unmatched retail donations, meaning from individuals who don’t work at a company that offers a donation match. I can’t help but hope that there may be some way to offer these donors a source of matching funds that wouldn’t otherwise go toward charitable causes.

Over the last couple of years, friends and I have spent >100 hours looking into potential legal, collaborative [...]

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Outline:

(02:35) Criteria for bounty eligibility

(06:37) How to get in touch about this opportunity

(06:53) Key caveats:

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GiveWell recently published a cost-effectiveness analysis on contraception: Valuing Contraception in GiveWell's Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | GiveWell.

At MSI Reproductive Choices, we welcome GiveWell's cost-effectiveness analysis on contraception in low and middle-income countries. The findings affirm what we’ve long seen: access to contraception transforms lives – not just for individuals, but for entire families and communities – unlocking better health, greater autonomy, and expanded economic opportunities for women and girls.

With nearly five decades of experience and over 220 million people served globally, MSI has witnessed this impact firsthand. Our rich data, drawn from over 15,000 client exit interviews in 2024 alone (215,000 over past decade), shows that 98% of clients report a positive impact of contraception their lives – in health, education, family wellbeing, and more.

We also appreciated the opportunity to collaborate with GiveWell and Rethink Priorities in reviewing our Impact 2 model. While our approaches differ in [...]

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Crossposted from my blog:

1 Reasons to care

(Please share this article so that more people read it and give to these extremely high-impact organizations. It takes roughly two seconds to restack an article, and has some chance of helping thousands or millions of animals).

"I say!" murmured Horton.

"I've never heard tell

Of a small speck of dust that is able to yell.

So you know what I think? . . . Why, I think that there must

Be someone on top of that small speck of dust!

Some sort of a creature of very small size,

Too small to be seen by an elephant's eyes.

some poor little person who's shaking with fear

That he'll blow in the pool! He has no way to steer!

I'll just have to save him.

Because, after all,

A person's a person, no matter how small."

—Horton Hears A Who

[...]

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Outline:

(00:12) 1 Reasons to care

(05:25) 2 What to do

(06:24) 2.1 Shrimp Welfare Project

(08:23) 2.2 Insect Welfare Research Society

(09:16) 2.3 Rethink Priorities

(09:57) 2.4 Aquatic Life Institute

(10:36) 2.5 Givewell (my suggestion, not ACE's)

(11:59) 2.6 Samayu

(12:51) 2.7 Undercover Fish Collective (formerly $camon $cotland)

(13:48) 3 Conclusion

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It was a cold and cloudy San Francisco Sunday. My wife and I were having lunch with friends at a Korean cafe.

My phone buzzed with a text. It said my mom was in the hospital.

I called to find out more. She had a fever, some pain, and had fainted. The situation was serious, but stable.

Monday was a normal day. No news was good news, right?

Tuesday she had seizures.

Wednesday she was in the ICU. I caught the first flight to Tampa.

Thursday she rested comfortably.

Friday she was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis, a rare condition that affects about 3,000 people in the US annually. The doctors had known it was a possibility, so she was already receiving treatment.

We stayed by her side through the weekend. My dad spent every night with her. We made plans for all the fun things we would when she [...]

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Last week I published a 30-minute documentary about SB-1047 I had been working on since September.

Here's what I learned.

Story of the bill

1. The bill had to go through many committees before passing the California Senate and Assembly, eventually reaching the Governor's desk.
2. Most people started paying attention in May-September 2024, but the story of the bill starts in September 2023, when Senator Scott Wiener published an intent bill to gather support (co-sponsors), before publishing SB-1047 in February 2024. He actually had conversations about AI Safety as early as March 2023.

AI Labs & Covered Models

1. AI Labs Opposed or Supported the Bill for Non-Obvious Reasons
   1. Anthropic was stuck between Amazon & employees
      1. Safety-conscious employees wanted to support the bill
      2. Amazon was concerned about the KYC requirements in the bill
      3. Anthropic's support therefore ended up somewhat in the middle, to please both parties
   2. [...]

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Outline:

(00:23) Story of the bill

(01:07) AI Labs & Covered Models

(02:46) The Opposition

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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I started working in tech at 24, coasted for the last 4 years of my full-time career, and achieved financial independence (FI) at 46. Here are the basics everyone should know to optimize their finances. The money you save by making wise choices will bolster your financial security and increase the amount you can contribute to effective causes.

[I am American. I’ll try to be as general as possible, but some advice might not apply to other countries. All disclaimers apply.]

I’m writing this because anyone can achieve early FI if they are smart and consistent with their finances. And that freedom will allow more people to work on things the world needs without compensation constraints.

Passive income is the ultimate goal

—therefore—

Start investing now; be smart and consistent

Like the adage about “the best time to plant a tree”,

Start now, invest a portion (10–20%) [...]

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Outline:

(01:07) Passive income is the ultimate goal

(01:11) --therefore--

(01:14) Start investing now; be smart and consistent

(01:41) Invest in Low-Cost Index Funds

(03:18) Max out your employer retirement match

(03:36) Max out pre-tax retirement investing

(04:00) Turn on automatic reinvestment

(04:17) Dollar Cost Averaging reduces volatility

(04:37) Set a beneficiary on all of your investment accounts

(04:46) 25× what you spend each year invested = retirement

(05:25) Paying off debt is usually the best way to invest

(05:49) Never carry credit card debt

(06:10) Other recommendations

(07:45) Further reading

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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Epistemic status: thing people have told me that seems right. Also primarily relevant to US audiences. Also I am speaking in my personal capacity and not representing any employer, present or past.

Sometimes, I talk to people who work in the AI governance space. One thing that multiple people have told me, which I found surprising, is that there is apparently a real problem where people accidentally rule themselves out of AI policy positions by making political donations of small amounts—in particular, under $10.

My understanding is that in the United States, donations to political candidates are a matter of public record, and that if you donate to candidates of one party, this might look bad if you want to gain a government position when another party is in charge. Therefore, donating approximately $3 can significantly damage your career, while not helping your preferred candidate all that [...]

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• Broiler welfare and cage-free reforms change the amount of feed needed to produce a given quantity of chicken meat or eggs. So they affect feed production, and therefore result in land use change. The density and welfare conditions of wild animals vary by type of land, so chicken welfare reforms influence wild animal welfare.
• I estimate broiler welfare (cage-free) reforms increase or decrease the welfare of wild arthropods 47.7 (4.66) times as much as they increase the welfare of broilers (hens). Nonetheless, the effects on arthropods can be anything from negligible to much larger. I estimate uncertainty in arthropods’ welfare range alone means broiler welfare reforms increase or decrease their welfare 0 to 1.74 k times as much as they increase the welfare of broilers, and cage-free reforms increase or decrease their welfare 0 to 170 times as much as they increase the welfare of hens (5th to 95th [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) Summary

(03:31) Effects of cage-free reforms

(03:36) Overview

(04:07) Broiler welfare reforms

(09:52) Cage-free reforms

(14:34) Comparisons

(16:59) Discussion

(17:02) Effects on arthropods

(24:53) My recommendations

(32:23) Acknowledgements

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Note: During my final review of this post I came across a whole slew of posts on LessWrong and this forum from several years ago saying many of the same things. While much of this may be rehashing existing arguments, I think the fact that it's still not part of the general discussions means it's worth bringing up again. Full list of similar articles at the end of the post, and I'm always interested in major things I'm getting wrong or key sources I'm missing.

After a 12-week course on AI Safety, I can't shake a nagging thought: there's an obvious (though not easy) solution to the existential risks of AGI.

It's treated as axiomatic in certain circles that Artificial General Intelligence is coming. Discussions focus on when, how disruptive it'll be, and whether we can align it. The default stance is either "We'll [...]

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Outline:

(00:14) en-US-AvaMultilingualNeural__ Cartoon figure and small robot contemplating What if we just didnt build AGI?

(03:25) 1. Why The Relentless Drive Towards The Precipice?

(07:23) 2. Surveying The Utopian Blueprints (And Noticing The Cracks)

(09:44) 3. Why AGI Might Be Bad (Abridged Edition)

(14:23) 4. Existence Proofs For Restraint: Sometimes, We Can Just Say No

(18:46) 5. So, Whats The Alternative Path?

(27:19) 6. Addressing The Inevitable Objections

(30:35) 7. Conclusion: Choosing Not To Roll The Dice

(34:08) The Problem of Aligned To Whom?

(36:25) The Target is Moving

(41:57) Why Do People Want AGI?

(47:21) Solving Alignment is a Category Mistake

(53:23) Prior Examples of Coordinated Tech Avoidance

(57:04) So What Can We Do?

(01:04:47) Brainstorm & Ideation

(01:04:50) Potential Topics

(01:07:02) Topic Scoring

(01:07:22) Selected Concept

(01:07:30) Audience & Goals

(01:07:33) Target Audience

(01:07:45) Audience Benefit

(01:07:59) Format & Outline

(01:08:01) Deliverable Format

(01:08:08) Initial Outline/Storyboard

(01:08:32) Sources/Thoughts

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Linkpost URL:
https://natezsharpe.substack.com/p/what-if-we-justdidnt-build-agi

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