EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

Why would we, immersed in the quantification of animal welfare, engage in a discussion that seems more ivory-towered academic than practical for improving the lives of billions of animals? As it turns out, access to information plays a pivotal role in our ability to gather data and metrics that directly impact animal welfare.

We are now witnessing a third revolution in information access—the first being the advent of scientific publishing, and the second, the rise of the internet. This current revolution is driven by astonishing advances in Large Language Models (LLMs), a branch of AI that can process vast amounts of information in seconds—tasks that previously required weeks of painstaking effort, even with internet assistance. However, for LLMs to perform effectively, they need direct access to scientific studies. Here is where the legacy system of paywalled publishing becomes a serious barrier, requiring a revisit of its shortcomings.

The Case [...]

---

Outline:

(01:07) The Case Against Paywalls

(02:12) A Barrier to Training LLMs

(03:37) The Need for Action

(05:18) The Broader Implications

---

First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This isn’t a typical EA topic, but we aren’t in a typical period. Over the next few years the United States of America could be in danger of slipping away from its traditional liberal democracy and towards a more authoritarian form of government, in ways that could be long lasting in more negative scenarios.

I am curious if anyone in the EA community has any insightful thoughts on what are the best actions we can take to avert the worst case scenarios.

If the system of checks and balances in the U.S. government were to degrade, I think it would be a major negative for a lot of the other issues EAs care about.

If anyone has read anything they have found to be particularly useful, I would be interested in those recommendations as well.

I am even considering allocating a portion of my annual [...]

---

First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I recently wrote an article making the case for giving to shrimp welfare. Lots of people were convinced to give (enough to help around half a billion shrimp avoid a painful death), but because the idea sounds silly, many people on Twitter, hacker news, and various other places made fun of it, usually with very lame objections, mostly just pointing and sputtering. Here, I’ll explain why all the objections are wrong.

(Note: if any of the people making fun of shrimp welfare want to have a debate about it, shoot me a dm.)

Before I get to this, let me clarify: this is not satire. While shrimp welfare sounds weird, there's nothing implausible about the notion that spending a dollar making sure that tens of thousands of conscious beings don’t experience a slow and agonizing death is good. If shrimp looked cute and cuddly, like puppies, no one [...]

The original text contained 2 images which were described by AI.

---

First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Summary

• Nigeria's official population (~220-230 million) may be significantly inflated and could be closer to 170 million
• This overcount is likely driven by political and financial incentives for states
• I'm unsure of the implications if this is accurate
  • If states have uniformly inflated populations than the distribution of resources could still be divided evenly
  • Nigeria would still be the biggest country in Africa and companies/governments/NGOs would have similar cost benefit analysis for working and investing there
• This is a very shallow investigation

Why did I bother looking into this?

The below text sparked an investigation into Nigeria's population claims. It was slightly hidden in the 4th section in one of Yaw's excellent Substack posts.

Yaw went onto explain his reasoning for thinking the population was much lower than current estimates.

Nigeria is a large country with no deep shared history among the different tribes. Due [...]

---

Outline:

(00:04) Summary

(00:49) Why did I bother looking into this?

(03:20) Other Sources

(09:55) Potential Data Sources

(10:05) National Identification Numbers

(11:46) Tech usage

(12:15) Sim Cards

(14:37) UN Population Estimates and Projections

(18:13) Incentives for not caring

(19:08) International Organisations

(19:42) Private Sector

(20:07) Implications

(20:25) International Standing

(20:45) GDP

(21:04) Development Indicators

(21:34) Domestic Politics

(21:53) International Aid

(22:10) Future Research

(22:15) Nigeria

(23:27) Other Countries

The original text contained 9 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

The original text contained 2 images which were described by AI.

---

First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Hey everyone, I’m the producer of The 80,000 Hours Podcast, and a few years ago I interviewed AJ Jacobs on his writing, and experiments, and EA. And I said that my guess was that the best approach to making a high-impact TV show was something like: You make Mad Men — same level of writing, directing, and acting — but instead of Madison Avenue in the 1950-70s, it's an Open Phil-like org.

So during COVID I wrote a pilot and series outline for a show called Bequest, and I ended up with something like that (in that the characters start an Open Phil-like org by the middle of the season, in a world where EA doesn't exist yet), combined with something like: Breaking Bad, but instead of raising money for his family, Walter White is earning to give. (That's not especially close to the story, and not claiming it's [...]

---

First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Note: This post was crossposted from Planned Obsolescence by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.

This blogpost was written in a personal capacity and statements here do not necessarily reflect the views of any of my employer.

OpenAI says o1-preview can't meaningfully help novices make chemical and biological weapons. Their test results don’t clearly establish this.

Before launching o1-preview last month, OpenAI conducted various tests to see if its new model could help make Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) weapons. They report that o1-preview (unlike GPT-4o and older models) was significantly more useful than Google for helping trained experts plan out a CBRN attack. This caused the company to raise its CBRN risk level to “medium” when GPT-4o (released only a month earlier) had been at “low.”[1]

Of course, this doesn't tell us if o1-preview [...]

---

Outline:

(04:14) ProtocolQA

(04:58) Does o1-preview clearly fail this test?

(06:08) Gryphon Biorisk Tacit Knowledge and Troubleshooting

(08:57) Cloning Scenarios

(13:41) What should we make of all this?

The original text contained 36 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

The original text contained 8 images which were described by AI.

---

First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

TL;DR

In late summer 2023, I realized my mental health was the biggest barrier to achieving my goals. Over the next six months, I made it a priority, working with a therapist on CBT, adjusting medication timing, and developing healthier habits (like meditating and wellness routines). This resulted in a noticeable improvement in my clarity, productivity, and overall well-being, which positively impacted my work and leadership.

This post is part of an effort to post more :)

Background and Context

• Late summer 2023: During a performance review, I realized my mental health was my biggest barrier to growth.
  • I had been diagnosed with depression years earlier and medication helped significantly, but I was still having breakthrough symptoms.
  • It was preventing me from achieving ambitious goals and handling important work decisions (like what my team should prioritize in the following quarter)
  • I made improving mental health a top [...]

---

Outline:

(00:03) TL;DR

(00:40) Background and Context

(01:38) Nuance and Disclaimer

(02:21) Some ways progress has affected my work

(03:33) What Made a Difference (in my rough guess at level of influence)

(03:44) Therapy (with the right therapist)

(05:22) Changing the time of taking medication

(05:56) Meditation and Habit Tracking

(07:13) 80k podcasts on mental health

(07:33) Physical Routines

(07:37) Exercise

(08:09) Sleep:

(08:40) Final Thoughts

---

First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

5th Dec, Online. (5pm to 9pm GMT): Come along to hear from our charities and about our latest programs and updates.

​It's been a big year for Ambitious Impact (AIM) formerly Charity Entrepreneurship.

We

• Rebranded (driven by expansion into new programs)
• launched 12 new charities and 4 effective giving organizations
• Trained ~25 researchers through our research training program
• Supported 14 foundations through AIM Grantmaking
• Launched 2 new funding circles
• ... and designed our newest program, Founding to Give, set to run in January. 

​Alongside all of that, our 40+ charities have been delivering programs that meaningfully save and improve the lives of millions of humans and a billion animals, with many evaluated to be 10-60x as cost-effective as the benchmarks in their fields.

We’d like to celebrate and showcase our organizations and connect people like you to impactful opportunities in our community [...]

The original text contained 1 image which was described by AI.

---

First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Applications will be evaluated on a rolling basis. All applications must be submitted by 30th November, 2024.

Chief Operations Officer

The COO will lead and optimize the operational infrastructure that supports our growth. The COO will be leading the scale up of our hospital based programs from 3 hospitals (46 people) to 15 hospitals (over 200 people) across Rajasthan within one year and lead expansion to multiple other states. This person will work closely with the Founder & CEO to shape strategy, ensure compliance, manage organisational operations, and lead a large, HR-intensive team to deliver life saving interventions to vulnerable babies through India's complex public health system.

In addition to delivering and strengthening Ansh's overall organizational operations and strategy, the COO will gradually oversee more domains, such as HR, compliance, finance, accounting, funder reporting, and program operational improvement, while also playing a key role in shaping our [...]

---

First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is the full text of a post from "The Obsolete Newsletter," a Substack that I write about the intersection of capitalism, geopolitics, and artificial intelligence. I’m a freelance journalist and the author of a forthcoming book called Obsolete: Power, Profit, and the Race for Machine Superintelligence. Consider subscribing to stay up to date with my work.

An influential congressional commission is calling for a militarized race to build superintelligent AI based on threadbare evidence

The US-China AI rivalry is entering a dangerous new phase.

Earlier today, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) released its annual report, with the following as its top recommendation:

Congress establish and fund a Manhattan Project-like program dedicated to racing to and acquiring an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) capability. AGI is generally defined as systems that are as good as or better than human capabilities across [...]

---

Outline:

(00:30) An influential congressional commission is calling for a militarized race to build superintelligent AI based on threadbare evidence

(03:11) What China has said about AI

(06:17) Revealing technical errors

(08:32) Conclusion

The original text contained 1 image which was described by AI.

---

First published:

Source:

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.