EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

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Summary: I critique the view that the role of quantitative tools in practical decision-making must be "all or nothing".

On the critiqued view, either you’re committed to blindly following a simple algorithm come what may (a la naive instrumentalism), or you dismiss “soulless number-crunching” as entirely irrelevant to ethics. I think both options are bad, and moral agents should instead use good judgment informed by quantitative considerations. Getting this balance right is crucial to the project of effective altruism.

Introduction

A general theme of my writing is that people are often too quick to “read off” practical differences from theoretical ones. A classic example: whereas pluralistic views tend to leave unspecified the relative weights of their varied moral reasons, utilitarian reasons have precise weights (in theory), determinately fixing what ought to be done in any given situation. But people often infer from this that we [...]

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Outline:

(00:38) Introduction

(01:59) The ‘All or Nothing’ Assumption

(04:18) Don’t Blindly Trust Numbers

(06:54) Don’t Blindly Trust Formalisms

(08:06) Don’t Blindly Dismiss All Numbers

(10:54) Fallacies to Watch Out For

The original text contained 8 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

September 23rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JuGhpwTJxbeGt5GhH/good-judgment-with-numbers

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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This WaPo piece announces the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future (PLF), a collaboration led by Open Philanthropy, USAID, and UNICEF. It was co-authored by Alexander Berger (Open Phil's CEO) and Samantha Power, head of USAID.

Ten years ago, when residents of Flint, Mich., were exposed to toxic levels of lead in their drinking water, 1 in 20 children in the city had elevated blood lead levels that placed them at risk for heart disease, strokes, cognitive deficits and developmental delays — health effects that residents still grapple with to this day. It was only after activists rallied, organized and advocated relentlessly that national attention focused on Flint, and officials committed nearly half a billion dollars to clean up Flint's water.

Today, there is a lead poisoning crisis raging on a far greater scale — and hardly anyone is talking about it.

[...]

The partnership will [...]

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First published:

September 23rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/soeJ4XNnLoyWpiFsK/we-can-protect-millions-of-kids-from-a-global-killer-without

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One of Open Philanthropy's goals for this year is to experiment with collaborating with other funders. Today, we’re excited to announce our biggest collaboration to date: the Lead Exposure Action Fund (LEAF).

Lead exposure in low- and middle-income countries is a devastating but highly neglected issue. The Global Burden of Disease study estimates 1.5 million deaths per year attributable to lead poisoning. Despite this burden, lead poisoning has only received roughly $15 million per year in philanthropic funding until recently. That is less than 1% of the funding that goes towards diseases like tuberculosis or malaria, which are themselves considered neglected. The goal of LEAF is to accelerate progress toward a world free of lead exposure by making grants to support measurement, mitigation, and mainstreaming awareness of the problem.

Our partners have already committed $104 million, and we plan for LEAF to allocate that [...]

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Outline:

(01:54) Why we chose to work on lead

(04:54) What LEAF hopes to achieve

(05:30) The LEAF team

(06:01) An experiment for Open Philanthropy

(06:49) Grantmaking so far

The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

September 23rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/z5PvTSa54pdxxw72W/announcing-the-lead-exposure-action-fund

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post.

We (Flo & Rudolf) spent a month fleshing out the idea of an insurance-for-AI company. We talked to 15 people in the insurance industry, and did 20 customer interviews. We decided not to continue, but we think it's still a very promising idea and that maybe someone else should do this. This post describes our findings.

The idea

Theory of change

To reduce AI risks, it would be good if we understood risks well, and if some organisation existed that could incentivise the use of safer AI practices. An insurance company that sells insurance policies for AI use cases has a financial incentive to understand concrete AI risks & harms well, because this feeds into its pricing. This company would also be incentivised to encourage companies to adopt safer AI practices, and could incentivise this by offering lower premiums in return. Like many cyber-insurance companies [...]

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Outline:

(00:30) The idea

(00:33) Theory of change

(01:13) Concrete path

(04:56) How insurance works

(05:00) Why insurance

(07:28) Capital efficiency in insurance comes from scale

(09:19) The insurance industry is complicated and allows for startups

(11:17) General liability exceptions are key for new insurance products

(12:08) Our ideas for pricing risk

(15:42) Notes on professional indemnity insurance for law

(17:37) Relevant Stakeholders

(18:02) Findings

(18:05) Customer demand

(19:44) Findings about insurance

(22:50) Cruxes

(24:20) Alternative approaches

(24:24) Labs / Big Tech as reinsurers

(28:11) Selling a risk model rather than an insurance policy

(29:51) Should AI evaluation / auditing orgs do this?

(30:05) Acknowledgements

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First published:

September 21st, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sNCegtuZaHe9BNRdW/investigating-an-insurance-for-ai-startup

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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October 7-13th will be Animal Welfare vs Global Health Debate Week. We will be discussing the debate statement “It would be better to spend an extra $100m on animal welfare than on global health”.

As in our last debate week, you will be able to take part by:

• Writing posts with the debate week tag (tag TBD- I'll link it here when it is up).
• Voting on the debate banner.
• Using our dialogue feature to co-write a discussion with someone you substantively disagree with. 

This time, we are adding a feature so that you can explain your vote on the banner, and respond to other people's explanations on a post (explained below).

If you’d like to improve the quality of the debate, you can also:

• Comment any links you think should be added to the reading list in this post.
• Reach out to friends who might have [...]

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Outline:

(01:04) Debate week features

(02:15) Why this debate?

(03:33) Crucial considerations

(04:26) Reading list

(04:48) Useful tools

(05:06) FAQs

(05:09) Why $100m?

(05:46) Is this $100m this year? Or over ten years?

(06:07) What is in scope for the debate?

(07:15) Do I have to pretend to be a near-termist for this debate?

(08:02) What should a debate week post look like?

(08:40) Let me know your thoughts

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

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First published:

September 23rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9ad4C4YknLM5fGG4v/announcing-animal-welfare-vs-global-health-debate-week

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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This is a link post.

I was encouraged to post this here, but I don't yet have enough EA forum karma to crosspost directly!

Epistemic status: these are my own opinions on AI risk communication, based primarily on my own instincts on the subject and discussions with people less involved with rationality than myself. Communication is highly subjective and I have not rigorously A/B tested messaging. I am even less confident in the quality of my responses than in the correctness of my critique.

If they turn out to be true, these thoughts can probably be applied to all sorts of communication beyond AI risk.

Lots of work has gone into trying to explain AI risk to laypersons. Overall, I think it's been great, but there's a particular trap that I've seen people fall into a few times. I'd summarize it as simplifying and shortening the text of an argument [...]

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Outline:

(01:22) Failure to Adapt Concepts

(03:48) Failure to Filter Information

(05:17) Failure to Sound Like a Human Being

(07:30) Summary

The original text contained 4 images which were described by AI.

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First published:

September 19th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ukE5ZxDGmFyCev9Lb/the-best-argument-is-not-a-simple-english-yud-essay

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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The head of the Church of England is the second most influential Christian alive today. [1] The current Archbishop, Justin Welby, is speaking at the EA-adjacent Christians for Impact conference with Rory Stewart about faith and poverty.

What should we ask Archbishop Justin in the Q&A?

Feel free to submit anonymous thoughts here.

1. ^

   Source: ChatGPT

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

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

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First published:

September 18th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KqAXYZ34rtD4jmh5r/what-would-you-ask-the-archbishop-of-canterbury

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This post is mostly about our key learnings, impact made and future plans

Thanks to my team for their help in both creating this post and unwavering commitment to driving forward AAC's ambitious plans for animals, in particular Ana Barreiro, Nayan and Engin for their contributions and feedback on this post.

TL;DR:

• For five years, Animal Advocacy Careers (AAC) has tried to direct passionate professionals towards high-impact opportunities that have the potential to help animals the most. 
• We've filled 105 roles in leading animal advocacy organisations, supported over 150 organisations with recruitment, and launched 3 core programs our online course, job board, and career advising service. At the same time, we built a community of 27,500+ supporters across social media, Slack, and email. Our efforts also led to 12 🔶10% Pledges and 11 🔷Trial Pledges at Giving What We Can. We cautiously estimate adding $2.5 million worth of counterfactual impact [...]

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Outline:

(02:19) Overview

(02:45) Background

(04:41) Lessons learned

(04:53) The talent gap is a major bottleneck but has its own natural ceiling and limitations.

(08:58) Measuring meta organisations impact is hard and often flawed, leaving you with long-lasting uncertainty.

(12:04) Focusing too much on lean programmes and not the user

(14:14) Hiring well is really hard, and still neglected

(16:51) The importance of talent density in a small team

(19:37) The Importance of Targeted Channels and Personas

(22:30) The importance of building a funnel

(24:16) Our work over 5 years

(24:20) Outcomes and impacts

(26:42) Organisational size

(27:04) Future Plans

(30:48) Funding Needs

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

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First published:

September 19th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bC4MmaRQ6ybXKvqav/five-years-of-animal-advocacy-careers-our-journey-to-impact

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We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve the lives of millions of chickens raised for food in the UK. 

In October 2024 The Humane League UK (THL UK) will be heading to the High Court to challenge the legality of fast-growing breeds of chicken - Frankenchickens.

We need to raise £55k to fund the hearing.

The Jeremy Coller Foundation has pledged to match funding half of the costs up to £28k. We need to raise a further £12.5k to maximise the match funding pot and fully fund the hearing.

Please contact me directly should you wish to donate and fight for 1 billion chickens.

Supporters holding ‘Justice for Chickens’ and ‘End Frankenchickens’ placards outside the High Court

Frankenchickens

‘Frankenchickens’ are selectively bred to grow unnaturally big and fast to maximise profits. They are destined to suffer extremely short and painful lives, suffer heart attacks, are often [...]

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Outline:

(00:06) We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve the lives of millions of chickens raised for food in the UK.

(00:58) Frankenchickens

(01:41) THL UKs three-year legal battle

(02:50) The fight continues

(03:55) Our chances of success

(05:25) How you can help us win

(07:08) To make a donation

(07:27) The Humane League UK

(08:27) Our vision is that by 2050, weve stopped the worst and most widespread abuse of animals raised for food, and they’re treated with far greater compassion.

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First published:

September 18th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oGpeGHh35bHsT8XgA/match-funding-opportunity-to-challenge-the-legality-of

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This is a link post.

Disclaimer: I am a computational physicist's and this investigation is outside of my immediate area of expertise. Feel free to peruse the experiments and take everything I say with appropriate levels of skepticism.

Introduction:

The centre for AI safety is a prominent AI safety research group doing technical AI research as well as regulatory activism. It's headed by Dan Hendrycks, who has a PHD in computer science from Berkeley and some notable contributions to AI research.

Last week CAIS released a blog post, entitled “superhuman automated forecasting”, announcing a forecasting bot developed by a team including Hendrycks, along with a technical report and a website “five thirty nine”, where users can try out the bot for themselves. The blog post makes several grandiose claims, claiming to rebut Nate silvers claims that superhuman forecasting is 15-20 years away, and that:

Our bot performs better than experienced [...]

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First published:

September 18th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/266keE3kHpCYDeDaT/is-superhuman-ai-forecasting-bs-some-experiments-on-the-539

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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