EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

My new book The Edge of Sentience: Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals, and AI is available online for free at https://academic.oup.com/book/57949. Please download it! Just click on PDF to get a PDF of the whole book. Individual chapters are also available as PDFs - just click on whichever chapters you want. The book is completely free to everyone and I'm grateful for all shares and forwards.

The print book will be released on 15 August in the UK and at some later time in the US, so please consider pre-ordering it. If you pre-order directly from the OUP website, you can get 30% off by using the code AAFLYG6. With the code, it's £21/$28 (and they can deliver to other countries, as I understand it).

Here is an abstract:

Can octopuses feel pain and pleasure? What about crabs, shrimps, insects, or spiders? How do we tell [...]

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

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First published:

August 6th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rLvCxitnYutgAR54v/the-edge-of-sentience-risk-and-precaution-in-humans-other

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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TLDR:

Brussels is a hotspot for AI policy and hosts several think tanks doing good work on AI safety. However, there is no established AI Safety group with paid staff that brings the community together or works on reaching out to students and professionals. For this reason, the European Network for AI Safety (ENAIS) and members from EA Belgium are teaming up to seed AI Safety Brussels.

This is a call for expressions of interest for potential collaborators to make this happen, with a wide range of ways to contribute, such as being a potential founder, policy/technical lead, volunteer, advisor, funder, etc. If you are interested in helping out in some capacity, please fill out this 2-minute form.

Potential priorities

I (Gergő) will caveat this by saying that the exact strategy (and name) of the organisation will be determined by the founding team and advisors. However, we think there [...]

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Outline:

(00:05) TLDR:

(00:53) Potential priorities

(01:13) Running courses for professionals

(02:23) Seeding university groups

(02:38) Organising events, meetups and connecting the community

(03:20) Who is working on this at the moment

(04:38) On risks

(05:27) Conclusion

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

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First published:

August 7th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EwdgPJfeieCxe4cxa/help-us-seed-ai-safety-brussels

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

1. Introduction

“Value fragility,” as I’ll construe it, is the claim that slightly-different value systems tend to lead in importantly-different directions when subject to extreme optimization. I think the idea of value fragility haunts the AI risk discourse in various ways – and in particular, that it informs a backdrop prior that adequately aligning a superintelligence requires an extremely precise and sophisticated kind of technical and ethical achievement. That is, the thought goes: if you get a superintelligence's values even slightly wrong, you’re screwed.

This post is a collection of loose and not-super-organized reflections on value fragility and its role in arguments for pessimism about AI risk. I start by trying to tease apart a number of different claims in the vicinity of value fragility. In particular:

• I distinguish between questions about value fragility and questions about how different agents would converge on the same values given adequate [...]

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Outline:

(00:04) 1. Introduction

(03:46) 2. Variants of value fragility

(03:57) 2.1 Some initial definitions

(09:02) 2.2 Are these claims true?

(11:23) 2.3 Value fragility in the real world

(11:59) 2.3.1 Will agent's optimize for their values on reflection, and does this matter?

(14:59) 2.3.2 Will agents optimize extremely/intensely, and does this matter?

(24:06) 2.4 Multipolar value fragility

(28:21) 2.4.1 Does multipolarity diffuse value fragility somehow?

(32:10) 3. What's the role of value fragility in the case for AI risk?

(35:43) 3.1 The value of what an AI does after taking over the world

(37:15) 3.2 Value fragility in the context of extremely-easy takeovers

(45:43) 3.3 Value fragility in cases where takeover isn’t extremely easy

(52:36) 4. The possible role of niceness and power-sharing in diffusing these dynamics

The original text contained 16 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

August 5th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fhkkScpkrLPNzsQqF/value-fragility-and-ai-takeover

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Our room for more funding is bigger and more urgent than ever before. Our organizational strategy will be responsive both to the total amount raised and to how many people donate, so smaller donors will have an especially high impact this year.

Good Ventures recently decided to phase out funding for several areas (GV blog, EA Forum post), including wild animal welfare. That's a pretty big shock to our movement. We don’t know what exactly the impact will be, except that it's complicated. The purpose of this post is to share what we know and how we’re thinking about things — primarily to encourage people to donate to Wild Animal Initiative this year, but also for anyone else who might be interested in the state of the wild animal welfare movement more broadly.

Summary

Track record

• Our primary goal is to support the growth of a [...]

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Outline:

(00:53) Summary

(03:44) What we’ve accomplished so far

(03:48) Background

(04:12) Strategy

(05:39) Progress

(11:56) Why we need more funding, especially from smaller donors

(12:02) We always have room to grow, but now we need to make sure we don’t shrink.

(13:11) We raised less last year than we did the year before.

(13:59) We’re losing our biggest donor.

(16:37) Another donor could make up the funds, but not the security.

(18:25) Smaller donors have a bigger role to play.

(20:04) What we’ll do with your donation

(24:15) Conclusion

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

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First published:

August 6th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/idhTjyNTsyxobijyJ/wild-animal-initiative-has-urgent-need-for-more-funding-and

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

We’re very excited to announce our EA conference schedule for the rest of this year and the first half of 2025. EA conferences will be taking place for the first time in Nigeria, Cape Town, Bengaluru, and Toronto, and returning to Berkeley, Sydney, and Singapore.

• EA Global: Boston 2024 applications are open, and close October 20.
• EAGxIndia will be returning this year in a new location: Bengaluru. See their full announcement here.
• EAGxAustralia has rebranded to EAGxAustralasia to represent the fact that many attendees will be from the wider region, especially New Zealand.
• We’re hiring the teams for both EAGxVirtual and EAGxSingapore. You can read more about the roles and how to apply here.
• EA Global will be returning to the same venues in the Bay Area and London in 2025.

Here are the full details:

EA Global

• EA Global: Boston 2024 | November 1–3 | Hynes Convention Center | applications close [...]

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Outline:

(01:10) EA Global

(01:35) EAGx

(02:58) Some notes on these conferences

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First published:

August 5th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/f8PuPGej6SJiGhki8/upcoming-ea-conferences-in-2024-and-2025

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Someone suggested I name this post "What We Owe The Community": I think it's a great title, but I didn't dare use it...

Views and mistakes my own.

What I believe

I think owning our EA affiliation—how we are inspired by the movement and the community—is net positive for the world and our careers. If more people were more outspoken about their alignment with EA principles and proximity to the EA community, we would all be better off. While there may be legitimate reasons for some individuals to not publicly identify as part of the EA movement, this can create a “free-rider problem”. If too many people choose to passively benefit from EA without openly supporting it, the overall movement and community may suffer from it.

Why I think more people should own their EA affiliation publicly

I understand why one doesn’t, but I’d probably not support it in [...]

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Outline:

(00:15) What I believe

(00:51) Why I think more people should own their EA affiliation publicly

(01:11) The risks

(01:40) A prisoner's dilemma

(02:22) Tipping points

(03:26) On transparency

(05:18) Where I come from

(05:22) Event branding

(06:01) Getting hired

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

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First published:

August 5th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TLKFfXJ4gPeXDkBC9/on-owning-our-ea-affiliation

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post.

I thought this was an interesting paper by Peter Salib and Simon Goldstein, and it reflects many of my thoughts about AI governance as well. Here's the abstract:

AI companies are racing to create artificial general intelligence, or “AGI.” If they succeed, the result will be human-level AI systems that can independently pursue high-level goals by formulating and executing long-term plans in the real world. Leading AI researchers agree that some of these systems will likely be “misaligned”—pursuing goals that humans do not desire. This goal mismatch will put misaligned AIs and humans into strategic competition with one another. As with present-day strategic competition between nations with incompatible goals, the result could be violent and catastrophic conflict. Existing legal institutions are unprepared for the AGI world. New foundations for AGI governance are needed, and the time to begin laying them is now, before the critical [...]

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First published:

August 3rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jqpp6wp2dqDD7XkY3/ai-rights-for-human-safety

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a famous Turkish poem by Nazım Hikmet. I just noticed its interesting overlap with some of the EA themes . Some here might find it motivating to read it. Translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk:

On Living

I
Living is no laughing matter:

you must live with great seriousness

like a squirrel, for example-

I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,

I mean living must be your whole occupation.

Living is no laughing matter:

you must take it seriously,

so much so and to such a degree

that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,

your back to the wall,

or else in a laboratory

in your white coat and safety glasses,

you can die for people-

even for people whose faces you've never seen,

even though nobody forced you to do so,

even though you know living

is the most [...]

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First published:

August 1st, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EAgtojzSgzaoYvybs/on-living

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This article was originally written for my LinkedIn audience, which includes individuals from varying levels of familiarity with Effective Altruism. The explanations and context are provided accordingly.

I am incredibly grateful to have received a scholarship that funded my university studies from a bachelor's to a Ph.D. The financial support I received not only eased my education but also made me reflect on how I could extend this privilege to others. Today, I am thrilled to share that I have reached my goal of donating the full amount of my scholarship's value to effective charities. Here's an overview of what inspired me, what lies ahead, and how you can get involved.

my dad and me on the first day of my master studies in Cambridge, UK

Why Give Back?

Recognising our own financial privilege can be eye-opening and humbling. Many of us enjoy a level of wealth that far exceeds [...]

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Outline:

(00:54) Why Give Back?

(01:50) Choosing Effective Charities

(02:20) My giving has impacted 50,000 lives

(02:45) Continuing My Journey

(03:34) How You Can Make a Difference

(04:43) Conclusion

(05:18) More about High Impact Professionals

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First published:

August 2nd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/F9ejHHg2sYKs4RCvC/turning-privilege-into-effective-donations

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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TL;DR

• FarmKind is a new effective giving platform dedicated to tackling factory farming
• We’ve just launched - www.farmkind.giving
• There are many ways you can help us if you’re interested - details below

FarmKind's aim

Factory farming is one of the most neglected cause areas relative to the amount of suffering it causes. Globally, Farmed Animal Funders estimates that just $200 million is channeled specifically to this issue,[1] while more than 10 billion land animals (excluding insects) are factory farmed annually in the US alone.[2]

Even when it comes to effective altruism, factory farming is a minority within a minority. We estimate that less than 10% of the funds raised by effective giving organizations go to factory farming.[3]

All this despite the fact that proven interventions in the lives of factory-farmed animals remain arguably some of the most cost-effective ways to prevent suffering that we have yet [...]

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Outline:

(00:08) TL;DR

(00:26) FarmKind's aim

(02:39) Our story so far

(03:29) DON’T donate though us (please)

(04:58) How you can help

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

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

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First published:

August 2nd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/D3Gqv9oiDkbmRgGJe/farmkind-a-new-animal-fundraising-platform-is-live-please

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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