I have claimed that the first few hundred million dollars of preparation for agricultural and electricity disrupting GCRs is competitive with AGI safety for the longterm, and preparation for agricultural GCRs is more cost effective than GiveWell interventions. Since these catastrophes could happen right away, I think it does make sense to scale up quickly to $100 million per year to get the preparation fast. Beyond research, this money could be used for piloting new technologies and developing response plans and training. To maintain $100 million per year may then be lower cost effectiveness than AGI safety at the expected margin, but would still provide additional value and may be competitive with other priorities. Projects could include subsidizing resilient food sources such as seaweed, cellulosic sugar, methane single cell protein, etc. Or building factories flexibly such that they could switch quickly from producing animal feed or energy to human food. These could easily be many billions of dollars per year.
I have claimed that the first few hundred million dollars of preparation for agricultural and electricity disrupting GCRs is competitive with AGI safety for the longterm, and preparation for agricultural GCRs is more cost effective than GiveWell interventions. Since these catastrophes could happen right away, I think it does make sense to scale up quickly to $100 million per year to get the preparation fast. Beyond research, this money could be used for piloting new technologies and developing response plans and training. To maintain $100 million per year may then be lower cost effectiveness than AGI safety at the expected margin, but would still provide additional value and may be competitive with other priorities. Projects could include subsidizing resilient food sources such as seaweed, cellulosic sugar, methane single cell protein, etc. Or building factories flexibly such that they could switch quickly from producing animal feed or energy to human food. These could easily be many billions of dollars per year.