We ended up deprioritizing this perhaps 2 years ago—I can’t remember the precise reason, but it was something alone the lines of being concerned with tractability and suspecting that the estimates would probably fall, potentially even by a couple of magnitudes, especially given how sensitive they are to even small methodological changes.
Right now, CEARCH thinks that food security policies to mitigate nuclear & volcanic winter (i.e. ALLFED-style work but with more of a policy bent) is more promising; particularly more common-sense asks related to trade, crop relocation, redistribution (rather than technology-focused asks).
As a matter of fact, early this year we finished evaluating project proposals from ALLFED and some other GCR policy organizations for food security/​nuclear winter projects, and have been recommending grants to some of our GCR-inclined donor partners. Unfortunately, there’s been no concrete interest so far, and we’ve not been able to move any money in this area, compared to GHD (where we’ve funded or advised the funding of stuff in nutrition policy and mental health). All things considered, nuclear is definitely more neglected within EA compared to AI and bio.
Hope this is helpful, and thanks for the new tags!
Hi Vasco,
We ended up deprioritizing this perhaps 2 years ago—I can’t remember the precise reason, but it was something alone the lines of being concerned with tractability and suspecting that the estimates would probably fall, potentially even by a couple of magnitudes, especially given how sensitive they are to even small methodological changes.
Right now, CEARCH thinks that food security policies to mitigate nuclear & volcanic winter (i.e. ALLFED-style work but with more of a policy bent) is more promising; particularly more common-sense asks related to trade, crop relocation, redistribution (rather than technology-focused asks).
As a matter of fact, early this year we finished evaluating project proposals from ALLFED and some other GCR policy organizations for food security/​nuclear winter projects, and have been recommending grants to some of our GCR-inclined donor partners. Unfortunately, there’s been no concrete interest so far, and we’ve not been able to move any money in this area, compared to GHD (where we’ve funded or advised the funding of stuff in nutrition policy and mental health). All things considered, nuclear is definitely more neglected within EA compared to AI and bio.
Hope this is helpful, and thanks for the new tags!
Joel
Thanks for the context, Joel!