We are excited to release the Global Priorities Institute’s new research agendas.
GPI’s previous agenda integrated discussion of research priorities in both economics and philosophy. In contrast, we now have distinct agendas for each of our three core research areas: philosophy, economics, and psychology.
The new philosophy agenda has four sections. Section 1 covers ethical questions relating to the long-term future. Section 2 discusses issues in the philosophy of mind and wellbeing, with a special focus on nonhuman candidates for moral status (like non-human animals and digital minds). Section 3 discusses work exploring the risks and opportunities posed by advanced artificial intelligence. And Section 4 discusses broad questions about ethical prioritisation, engaging with issues that cut across the first three sections.
The new economics agenda has two main components. Section 1 centres on general or methodological issues in global prioritisation. This includes empirical and theoretical questions about e.g. cost-effectiveness, forecasting, and optimal philanthropy, as well as related normative questions related to welfare criteria and decision procedures. Section 2 centres on applied issues where further research in economics may be particularly impactful such as the economics of growth, population, inequality, governance and policy, catastrophic risks, and artificial intelligence.
The new research agenda for psychology and behavioral science outlines key priorities for GPI’s psychology team and the broader field. It emphasizes the role of beliefs, judgments, and decisions in addressing global challenges. Critical decisions about advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, pandemic preparedness, or nuclear conflict, as well as policies shaping safety, leadership, and long-term wellbeing, depend on human psychology.
The agendas reflect a diverse range of topics, and we hope that they prompt further work in these areas. Interested researchers are invited to get in touch for potential collaboration.
I am surprised by this. Ultimately, almost all of these decisions primarily happen in social and institutional contexts where most of the variance in outcomes is, arguably, not the result of individual psychology but of differences in institutional structures, culture, politics, economics, etc.
E.g. if one wanted to understand the context of these decisions better (which I think is critical!) shouldn’t this primarily motivate a social science research agenda focused on questions such as, for example, “how do get decisions about advanced technologies made?”, “what are the best leverage points?” etc.
Put somewhat differently, insofar as it a key insight of the social sciences (including economics) that societal outcomes cannot be reduced to individual-level psychology because they emerge from the (strategic) interaction and complex dynamics of billions of actors, I am surprised about this focus, at least insofar as the motivation is better understanding collective decision-making and actions taken in key GCR-areas.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment—I agree that social and institutional contexts are important for understanding these decisions. My research is rooted in social psychology, so it inherently considers these contexts. And I think individual-level factors like values, beliefs, and judgments are still essential, as they shape how people interact with institutions, respond to cultural norms, and make collective decisions. But of course, this is only one angle to study such issues.
For example, in the context of global catastrophic risks, my work explores how psychological factors intersect with the collective and institutions. Here are two examples:
Crying wolf: Warning about societal risks can be reputationally risky
Does One Person Make a Difference? The Many-One Bias in Judgments of Prosocial Action
I think we are relatively close and at the risk of misunderstanding.
I am not saying psychology isn’t part of this and that this work isn’t extremely valuable, I am a big fan of what you and Stefan are doing.
I would just say it is a fairly small part of the question of collective decision making / societal outcomes, e.g. if one wanted to start a program on understanding decision making in key GCR areas better then what I would expect in the next sentence would be something like “we are assembling a team of historians, political scientists, economists, social psychologists, etc.” not “here is a research agenda focused on psychology and behavioral science.” Maybe psychology and behavioral science were 5-20% of such an effort.
The reason I react strongly here is because I think EA has a tendency to underappreciate social sciences outside economics and we do so at our own peril, e.g. it seems likely that having more people trained in policy and social sciences would have avoided the blindspot of being late on AI governance, for example.
Happy to see progress on these.
One worry that I have about them, is that they (at least the forecasting part of the economics one, and the psychology one) seem very focused on various adjustments to human judgement. In contrast, I think a much more urgent and tractable question is how to improve the judgement and epistemics of AI systems.
I’ve written a bit more here.
AI epistemics seems like an important area to me both because it helps with AI safety, and because I expect that it’s likely to be the main epistemic enhancement we’ll get in the next 20 years or so.
I’d be very curious to know who’s working or considering working on questions mentioned in 1.2.1 Cluelessness, Unawareness, and Deep Uncertainty and/or 4.2.1 Severe Uncertainty, in case anyone reading this happens to be able to enlighten me. :)
Thanks for the post. Nice to see an up-to-date version of GPI’s research agenda!