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Models

TagLast edit: Jun 29, 2021, 2:29 PM by Pablo

A model is a simplified representation of some aspect of the world, which can be more easily analyzed than the world itself. When assessing and assimilating evidence, it will often be necessary to construct models.

For instance, economists who are interested in predicting how people will behave often analyze models in which everyone acts perfectly in accordance with decision theory. Although the existence of cognitive biases means that no real people actually act this way, economists are able to make mathematically precise conclusions about these models in a way they could not about the actual world. They then argue that their models are similar enough to reality to be a useful way to structure thinking about the relevant aspect of the world.

See game theory and 80,000 Hours’ three-factor framework for two examples of models being used within the context of effective altruism.

Perhaps the main difficulty when building a model is dealing with uncertainty. First, in cases where there is substantial certainty about the relevant aspect of the world, it may be necessary to incorporate uncertainty into the model. Second, there may be [uncertainty about whether the model is appropriate, or whether it diverges too substantially from reality to be instructive.

Re­think Pri­ori­ties’ Cross-Cause Cost-Effec­tive­ness Model: In­tro­duc­tion and Overview

Derek ShillerNov 3, 2023, 12:26 PM
230 points
93 comments13 min readEA link

Ex­pected value and un­cer­tainty with­out full Monte Carlo simulations

Vasco Grilo🔸Jan 5, 2024, 8:57 AM
12 points
2 comments2 min readEA link

How bad would nu­clear win­ter caused by a US-Rus­sia nu­clear ex­change be?

Luisa_RodriguezJun 20, 2019, 1:48 AM
145 points
18 comments43 min readEA link

Cost-effec­tive­ness of re­stricted donations

Vasco Grilo🔸Feb 3, 2024, 9:36 AM
10 points
0 comments2 min readEA link

Ex­is­ten­tial Risk Model­ling with Con­tin­u­ous-Time Markov Chains

Radical Empath IsmamJan 23, 2023, 8:32 PM
87 points
9 comments12 min readEA link

What com­plex­ity sci­ence and simu­la­tion have to offer effec­tive altruism

Rory GreigJun 8, 2021, 9:50 AM
64 points
15 comments22 min readEA link

Model-Based Policy Anal­y­sis un­der Deep Uncertainty

UtilonMar 6, 2023, 2:24 PM
103 points
31 comments21 min readEA link

Si­mu­la­tion mod­els could help pre­pare for the next pandemic

Rory GreigOct 29, 2022, 2:10 PM
35 points
4 comments10 min readEA link

“The Race to the End of Hu­man­ity” – Struc­tural Uncer­tainty Anal­y­sis in AI Risk Models

FroolowMay 19, 2023, 12:03 PM
48 points
4 comments21 min readEA link

Strate­gic Direc­tions for a Digi­tal Con­scious­ness Model

Derek ShillerDec 10, 2024, 7:33 PM
41 points
1 comment12 min readEA link

Mak­ing bet­ter es­ti­mates with scarce information

Stan PinsentMar 22, 2023, 4:29 PM
60 points
16 comments13 min readEA link

How valuable is move­ment growth?

Owen Cotton-BarrattMay 14, 2015, 8:54 PM
61 points
21 comments2 min readEA link
(globalprioritiesproject.org)

Why Si­mu­la­tor AIs want to be Ac­tive In­fer­ence AIs

Jan_KulveitApr 11, 2023, 9:06 AM
22 points
0 comments8 min readEA link
(www.lesswrong.com)

Everett branches, in­ter-light cone trade and other alien mat­ters: Ap­pendix to “An ECL ex­plainer”

ChiFeb 24, 2024, 11:09 PM
26 points
1 comment11 min readEA link

Con­cave and con­vex altruism

finmApr 27, 2022, 10:36 PM
33 points
3 comments21 min readEA link

Solv­ing for the op­ti­mal work-life bal­ance with ge­o­met­ric rationality

Eric NeymanNov 28, 2022, 5:16 PM
18 points
2 comments1 min readEA link

How bad could a war get?

Stephen ClareNov 4, 2022, 9:25 AM
130 points
11 comments9 min readEA link

FIRE & EA: Seek­ing feed­back on “Fi-lan­thropy” Calculator

Rebecca HerbstJan 30, 2023, 8:20 PM
116 points
21 comments4 min readEA link

A Pre­limi­nary Model of Mis­sion-Cor­re­lated Investing

MichaelDickensApr 4, 2022, 6:50 PM
34 points
2 comments22 min readEA link

Ro­bust longterm comparisons

Toby_OrdMay 15, 2024, 3:07 PM
45 points
3 comments7 min readEA link

Meta-EA Needs Models

Mark XuApr 5, 2021, 9:59 PM
39 points
7 comments4 min readEA link
(markxu.com)

Niche vs. broad-ap­peal posts (& how this re­lates to use­ful­ness/​karma) (a sketch)

LizkaDec 17, 2022, 6:11 PM
34 points
1 comment2 min readEA link

A non-alarmist model of nu­clear winter

Stan PinsentJul 15, 2024, 10:00 AM
22 points
6 comments4 min readEA link

Fore­cast­ing the cost-effec­tive­ness of try­ing some­thing new

Falk LiederApr 3, 2023, 12:29 PM
46 points
2 comments5 min readEA link

We can do bet­ter than argmax

Jan_KulveitOct 10, 2022, 10:32 AM
113 points
36 comments10 min readEA link

Eth­i­cal Con­sumerism (Philip Tram­mell)

Global Priorities InstituteOct 16, 2024, 2:13 PM
37 points
0 comments5 min readEA link

Samotsvety Nu­clear Risk Fore­casts — March 2022

NunoSempereMar 10, 2022, 6:52 PM
155 points
54 comments6 min readEA link

[Question] Model­ing hu­man­ity’s ro­bust­ness to GCRs?

QubitSwarm99Jun 9, 2022, 5:20 PM
7 points
1 comment2 min readEA link

The Pug­wash Con­fer­ences and the Anti-Bal­lis­tic Mis­sile Treaty as a case study of Track II diplomacy

rani_martinSep 16, 2022, 10:42 AM
82 points
5 comments27 min readEA link

Disen­tan­gling “Im­prov­ing In­sti­tu­tional De­ci­sion-Mak­ing”

LizkaSep 13, 2021, 11:50 PM
96 points
16 comments19 min readEA link

Differ­en­tial Tech­nolog­i­cal Devel­op­ment: Some Early Thinking

Nick_BecksteadSep 29, 2015, 10:23 AM
4 points
0 comments9 min readEA link
(blog.givewell.org)

A Model of Hits-Based Giving

harsimonyMar 25, 2022, 5:09 AM
3 points
0 comments5 min readEA link
(harsimony.wordpress.com)

Ram­sey and In­ter­gen­er­a­tional Welfare Eco­nomics—Stan­ford En­cy­clo­pe­dia of Philosophy

Eevee🔹May 24, 2023, 12:27 AM
14 points
1 comment2 min readEA link
(plato.stanford.edu)

Re­duc­ing the neart­erm risk of hu­man ex­tinc­tion is not as­tro­nom­i­cally cost-effec­tive?

Vasco Grilo🔸Jun 9, 2024, 8:02 AM
20 points
37 comments8 min readEA link

High-risk high-re­ward philan­thropy: ap­ply­ing ven­ture cap­i­tal con­cepts to do­ing good

JamesÖzJul 4, 2022, 1:00 PM
23 points
2 comments9 min readEA link

To fund re­search, or not to fund re­search, that is the question

JackMApr 24, 2022, 6:46 PM
20 points
4 comments7 min readEA link

In­cor­po­rat­ing and vi­su­al­iz­ing un­cer­tainty in cost effec­tive­ness analy­ses: A walk­through us­ing GiveWell’s es­ti­mates for StrongMinds

Jamie ENov 7, 2023, 12:50 PM
70 points
6 comments16 min readEA link

A Crit­i­cal Re­view of Open Philan­thropy’s Bet On Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Reform

NunoSempereJun 16, 2022, 4:40 PM
302 points
97 comments26 min readEA link

[Question] Should Open Philan­thropy build de­tailed quan­ti­ta­tive mod­els which es­ti­mate global catas­trophic risk?

Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 10, 2024, 5:17 PM
11 points
4 comments1 min readEA link

My cur­rent best guess on how to ag­gre­gate forecasts

Jaime SevillaOct 6, 2021, 8:33 AM
39 points
19 comments3 min readEA link

Sav­ing lives in nor­mal times is bet­ter to im­prove the longterm fu­ture than do­ing so in catas­tro­phes?

Vasco Grilo🔸Apr 20, 2024, 8:37 AM
13 points
25 comments9 min readEA link

Co­op­er­at­ing with aliens and AGIs: An ECL explainer

ChiFeb 24, 2024, 10:58 PM
54 points
9 comments20 min readEA link

EA cause ar­eas are likely power-law dis­tributed too

StianMay 25, 2023, 8:25 PM
38 points
1 comment3 min readEA link
(stiangronlund.substack.com)

Spe­cial­iza­tion and Giv­ing to Charity

carter allen🔸May 27, 2023, 4:27 AM
9 points
3 comments2 min readEA link

Ad­vice for En­ter­ing AI Safety Research

stecasJun 2, 2023, 8:46 PM
14 points
1 comment1 min readEA link

My ten­ta­tive best guess on how EAs and Ra­tion­al­ists some­times turn crazy

HabrykaJun 21, 2023, 4:11 AM
160 points
39 comments1 min readEA link

Sce­nario plan­ning for AI x-risk

Corin KatzkeFeb 10, 2024, 12:07 AM
40 points
0 comments15 min readEA link
(www.convergenceanalysis.org)

Lo­ca­tion Model­ling for Post-Nu­clear Re­fuge Bunkers

Bleddyn MottersheadFeb 14, 2024, 7:09 AM
10 points
2 comments15 min readEA link

Some (prob­le­matic) aes­thet­ics of what con­sti­tutes good work in academia

Steven ByrnesMar 11, 2024, 5:47 PM
44 points
2 comments1 min readEA link

Carlo: un­cer­tainty anal­y­sis in Google Sheets

ProbabilityEnjoyerMar 18, 2024, 1:06 PM
42 points
0 comments1 min readEA link
(carlo.app)

Probly: a Python-like lan­guage for prob­a­bil­is­tic modelling

ProbabilityEnjoyerMar 18, 2024, 1:19 PM
13 points
1 comment1 min readEA link
(probly.dev)

Which coun­tries should be pri­ori­tised in pre­vent­ing the in­ten­sifi­ca­tion of fac­tory farm­ing in Sub Sa­haran Africa?

Aashish KMar 17, 2024, 5:52 PM
22 points
5 comments1 min readEA link
(docs.google.com)

[Question] How Often Does ¬Cor­re­la­tion ⇏ ¬Cau­sa­tion?

niplavApr 2, 2024, 6:19 PM
5 points
0 comments1 min readEA link

Quick look: ap­pli­ca­tions of chaos theory

ElizabethAug 19, 2024, 2:07 PM
16 points
3 comments1 min readEA link

Con­ta­gious Beliefs—Si­mu­lat­ing Poli­ti­cal Alignment

Non-zero-sum JamesOct 13, 2024, 1:38 AM
4 points
3 comments2 min readEA link
(nonzerosum.games)

My dis­agree­ments with “AGI ruin: A List of Lethal­ities”

SharmakeSep 15, 2024, 5:22 PM
16 points
2 comments1 min readEA link

Will a food car­bon tax lead to more an­i­mals be­ing slaugh­tered? A quan­ti­ta­tive model

Soemano ZeijlmansJan 3, 2025, 9:21 PM
152 points
7 comments9 min readEA link

Fore­cast­ing: the way I think about it

Molly HickmanMay 16, 2024, 7:01 PM
16 points
0 comments3 min readEA link

Sen­si­tive as­sump­tions in longter­mist modeling

Owen MurphySep 18, 2024, 1:39 AM
82 points
12 comments7 min readEA link
(ohmurphy.substack.com)

Crit­i­cal Re­view of Model­ling Strate­gies against Pandemics

Jérémy Andréoletti🔸Oct 7, 2024, 11:18 AM
33 points
3 comments37 min readEA link

Safety tax functions

Owen Cotton-BarrattOct 20, 2024, 2:13 PM
23 points
1 comment6 min readEA link
(strangecities.substack.com)

En­hanc­ing Math­e­mat­i­cal Model­ing with LLMs: Goals, Challenges, and Evaluations

Ozzie GooenOct 28, 2024, 9:37 PM
11 points
3 comments15 min readEA link

The Hu­mane League Needs Your Money More Than Alt Proteins, Probably

Bean And Barley MuncherJan 1, 2025, 4:04 AM
57 points
5 comments15 min readEA link

AI & wis­dom 2: growth and amor­tised optimisation

L Rudolf LOct 29, 2024, 1:37 PM
20 points
0 comments1 min readEA link
(rudolf.website)

Trendlines in AIxBio evals

ljustenOct 31, 2024, 12:09 AM
39 points
2 comments11 min readEA link
(www.lennijusten.com)

Are fish­ing and agri­cul­ture bad for an­i­mals?

StijnNov 7, 2024, 1:47 PM
16 points
2 comments6 min readEA link

Be less trust­ing of in­tu­itive ar­gu­ments about so­cial phe­nom­ena

Nathan_BarnardDec 18, 2022, 1:11 AM
43 points
20 comments4 min readEA link

Why we’re get­ting the Fidelity Model wrong

AlishaandomedaDec 17, 2022, 11:40 AM
46 points
3 comments7 min readEA link
(forum.effectivealtruism.org)

Poli­ti­cal Science Quan­ti­ta­tive Meth­ods and EA

Mahendra PrasadSep 16, 2022, 11:28 PM
12 points
1 comment4 min readEA link

Pan­demic Pre­pared­ness: Stake­hold­ers who in­fluence poli­ti­ci­ans in the UK

Alexandra MalikovaDec 8, 2022, 10:15 PM
19 points
2 comments14 min readEA link

[Question] Does EA have good mod­els of cur­rent global spend­ing on cli­mate change pre­ven­tion, miti­ga­tion, or adap­ta­tion?

Noah ScalesOct 4, 2022, 11:41 PM
3 points
1 comment1 min readEA link

Con­crete Ad­vice for Form­ing In­side Views on AI Safety

Neel NandaAug 17, 2022, 11:26 PM
58 points
4 comments10 min readEA link
(www.alignmentforum.org)

What makes money “Com­mit­ted” To EA? What makes an or­ga­ni­za­tion EA?

Charlie_GuthmannOct 4, 2022, 10:51 PM
8 points
0 comments1 min readEA link

Ex­is­ten­tial Risk and Eco­nomic Growth

leopoldSep 3, 2019, 1:23 PM
112 points
31 comments1 min readEA link

Lev­er­ag­ing fi­nance to in­crease re­silience to GCRs

PhilCFeb 17, 2022, 6:42 AM
24 points
9 comments11 min readEA link

Hyper­bolic Science: Or, Play­ing Games with Growth

Adam GreenAug 26, 2022, 2:41 AM
2 points
1 comment4 min readEA link
(markov.bio)

Five slightly more hard­core Squig­gle mod­els.

NunoSempereOct 10, 2022, 2:42 PM
33 points
0 comments7 min readEA link

AI Timelines: Where the Ar­gu­ments, and the “Ex­perts,” Stand

Holden KarnofskySep 7, 2021, 5:35 PM
88 points
3 comments11 min readEA link

[Question] Does EA have a model for sci­en­tific im­pact?

Jay BaileyApr 8, 2022, 1:34 AM
16 points
0 comments1 min readEA link

Part 1: The AI Safety com­mu­nity has four main work groups, Strat­egy, Gover­nance, Tech­ni­cal and Move­ment Building

PeterSlatteryNov 25, 2022, 3:45 AM
72 points
7 comments6 min readEA link

A model about the effect of to­tal ex­is­ten­tial risk on ca­reer choice

Jonas MossSep 10, 2022, 7:18 AM
12 points
4 comments2 min readEA link

On sincerity

Joe_CarlsmithDec 23, 2022, 5:14 PM
46 points
3 comments42 min readEA link

Im­pact mar­kets may in­cen­tivize pre­dictably net-nega­tive projects

OferJun 21, 2022, 1:00 PM
113 points
76 comments4 min readEA link

For­mal­is­ing the “Wash­ing Out Hy­poth­e­sis”

dwebbMar 25, 2021, 11:40 AM
101 points
27 comments12 min readEA link

Much EA value comes from be­ing a Schel­ling point

L Rudolf LSep 10, 2022, 7:26 AM
134 points
9 comments10 min readEA link
(www.strataoftheworld.com)

[Question] Is the game de­sign/​art maxim more gen­er­al­iz­able to crit­i­cism/​praise it­self?

SharmakeSep 22, 2022, 9:21 PM
8 points
3 comments1 min readEA link

How could we know that an AGI sys­tem will have good con­se­quences?

So8resNov 7, 2022, 10:42 PM
25 points
0 comments1 min readEA link

If ev­ery­one makes the same crit­i­cism, the op­po­site crit­i­cism is more likely to be true

MichaelDickensDec 17, 2022, 12:30 AM
45 points
12 comments2 min readEA link

“AI” is an indexical

TW123Jan 3, 2023, 10:00 PM
23 points
2 comments1 min readEA link

Went­worth and Larsen on buy­ing time

AkashJan 9, 2023, 9:31 PM
48 points
0 comments1 min readEA link

“My Model Of EA Burnout” (Lo­gan Strohl)

Will AldredFeb 3, 2023, 12:23 AM
100 points
2 comments6 min readEA link
(www.lesswrong.com)

Select Challenges with Crit­i­cism & Eval­u­a­tion Around EA

Ozzie GooenFeb 10, 2023, 11:36 PM
111 points
5 comments6 min readEA link
(quri.substack.com)

AI al­ign­ment re­searchers don’t (seem to) stack

So8resFeb 21, 2023, 12:48 AM
47 points
3 comments1 min readEA link

[Question] Math­e­mat­i­cal mod­els of Ethics

Victor-SBMar 8, 2023, 10:50 AM
6 points
1 comment1 min readEA link

Three camps in AI x-risk dis­cus­sions: My per­sonal very over­sim­plified overview

Aryeh EnglanderJun 30, 2023, 9:42 PM
15 points
10 comments4 min readEA link

Is schem­ing more likely in mod­els trained to have long-term goals? (Sec­tions 2.2.4.1-2.2.4.2 of “Schem­ing AIs”)

Joe_CarlsmithNov 30, 2023, 4:43 PM
6 points
1 comment1 min readEA link

Cor­rec­tion to “The Value of Money Go­ing to Differ­ent Groups”

BenjaminSMillerMar 28, 2023, 8:41 PM
33 points
2 comments2 min readEA link

The space of sys­tems and the space of maps

Jan_KulveitMar 22, 2023, 4:05 PM
12 points
0 comments5 min readEA link
(www.lesswrong.com)

An­nounc­ing Squig­gle Hub

Ozzie GooenAug 5, 2023, 12:55 AM
131 points
3 comments5 min readEA link

Le Tem­p­is­tiche delle IA: il di­bat­tito e il punto di vista degli “es­perti”

EA ItalyJan 17, 2023, 11:30 PM
1 point
0 comments11 min readEA link

My ver­sion of Si­mu­lacra Levels

kokotajlodApr 26, 2023, 7:06 PM
24 points
0 comments3 min readEA link
(www.lesswrong.com)

Ar­gu­ments for/​against schem­ing that fo­cus on the path SGD takes (Sec­tion 3 of “Schem­ing AIs”)

Joe_CarlsmithDec 5, 2023, 6:48 PM
7 points
1 comment1 min readEA link

Trust de­vel­ops grad­u­ally via mak­ing bids and set­ting boundaries

richard_ngoMay 19, 2023, 10:16 PM
25 points
0 comments1 min readEA link

Re­boot­ing AI Gover­nance: An AI-Driven Ap­proach to AI Governance

UtilonMay 20, 2023, 7:06 PM
38 points
4 comments30 min readEA link

[Link post] Michael Niel­sen’s “Notes on Ex­is­ten­tial Risk from Ar­tifi­cial Su­per­in­tel­li­gence”

Joel BeckerSep 19, 2023, 1:31 PM
38 points
1 comment6 min readEA link
(michaelnotebook.com)
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