Very cool! I’m an epidemiologist, but I’ve long had the sense that most of the questions I find most interesting and relevant are actually OR! Your biosecurity list really resonated, many real-world problems reduce to where to position assets.
I have some concrete problems that I’d love to discuss, will reach out!
For convenience: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xFsmibHafAu8APgiS/request-for-proposals-help-open-philanthropy-quantify
(Deadline has passed, but it seems likely to be an ongoing need.)
Here’s a scenario:
Bob runs an emergency response organization, which needs cash to scale up when an emergency hits (to hire surge staff, ramp up response operations, etc etc). Bob want to use prediction markets as a hedge, but appropriate disaster markets don’t always exist plus it’s hard to place high-payoff bets without tying up all his assets in the interim.
Does HedgEverything make Bob happy?
Co-location during the crisis could make sense, depends on the crisis.
One cool idea would be embedding a physical EOC into refuges, and calling reservists in once some crisis threshold was crossed.
Just thinking out loud, natural triggers in the longtermist biosecurity space (where I’m by far most familiar) would be:
a disease event or other early warning signal from public health surveillance
new science & tech development in virology/biotech/etc
shifts in international relations or norms relevant to state bioweapons programs
indications that a non-state group was pursuing existentially risky bio capabilities
… anything else?
Y’all are fully complementary I think. From Linch’s proposal:
So the appropriate structure of an elite Forecasting Center might be to pair it up with a elite crisis response unit, possibly in a network/constellation model such that most people are very part-time before urgent crises, such that the additional foresight is guaranteed to be acted on, rather than tossing the forecasts to the rest of the movement (whether decisionmakers or community members) to be acted on later.
No one’s quite sure exactly what the WHO’s Pandemic Intelligence Hub is going to, like y’know, actually do… but it existing is probably a marginal boost in favour of Berlin for Biosecurity EAs.
Would mostly apply to bunkers too!
To some degree these already exists (eg here’s a description of Canada’s system), but I’m certain they could be drastically expanded, standardized, synthesized, and otherwise improved.
My company seeks to predict or rapidly recognize health security catastrophes, and also requires an influx of capital when such an event occurs (since we wind up with loads of new consulting opportunities to help respond).
Is there currently any way for us to incentivize thick markets on topics that are correlated with our business? The idea of getting the information plus the hedge is super appealing!
My understanding is the Erasmus Programme was explicitly started in part to reduce the chance of conflict between European states.
EA Micro Schools
Effective Altruism
We would be excited to fund projects that make it easier to start up an EA-aligned, accredited private school.
As EA matures, there will be more and more parents. Kids of self-identified EAs are likely to be smart and neurodivergent, and may struggle with the default schooling system. They’re also likely to grow into future adult EAs. Remote work options will free up location choice, and there could be major community-building gains if parents can easily find their ideal school in an EA hub.
Variation: develop an EA stream or instance of an existing private school with a strong model, like Acton Academy.
Add-on: for natural epidemics, there are a number of “event-based surveillance systems” that monitor news, social media, and other sources for weak signals of potential emergencies. WHO, PAHO, and many national governments run such systems, and there are a few private ones (one of which I run).
One could set up such a system focussing exclusively on the regions immediately surrounding high containment labs.
There are only ~60 BSL-4 labs, so you could conceivably monitor each of these regions quite closely without an impossibly large team.
Direct monitoring would be much better, but this might be a useful adjunct.
Quick start kit for new EA orgs
EA ops
Stipe atlas for longtermist orgs. Rather than figuring out the best tools, registrations, and practices for every new org, figure out the best default options and provide an easy interface to start up faster.
Suggestion—start with a focus on eradicating Aedes mosquitoes (aegypti, albopictus, and maybe japonicus) from the Western hemisphere.
These species are invasive/non-native to the Americas (so “ecological risks” arguments against are more tenuous), cause a tremendous burden of illness (Zika, Dengue, Yellow Fever, Chikungunya, …), and have been subject to previous eradication efforts (so there’s precedent).
There isn’t particularly a “biorisk/GCBR” angle to this problem, but such projects being executed by a team that was very biosecurity-aware seems wise since effective tools would include some theoretically dual-use biotech.
Projects could include a mix of advocacy, strategic research, tool development, and execution.
It’s going to be a tough sell. The scientists involved are saturated with cultural norms and deep beliefs that more information is always better, and academic and funding incentives are aligned with that understanding.
I don’t know that the “open data movement” is, like, radically influencing the beliefs of scientists involved in this kind of work, but rather they’re both products of the same (mostly great) culture of openness.
I think the actual long-term solution is to influence trainees and help them rise to positions of influence. In the meantime we need to mitigating risks from these projects in ways that don’t depend on changing hearts and minds of the senior scientists most highly invested in their continuation.
Hope it isn’t too on the nose, but that was my thinking behind this project proposal.
I’m a former emerging/zoonotic disease epidemiologist, EcoHealth Alliance fellow, generally was all-in on DEEP VZN/PREDICT pandemic prediction type work for the better part of a decade, turned biosecurity-pilled apostate. AMA!
Oh that is good to know, I think that significantly reduces reputation risk to EA vs it being completely publicly accessible.
Monitoring and advocacy to make Zoonotic Risk Prediction projects safer
Biorisk and recovery from catastrophe
Following COVID-19, a great deal of funding is becoming available for “Zoonotic Risk Prediction” projects, which intend to broadly sample wildlife pathogens, map their evolutionary space for pandemic potential, and publish rank-ordered lists of the riskiest pathogens. Such work is of dubious biodefence value, presents a direct risk of accidental release in the field and lab, and the resulting information is a clear biosecurity infohazard.
We would be excited to fund projects to collect, monitor, and report on the activities of these projects. ZRP projects have multiple components- field sampling, computational modelling, and lab characterization—each of which carry distinct risks and leaves an information trail. Monitoring and reporting on open source information associated with ZRP projects could disincentivize the riskiest aspects of this work, target resources for event surveillance and early warning of accidental release, and provide material for advocacy efforts.
There is some overlap with portions of the BWC project, but I think this is best tackled as a separate body of work/by a different team (due to radically different OPSEC, deception, and scrutiny profiles). I’ve thought about this a fair bit and am happy to discuss offline.
I am! Would love to discuss, will DM you!