Ben_Harack

[Question] Is any­one in EA cur­rently look­ing at short-term famine alle­vi­a­tion as a pos­si­ble high-im­pact op­por­tu­nity this year?

COVID-19 Assess­ment Tool by the Hu­man Di­ag­no­sis Project

• Ben_Harack 20 Jan 2020 5:19 UTC

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  on: Growth and the case against ran­domista development

  Thanks for this piece, I thought it was interesting!

  A small error I noticed while reading through one of the references is that the line “For example, France’s GDP per capita is around 60% of US GDP per capita.[7]” is incorrectly summarizing the cited material. The value needs to be 67% to make this sentence correct. The relevant section in the underlying material is: “As an example, suppose we wish to compare living standards in France and the United States. GDP per person is markedly lower in France: France had a per capita GDP in 2005 of just 67 percent of the U.S. value. Consumption per person in France was even lower — only 60 percent of the U.S., even adding government consumption to private consumption.”

• Ben_Harack 3 Sep 2019 15:54 UTC

  6 points

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  on: Cause X Guide

  Recently, I’ve been part of a small team that is working on the risks posed by technologies that allow humans to steer asteroids (opening the possibility of deliberately striking the Earth). We presented some of these results in a poster at EA Global SF 2019.

  At the moment, we’re expanding this work into a paper. My current position is that this is an interesting and noteworthy technological risk that is (probably) strictly less dangerous/​powerful than AI, but working on it can be useful. My reasons include: mitigating a risk that is largely orthogonal to AI is still useful; succeeding at preemptive regulation of a technological risk would improve our ability to do it for more difficult cases (e.g., AI); and popularizing the X-risk concept effectively via a more concrete/​non-abstract manifestation than the more abstract risks from technologies like AI/​biotech (most people understand the prevailing theory of the extinction of the dinosaurs and can somewhat easily imagine such a disaster in the future).

• Ben_Harack 15 Nov 2019 17:01 UTC

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  on: Healthy Competition

  I believe that regional talent pools could also be another factor in favor of the multiple organization scenario. For example, something I think a lot about is how the USA could really use an institution like the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) in the long run. In addition to all of the points made in the original post, I think that such an institution would improve the overall health of the ecosystem of “FHI-like research” by drawing on a talent pool that is at least somewhat non-overlapping with that drawn upon by FHI.

  I think that the talent pools are at least somewhat distinct because a) crossing borders is often logistically challenging or impossible, depending on the scenario; and b) not all job candidates can relocate to the United Kingdom for a variety of personal reasons.

  If anyone is interested in discussing a “FHI-like institution in the USA” further, please get in touch with me either via direct message or via ben.harack at visionofearth.org.

• Ben_Harack 2 Oct 2019 16:49 UTC

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  in reply to: MichaelA’s comment on: Cause X Guide

  Thanks for taking a look at the arguments and taking the time to post a reply here! Since this topic is still pretty new, it benefits a lot from each new person taking a look at the arguments and data.

  I agree completely regarding information hazards. We’ve been thinking about these extensively over the last several months (and consulting with various people who are able to hold us to task about our position on them). In short, we chose every point on that poster with care. In some cases we’re talking about things that have been explored extensively by major public figures or sources, such as Carl Sagan or the RAND corporation. In other cases, we’re in new territory. We’ve definitely considered keeping our silence on both counts (also see https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​CoXauRRzWxtsjhsj6/​​terrorism-tylenol-and-dangerous-information if you haven’t seen it yet). As it stands, we believe that the arguments in the poster (and the information undergirding those points) is of pretty high value to the world today and would actually be more dangerous if it were publicized at a later date (e.g., when space technologies are already much more mature and there are many status quo space forces and space industries who will fight regulation of their capabilities).

  If you’re interested in the project itself, or in further discussions of these hazards/​opportunities, let me know!

  Regarding the “arms race” terminology concern, you may be referring to https://​​www.researchgate.net/​​publication/​​330280774_An_AI_Race_for_Strategic_Advantage_Rhetoric_and_Risks which I think is a worthy set of arguments to consider when weighing whether and how to speak on key subjects. I do think that a systematic case needs to be made in favor of particular kinds of speech, particularly around 1) constructively framing a challenge that humanity faces and 2) fostering the political will needed to show strategic restraint in the development and deployment of transformative technologies (e.g., though institutionalization in a global project). I think information hazards are an absolutely crucial part of this story, but they aren’t the entire story. With luck, I hope to contribute more thoughts along these lines in the coming months.

• Ben_Harack 30 Dec 2021 20:02 UTC

  3 points

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  on: In­tro­duc­ing High-Im­pact Medicine (Hi-Med)

  People interested in High Impact Medicine may also be interested in the Human Diagnosis Project (see http://​​humandx.org and the “Human Dx” app on the main app stores). The Project intends to solve the problem of medical diagnosis for all of humanity. Currently it allows physicians to train their skills and collaborate on answering thorny medical questions. Eventually it will hopefully provide significant diagnostic help (via both collaboration and decision support) for both medical workers everywhere as well as the broader public. The Project would benefit greatly from additional engaged physicians who are interested in helping people.
  
  Personal context: I work on the Engineering team at the Human Diagnosis Project.

• Ben_Harack 8 Aug 2021 0:07 UTC

  3 points

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  on: Im­pact Cer­tifi­cates on a Blockchain

  I’ll try to directly answer some of the questions raised.

  I’m generally interested in this project. If such a system existed, I’d probably issue certificates for research artifacts (papers, blog posts, software, datasets, etc.) and would advocate for the usage of impact certificates more broadly.

  If I were able to reliably buy arbitrary fractions of certificates on an open market, I’d probably do so somewhat often (every several weeks) in order to send signals of value. My personal expenditures would be very small (a few hundreds of dollars per year probably unless something significantly changes), but I’d also try to influence others to get involved similarly.

  As for concerns, I’m very uncertain about my position on the diverging concerns raised and argued by RyanCarey and gwern in this thread. As a creator, I can imagine wanting access to the entirety (or at least the majority) of the value of certificates attached to my work. As an observer of a market, I’d like for it to generally be open for speculation and revaluation, etc. Perhaps I’d be in favor of a system that splits the difference somehow, perhaps via smart contracts that enforce a split of resale royalties (most going to the creator, some going to the prior owner)?

  Relatedly, I’d love to see a workable /​ understandable /​ intuitive system for revaluation of a certificate as various parties end up owning various parts of it, bought at differing prices (if such a thing is possible). I can imagine myself wanting to send a signal that a cert should be valued more highly by buying a small fraction of it for higher than the going rate. I may also just be unfamiliar with pricing schemes for fractional ownership and prices like this.

• Ben_Harack 11 Aug 2021 13:41 UTC

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  in reply to: RowanBDonovan’s comment on: Im­pact Cer­tifi­cates on a Blockchain

  Interesting, thanks for the reply! Let me unpack what I’m thinking of when I say “if such a system existed”. Here are some things I’m imagining in such a scenario:

  Ideally, there is a market already (not just the potential for one, as that link indicates), or there is a clear plan and a number of EAs that I know the names of who have said that they will participate. I’m willing to be an early adopter, but I’m not in a position where I can vet the fundamentals of the project. For example, I’d like to see people who were involved in the prior attempts to do Certificates of Impact endorsing a plan. Similarly, I’d like to see analysis from a different and identifiable person who is an expert with crypto. I’m just conversant in crypto, and I find most of the writing here to be very somewhat inaccessible due to its length and complexity.

  The above is currently my main set of cruxes, but here are a few expanded thoughts on things I’d like to see:

  • What is the precise plan (not just a discussion of tradeoffs and technical possibilities).

    • Example: A blog post (or several) detailing exactly how the Certificates of Impact system works, how each type of individual can interact with it in all the expected ways, and what its constraints are. After reading such documentation, someone with close to zero crypto knowledge should be able to participate.

    • Nice to have: A community-vetted website or portal hosted on a reliable domain that simplifies the interactions in the market so all unneeded and removed complexity and terminology is hidden.

  • Public scrutiny of the system by identifiable crypto people in the community. At my level of knowledge, the only way that I can feasibly be relatively certain that the system would likely be sane is that I’ve seen it publicly scrutinized by people who are extremely skilled in this sort of thing.

  I realize that what I’m asking for is costly. From my perspective, these requirements seem to be pretty fundamental for us actually kickstarting a vibrant impact cert market.

  On the flip side, I think there’s a lot of potential for such a system, so I’d see this work as quite plausibly very high impact and thus hopefully a mini-cause around which folks can coordinate. Personally, I can try to rally support once a system exists (see above), but I’m not currently in a position to rally community leaders nor get crypto experts to scrutinize the plan.

• Ben_Harack 3 May 2018 17:27 UTC

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  in reply to: Sindy_Li’s comment on: Is the com­mu­nity short of soft­ware en­g­ineers af­ter all?

  Following up on this more than a year later, I can vouch for some but not all of these conclusions based on my experience at the high-impact organization I work for, the Human Diagnosis Project (www.humandx.org).

  We’ve found it very difficult to recruit high-quality value-aligned engineers despite the fact that none of the above items really apply to us.

  • Our software engineering team performs very challenging work all over the stack—including infrastructure, backend, and mobile.

  • Working here is probably great for career development (in part because we’re on the bleeding edge of numerous technologies and give our engineers exposure to many technologies).

  • We pay similar salaries to other early-stage startups in Silicon Valley (and New York).

  On problem I can identify right now is that I’ve attempted to recruit from the EA community a few times with very limited success. Perhaps I’ve gone about this via the wrong fora or have made other mistakes, but I’ve found that generally any candidates I did find were not good fits for the roles that we have to offer.

  This problem continues to this day. Given that we don’t have the issues identified above (to my knowledge), my best hypothesis right now is that we’re simply unable to reach the right people in the right way—and I’m not sure how to fix that. If anyone has any particular ideas on this front, I’d love to hear them.

  That said, if anyone wants to help us out, we’re still actively recruiting for a host of roles, including a lot of engineering positions. To learn more, take a look at https://​​www.humandx.org/​​team

• Ben_Harack 14 Dec 2022 12:57 UTC

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  in reply to: Satoshi’s comment on: [Cause Ex­plo­ra­tion Prizes] Fix the Money, Fix the world

  I appreciate the genuine engagement!

  To preface these comments, I actually do some professional work on crypto economics and I think that almost no one appreciates just how high the bar is for crypto to truly challenge traditional currencies. So my comments below should be taken in the context that I’d love to see a world where crypto can play a role in opening up particular kinds of economic opportunity that currently aren’t really possible, and I’m actively trying to build such a world—but I think there’s a very long way to go!

  ----

  L2 networks and such will certainly improve over prior crypto systems. I do still see a challenge of doing a “trustless” crypto exchange (i.e., massively non-centralized) without it being relatively costly/​slow compared to a credible centralized system. But I don’t see this as a major factor either way.

  Now think about the world adopting a single currency. It would remove so much friction that currently exists due to foreign exchange. This currency would necessarily have to be politically neutral, inclusive, permissionless and censorship resistant ;)

  See the impossible trinity for a sense of why this is unlikely to happen. Domestic policy autonomy is reeeeeealy important to countries. And crypto is not going to straight-up beat all the countries. States have too many advantages, so this isn’t even a contest.

  Any new emerging monetary asset would necessarily have massive volatility on its path to reaching full adoption. I don’t think this disqualifies bitcoin just yet.

  This is only for speculative assets. Note that credible centralized institutions issue value-stable things all the time (currencies, bonds, coupons, reward cards, etc.). This is a major problem for the crypto world, but trustworthy centralized institutions can (and do) regularly do this.

  I’d add that no credible stablecoin plan exists. National currencies can easily handle an economic downturn, even a prolonged one. All existing stablecoin plans will simply collapse if a sustained downturn is expected. (I’d love to see a plan that doesn’t fail in this way if one exists!)

  
  I think you may be confused about the potential lessons offered by the de-pegging of gold. The de-pegging was caused by a political (and economic) need for an expansionary monetary system, but the supply of gold could not increase. This meant that the relative value of dollars vs gold was decreasing, so it became insane to keep the peg, since those who hold dollars (like foreign governments) could just get all the gold. (And this was happening before the depegging.) So when the peg is released, of course the dollar devalues! That was the point of the de-pegging. That was the direction of the pressure that caused the de-pegging in the first place. This isn’t evidence that gold is somehow more “valuable” because it isn’t being used as much as a currency. It’s a correction that happened because gold wasn’t fit for purpose as a global currency.

  The Venezuelan example is a straw man. Instead, I challenge you to convince me of why I should trust the stable true-real-world-value of any crypto token that currently exists anywhere near as much as I trust the USD, Euro, Yen, GBP, or CAD (to name just a few).

  The currency’s value is based on trust but also because institutional commitments and designs can be more or less trustworthy. Independent central banks in the West are pretty trustworthy. Their design, political independence, and history of action are pretty impressive. This is an extremely high bar to beat. I think most pro-crypto people don’t realize just how high this bar is.

  Bitcoin’s fixed supply doesn’t address the speculation problem I raised. In fact, it is the cause of it. With limited supply and no way to control inflation/​deflation, bitcoin will absolutely cycle up and down in value in a purely speculative way. It isn’t even as anchored in value as gold; you can’t use bitcoins to make jewelry or electronics for example. Bitcoin is not a reliable store of value for precisely this reason. If I put X euro into USD and X euro into bitcoin, which one do you think will be closer in value to what I put in when I check back in on it a few years later (or even seconds later)? This is what being a “reliable store of value” means. Traditional currencies are better at this than bitcoin and stablecoins.

• Ben_Harack 17 Jun 2022 9:28 UTC

  1 point

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  on: The longter­mist AI gov­er­nance land­scape: a ba­sic overview

  Convergence also does a lot of work on the strategic level.

• Ben_Harack 10 Mar 2022 20:27 UTC

  1 point

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  on: The Fu­ture Fund’s Pro­ject Ideas Competition

  Sad that I missed this! Only saw this the day after it closed.

• Ben_Harack 9 Mar 2022 15:33 UTC

  1 point

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  on: Towards an EA Gover­nance?

  I agree that there’s a lot to like about this vision. Some of my own work aims in this direction (see Ruling Ourselves if you’re interested). Tractability is a major concern however. Major changes like these may very well be possible, but it’s very difficult to demonstrate (huge burden of proof) that particular actions can create a world like this. To develop these ideas further, I suggest taking the part of this vision that excites you most (perhaps part that seems more important and tractable than the rest) and really dig deep for a while. It is really useful to understand why a particular governance system has ended up in the equilibrium that it’s in. This kind of insight can enable effective work.

• Ben_Harack 25 Apr 2020 18:58 UTC

  1 point

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  on: COVID-19 Assess­ment Tool by the Hu­man Di­ag­no­sis Project

  An update here: This COVID-19 forward triage tool now also allows anyone to get a doctor to look at their particular case for an extremely low fee ($12 USD—though free service is currently available if needed).

• Ben_Harack 30 Aug 2019 17:50 UTC

  1 point

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  on: Progress book recommendations

  Under “Decision-making and Forecasting” I would add these two:

  Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

  Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

  (Though Factfulness also touches on numerous other categories in the list.)

• Ben_Harack 7 Sep 2022 13:47 UTC

  −1 points

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  on: [Cause Ex­plo­ra­tion Prizes] Fix the Money, Fix the world

  My impression is that cryptocurrencies face some major challenges in achieving some of the basic functions of money. For example, check out Bitcoin – The Promise and Limits of Private Innovation in Monetary and Payment Systems by Beer and Weber. They argue (persuasively in my opinion) that traditional currencies have three functions that cryptocurrencies would have significant challenges in achieving, replicating, or challenging:

  1. unit of account

  2. means of payment

  3. store of value

  Based on the Beer and Weber paper, here’s my brief expansion of these problems as they relate to Bitcoin:

  • Having prices in one currency is more efficient than having them in many. Thus, having just one currency (e.g., a national currency) is more efficient than having multiple. Also, having just one currency facilitates trade. Bitcoin in particular struggles to achieve this because a) it introduces a separate unit of account, b) is has no single and identified issuer, and c) its quantity is fixed.

  • If prices in the cryptocurrency change dramatically and unpredictably compared to standard currencies, then measuring prices in the cryptocurrency don’t make sense. It’s hard to imagine this asymmetry being overcome entirely unless a single cryptocurrency became so widespread and dominant that it achieved more stability than reserve currencies.

  • Since there is no institution guaranteeing that the currency will be a reliable store of value, the currency is not a reliable store of value. Bitcoin in particular is a speculative asset.

  See also the Impossible Trinity in international political economy to get a sense of yet another problem that cryptocurrencies do not yet have a solution for.
  
  I have not yet seen solutions to these problems and there appear to be good reasons to believe that a system similar to Bitcoin cannot solve them. Future cryptocurrencies may put a serious dent in these problems, but I remain skeptical of their near-term (within a few decades) potential to “fix money”.