Cullen_OKeefe

• Cullen_OKeefe 14 Jan 2021 4:00 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Denkenberger’s comment on: EA and the Pos­si­ble De­cline of the US: Very Rough Thoughts

  Thanks David! I guess I was implicitly thinking of scenarios where the decline of the US was not caused by a GCR, since such cases would already qualify for EA prioritization. But agree that decline of the US due to a GCR would meet my stated definition of Collapse.

• Cullen_OKeefe 11 Jan 2021 7:23 UTC

  5 points

  in reply to: Misha_Yagudin’s comment on: EA and the Pos­si­ble De­cline of the US: Very Rough Thoughts

  I am pretty confident that’s wrong. The disanalogy is that with financial markets, you can presently withdraw money and move it to safer assets or spend it on present consumption.

• Cullen_OKeefe 11 Jan 2021 7:22 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: Larks’s comment on: EA and the Pos­si­ble De­cline of the US: Very Rough Thoughts

  Yeah, they are definitely quite different, and probably less important from an EA perspective. I just included them for completeness because of the definition of “Collapse” I gave.

• Cullen_OKeefe 11 Jan 2021 7:21 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: NunoSempere’s comment on: EA and the Pos­si­ble De­cline of the US: Very Rough Thoughts

  Very helpful. Thanks!

• Cullen_OKeefe 11 Jan 2021 7:21 UTC

  3 points

  in reply to: Tsunayoshi’s comment on: EA and the Pos­si­ble De­cline of the US: Very Rough Thoughts

  Figuring out how to move politics towards the exhausted majority seems interesting. They probably care about stability a lot more than hyper-partisans do.

• Cullen_OKeefe 11 Jan 2021 7:20 UTC

  4 points

  in reply to: Davidmanheim’s comment on: EA and the Pos­si­ble De­cline of the US: Very Rough Thoughts

  Thanks David. Great analysis as usual :-)

  I’m not actually sure we disagree on anything. I agree that

  if the worst case happens, we’re still likely looking at a decades-long process, during which most of the worst effects are mitigated by other countries taking up the slack, and pushing for the US’s decline to be minimally disruptive to the world.

  I definitely also agree that it behooves EAs to try to avoid myopia. I have tried to do so here but may very well have failed!

  In terms of expected disvalue, I would guess that severe and rapid collapses (more like the USSR than France or Spain) are the most important, due to the nuclear insecurity and possible triggering of great-power conflict.

  As for cost-competitiveness with other longtermist interventions, it seems that increasing nuclear security from domestic instability is actually pretty tractable and may be neglected. If so, that suggests to me that it may be approximately as cost-effective as most marginal nuclear security work generally. The only other things that seem plausibly cost-effective to me now are contingency planning for key longtermist institutions so that their operations are minimally disrupted by a turbulent decline.

EA and the Pos­si­ble De­cline of the US: Very Rough Thoughts

• Cullen_OKeefe 9 Dec 2020 19:39 UTC

  7 points

  on: Cul­len_OKeefe’s Shortform

  Although I’ve seen some people say they feel like EA is in a bit of an intellectual slump right now, I think the number of new, promising EA startups may be higher than ever. I’m thinking of some of the recent Charity Entrepreneurship incubated programs and some new animal welfare orgs like the Fish Welfare Initiative.

• Cullen_OKeefe 4 Dec 2020 22:44 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: AdamGleave’s comment on: Long-Term Fu­ture Fund: Ask Us Any­thing!

  Thank you!

• Cullen_OKeefe 4 Dec 2020 0:52 UTC

  31 points

  on: Long-Term Fu­ture Fund: Ask Us Any­thing!

  What processes do you have for monitoring the outcome/​impact of grants, especially grants to individuals?

• Cullen_OKeefe 22 Nov 2020 6:37 UTC

  2 points

  on: Cul­len_OKeefe’s Shortform

  The venerable Judge Easterbrook appears to understand harms from unaligned AI. In this excerpt, he invokes a favorite fictional example among the AI risk community:

  The situation is this: Customer incurs a debt and does not pay. Creditor hires Bill Collector to dun Customer for the money. Bill Collector puts a machine on the job and repeatedly calls Cell Number, at which Customer had agreed to receive phone calls by giving his number to Creditor. The machine, called a predictive dialer, works autonomously until a human voice comes on the line. If that happens, an employee in Bill Collector’s call center will join the call. But Customer no longer subscribes to Cell Number, which has been reassigned to Bystander. A human being who called Cell Number would realize that Customer was no longer the subscriber. But predictive dialers lack human intelligence and, like the buckets enchanted by the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, continue until stopped by their true master.

  Soppet v. Enhanced Recovery Co., LLC, 679 F.3d 637, 638–39 (7th Cir. 2012).

Cul­len_OKeefe’s Shortform

• Cullen_OKeefe 21 Oct 2020 22:17 UTC

  52 points

  on: Progress Open Thread: Oc­to­ber //​ Stu­dent Sum­mit 2020

  My parents recently sold an environmental services company and used a significant chunk of the windfall to endow a family foundation on whose board I sit. I recommended, and the rest of the Board agreed, to include GiveDirectly and AMF in our 2020 grants.

• Cullen_OKeefe 20 Sep 2020 18:09 UTC

  4 points

  on: might tar­get­ing malnu­tri­tion (not un­der­nour­ish­ment!) be an im­por­tant cause area?

  Could you clarify the difference between malnutrition and undernourishment?

• Cullen_OKeefe 1 Sep 2020 5:09 UTC

  45 points

  in reply to: Wei_Dai’s comment on: Some thoughts on the EA Mu­nich //​ Robin Han­son incident

  [Tangent:] Based on developments since we last engaged on the topic, Wei, I am significantly more worried about this than I was at the time. (I.e., I have updated in your direction.)

• Cullen_OKeefe 30 Aug 2020 19:30 UTC

  11 points

  in reply to: LeandroD’s comment on: In­tro­duc­ing the Le­gal Pri­ori­ties Project

  Hi! LPP is actually an outgrowth of the Effective Altruism & Law Facebook group. Please join!

FHI Re­port: How Will Na­tional Se­cu­rity Con­sid­er­a­tions Affect An­titrust De­ci­sions in AI? An Ex­am­i­na­tion of His­tor­i­cal Precedents

• Cullen_OKeefe 22 Jul 2020 21:58 UTC

  1 point

  on: Put­ting Peo­ple First in a Cul­ture of De­hu­man­iza­tion

  You might like this post: https://​​schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/​​2020/​​06/​​contest-winner-philosophical-argument.html?m=1

• Cullen_OKeefe 22 Jul 2020 17:14 UTC

  2 points

  in reply to: rgb’s comment on: Par­allels Between AI Safety by De­bate and Ev­i­dence Law

  Thanks for this very thoughtful comment!

  I think it is accurate to say that the rules of evidence have generally aimed for truth-seeking per se. That is their stated goal, and it generally explains the liberal standard for admission (relevance, which is a very low bar and tracks Bayesian epistemology well), the even more liberal standards for discovery, and most of the admissibility exceptions (which are generally explainable by humans’ imperfect Bayesianism).

  You’re definitely right that the legal system as a whole has many goals other than truth-seeking. However, those other goals are generally advanced through other aspects of the justice system. As an example, finality is a goal of the legal system, and is advanced through, among other things, statutes of limitations and repose. Similarly, the “beyond reasonable doubt” standard for criminal conviction is in some sense contrary to truth-seeking but advances the policy preference for underpunishment over overpunishment.

  You’re also right that there are some exceptions to this within evidence law itself, but not many. For example, the attorney–client privilege exists not to facilitate truth-seeking, but to protect the attorney–client relationship. Similarly, the spousal privileges exist to protect the marital relationship. (Precisely because such privileges are contrary to truth-seeking, they are interpreted narrowly. See, e.g., United States v. Aramony, 88 F.3d 1369, 1389 (4th Cir. 1996); United States v. Suarez, 820 F.2d 1158, 1160 (11th Cir. 1987)). And of course, some rules of evidence have both truth-seeking and other policy rationales. Still, on the whole and in general, the rules of evidence are aimed towards truth.

AI Benefits Post 5: Out­stand­ing Ques­tions on Govern­ing Benefits