Darren McKee

FYI: I’m work­ing on a book about the threat of AGI/​ASI for a gen­eral au­di­ence. I hope it will be of value to the cause and the community

• Darren McKee 19 Jun 2022 11:30 UTC

  6 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: AGI Safety Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Initiative

  Interesting initiative. We should connect because...
  FYI: I’m working on a book about the threat of AGI/​ASI for a general audience. I hope it will be of value to the cause and the community—EA Forum (effectivealtruism.org)

• Darren McKee 15 Nov 2022 0:45 UTC

  16 points

  4 ∶ 0

  on: The NY Times In­ter­viewed SBF on Sunday

  “Meanwhile, at a meeting with Alameda employees on Wednesday, Ms. Ellison explained what had caused the collapse, according to a person familiar with the matter. Her voice shaking, she apologized, saying she had let the group down. Over recent months, she said, Alameda had taken out loans and used the money to make venture capital investments, among other expenditures.

  Around the time the crypto market crashed this spring, Ms. Ellison explained, lenders moved to recall those loans, the person familiar with the meeting said. But the funds that Alameda had spent were no longer easily available, so the company used FTX customer funds to make the payments. Besides her and Mr. Bankman-Fried, she said, two other people knew about the arrangement: Mr. Singh and Mr. Wang.”

In­ter­view with Ro­man Yam­polskiy about AGI on The Real­ity Check

• Darren McKee 27 Feb 2023 19:18 UTC

  4 points

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  on: 80,000 Hours has been putting much more re­sources into grow­ing our audience

  Thanks for sharing. Do you happen to have the number of books you sent out (as you’ve already given the cost). Just wondering if my current estimate of around 30000 is close.

Seek­ing in­put on a list of AI books for broader audience

• Darren McKee 28 Feb 2023 0:01 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Geoffrey Miller’s comment on: Seek­ing in­put on a list of AI books for broader audience

  Mighty kind of you. I’ll be in touch.

• Darren McKee 28 Feb 2023 9:27 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: LoveAndPeaceAlways’s comment on: Seek­ing in­put on a list of AI books for broader audience

  Oops, looks like I read that last July (and didn’t agree with the general thesis). Thanks for the comment.

Von­negut pas­sage on pur­pose, hu­man­ity, and machines

• Darren McKee 15 Mar 2023 22:19 UTC

  5 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: 80k pod­cast epi­sode on sen­tience in AI systems

  Thought that this was filled with interesting ideas. Thank you.
  
  If open to constructive feedback, I think that there is an opportunity (mainly for host but also perhaps you as guest) to reduce the amount of ‘likes’ that are equivalent to ‘ums’ in your speech.
  
  This may be cultural/​generational, and perhaps few others care, but personally I found parts hard to listen to because there were so many ‘likes’.
  
  I couldn’t help but be curious, so I did a search on the transcript and it pops up 577 times (of course, a decent chunk of those are not filler but part of normal speech).

• Darren McKee 16 Mar 2023 10:51 UTC

  16 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: Write a Book?

  I am fully supportive of more books coming out on EA related topics. I’ve also always enjoyed your writings.
  
  As someone trying to write a book about the threat of AI for a broader audience, I’ve learned that you should have a good idea of your goal for the book’s distribution. Meaning, is your goal to get this published by a publisher?
  Or self-publish? An eCopy or audiobook?
  
  To get something published, you typically need an agent. To get an agent you usually need a one-page pitch, a writing sample, and perhaps an outline.
  
  If no agent is interested, it is a risk to write the book if you want a third party to publish it.
  

• Darren McKee 24 Mar 2023 11:07 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: The Over­ton Win­dow widens: Ex­am­ples of AI risk in the media

  Thanks for the compilation! This might be helpful for the book I’m writing.
  One of my aspirations was to throw a brick through the overton window regarding AI safety, but things have already changed with more and more stuff coming out like what you’ve listed.

• Darren McKee 26 Mar 2023 18:29 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Marcel D’s comment on: My at­tempt at ex­plain­ing the case for AI risk in a straight­for­ward way

  Interesting points. I’m working on a book which is not quite a solution to your issue but hopefully goes in the same direction.
  And I’m now curious to see that memo :)

• Darren McKee 27 Mar 2023 12:58 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Marcel D’s comment on: My at­tempt at ex­plain­ing the case for AI risk in a straight­for­ward way

  I was referring to external credibility if you are looking for a scientific paper with the key ideas. Secondarily, an online, modular guide is not quite the frame of the book either (although it could possible be adapted towards such a thing in the future)

• Darren McKee 25 Apr 2023 15:38 UTC

  5 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: Talk­ing pub­li­cly about AI risk

  Thank you for a great post and the outreach you are doing. We need more posts and discussions about optimal framing.

• Darren McKee 6 May 2023 15:22 UTC

  6 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: AGI ris­ing: why we are in a new era of acute risk and in­creas­ing pub­lic aware­ness, and what to do now

  FYI, I’m working on a book about the risks of AGI/​ASI for a general and I hope to get it out within 6 months. It likely won’t be as alarmist as your post but will try to communicate the key messages, the importance, the risks, and the urgency. Happy to have more help.

• Darren McKee 6 May 2023 15:23 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: JakubK’s comment on: Seek­ing in­put on a list of AI books for broader audience

  Thanks for sharing, this and the others. I read that one and it was a bit more about the rationality community than the risks. (It’s in the list with a different title)

• Darren McKee 10 May 2023 11:31 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Greg_Colbourn’s comment on: AGI ris­ing: why we are in a new era of acute risk and in­creas­ing pub­lic aware­ness, and what to do now

  I’m definitely aware of that complication but I don’t think that is the best way to broader impact. Uncertainty abounds. If I can get it out in 3 months, I will.

• Darren McKee 30 Jun 2023 9:32 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Munk AI de­bate: con­fu­sions and pos­si­ble cruxes

  Great post!
  
  A and B about 30 years are useful ideas/​talking points. Thanks for the reminder/​articulation!

Seek­ing In­put to AI Safety Book for non-tech­ni­cal audience