Zoe Williams

Karma: 1,228

Zoe Williams Dec 9, 2022, 6:14 AM
8 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Thoughts on AGI organizations and capabilities work
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
Rob paraphrases Nate’s thoughts on capabilities work and the landscape of AGI organisations. Nate thinks:
1. Capabilities work is a bad idea, because it isn’t needed for alignment to progress and it could speed up timelines. We already have many ML systems to study, which our understanding lags behind. Publishing that work is even worse.
2. He appreciates OpenAI’s charter, openness to talk to EAs / rationalists, clearer alignment effort than FAIR or Google Brain, and transparency about their plans. He considers DeepMind and Anthropic on par and slightly ahead respectively on taking alignment seriously.
3. OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepMind are unusually safety-conscious AI capabilities orgs (e.g., much better than FAIR or Google Brain). But reality doesn’t grade on a curve, there’s still a lot to improve, and they should still call a halt to mainstream SotA-advancing potentially-AGI-relevant ML work, since the timeline-shortening harms currently outweigh the benefits.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 9, 2022, 1:16 AM
6 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Learning from non-EAs who seek to do good
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
The author asks whether EA aims to be a question about doing good effectively, or a community based around ideology. In their experience, it has mainly been the latter, but many EAs have expressed they’d prefer it be the former.

They argue the best concrete step toward EA as a question would be to collaborate more with people outside the EA community, without attempting to bring them into the community. This includes policymakers on local and national levels, people with years of expertise in the fields EA works in, and people who are most affected by EA-backed programs.
Specific ideas include EAG actively recruiting these people, EA groups co-hosting more joint community meetups, EA orgs measuring preferences of those impacted by their programs, applying evidence-based decision-making to all fields (not just top cause areas), engaging with people and critiques outside the EA ecosystem, funding and collaborating with non-EA orgs (eg. via grants), and EA orgs hiring non-EAs.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 8, 2022, 8:37 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Jacob Wood’s comment on: Why development aid is a really exciting field
Edited, thanks :)

Zoe Williams Dec 8, 2022, 9:17 AM
5 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Promoting compassionate longtermism
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
Some suffering is bad enough that non-existence is preferable. The lock-in of uncompassionate systems (eg. through AI or AI-assisted governments) could cause mass suffering in the future.

OPIS (Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering) has until now worked on projects to help ensure that people in severe pain can get access to effective medications. In future, they plan to “address the very principles of governance, ensure that all significant causes of intense suffering receive adequate attention, and promote strategies to prevent locked-in totalitarianism”. One concrete project within this is a full length film to inspire people with this vision and lay out actionable steps. They’re looking for support in the form of donations and / or time.

(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 8, 2022, 1:19 AM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: Revisiting EA’s media policy
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
CEA follows a fidelity model of spreading ideas, which claims because EA ideas are nuanced and the media often isn’t, media communication should only be done by those qualified who are confident the media will report the ideas exactly as stated.
The author argues against this on four points:
1. Sometimes many people doing something ‘close to’ is better than few doing it ‘exactly’ eg. few vegans vs. many reductitarians.
2. If you don’t actively engage the media, a large portion of coverage will be from detractors, and therefore negative.
3. EA’s core ideas are not that nuanced. Most critics have a different emotional response or critique how it’s put into practice, rather than get anything factually wrong.
4. The fidelity model contributes to hero worship and concentration of power in EA.
The author suggests further discussion on this policy, acknowledgement from CEA of the issues with it, experimenting with other approaches in low-risk settings, and historical / statistical research into what approaches have worked for other groups.

(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 8, 2022, 1:16 AM
24 points
5 ∶ 0
on: The Spanish-Speaking Effective Altruism community is awesome
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
Since Sandra Malagón and Laura González were funded to work on growing the Spanish-speaking EA community, it’s taken off. There have been 40 introductory fellowships, 2 university groups started, 2 camps, many dedicated community leaders, translation projects, 7-fold activity on Slack vs. 2020, and a community fellowship / new hub in Mexico City. If you’re keen to join in, the slack workspace is here, and anyone (English or Spanish speaking) can apply to EAGxLatAm.

(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 8, 2022, 1:13 AM
10 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Why development aid is a really exciting field
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
Wealthy countries spend a collective $178B on development aid per year − 25% of all giving worldwide. Some aid projects have been cost-effective on a level with Givewell’s top recommendations (eg. PEPFAR), while others have caused outright harm.
Aid is usually distributed via a several step process:
1. Decide to spend money on aid. Many countries signed a 1970 UN resolution to spend 0.7% of GNI on official development assistance.
2. Government decides a general strategy / principles.
3. Government passes a budget, assigning $s to different aid subcategories.
4. The country’s aid agency decides on projects. Sometimes this is donating to intermediaries like the UN or WHO, sometimes it’s direct.
5. Projects are implemented.
This area is large scale, tractability is unsure but there are many pathways and some past successes (eg. a grassroots EA campaign in Switzerland increased funding, and the US aid agency ran a cash-benchmarking experiment with GiveDirectly), and few organisations focus on this area compared to the scale.
The author and their co-founder have been funded to start an organization in this area. Get in touch if you’re interested in Global Development and Policy.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 8, 2022, 1:11 AM
6 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Visualizing the development gap
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
The US poverty threshold, below which one qualifies for government assistance, is $6625 per person for a family of four. In Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries, the median income is a twelfth of that (adjusted for purchasing power). Without a change in growth rates, it will take Malawi almost two centuries to catch up to where the US is today.
This example illustrates the development gap: the difference in living standards between high and low income countries. Working on this is important both for the wellbeing of those alive today, and because it allows more people to participate meaningfully in humanity’s most important century and therefore help those in the future too.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

EA & LW Forums Weekly Summary (28th Nov − 4th Dec 22′)

Zoe WilliamsDec 6, 2022, 9:38 AM

36 points

0 comments17 min readEA link

Zoe Williams Dec 6, 2022, 9:23 AM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Xander123’s comment on: Update on Harvard AI Safety Team and MIT AI Alignment
Good to know, cheers—will update in the summary posts and emails to include all authors.

Zoe Williams Dec 5, 2022, 11:03 PM
7 points
0 ∶ 0
on: The Founders Pledge Climate Fund at 2 years
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
The Founders Pledge Climate Fund has run for 2 years and distributed over $10M USD.

Because the climate-space has ~$1T per year committed globally, the team believes the best use of marginal donations is to correct existing biases of overall climate philanthropy, fill blindspots and leverage existing attention on climate. The Fund can achieve this more effectively than individual donations because it can make large grants to allow grantees to start new programs, quickly respond to time-sensitive opportunities, and make catalytic grants to early-stage organizations who don’t yet have track records.
Examples include substantial increase in growth of grantee Clean Air Task Force, and significant investments into emerging economies that get less from other funders.
Future work will look at where best to focus policy efforts, and the impact of the Russo-Ukrainian war on possible policy windows.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 5, 2022, 10:48 PM
10 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Update on Harvard AI Safety Team and MIT AI Alignment
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
Reflections from an organizer of the student organisations Harvard AI Safety Team (HAIST) and MIT AI Alignment (MAIA).
Top things that worked:
- Outreach focusing on technically interesting parts of alignment and leveraging informal connections with networks and friend groups.
- HAIST office space, which was well-located and useful for programs and coworking.
- Leadership and facilitators having had direct experience with AI safety research.
- High-quality, scalable weekly reading groups.
- Significant time expenditure, including mostly full-time attention from several organizers.
Top things that didn’t work:
- Starting MAIA programming too late in the semester (leading to poor retention).
- Too much focus on intro programming.
In future, they plan to set up an office space for MAIA, share infrastructure and resources with other university alignment groups, and improve programming for already engaged students (including opportunities over winter and summer break).

They’re looking for mentors for junior researchers / students, researchers to visit during retreats or host Q&As, feedback, and applicants to their January ML bootcamp or to roles in the Cambridge Boston Alignment Initiative.

(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 5, 2022, 9:50 PM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Why Giving What We Can recommends using expert-led charitable funds
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
Funds allow donors to give as a community, with expert grantmakers and evaluators directing funds as cost-effectively as possible. Advantages include that the fund can learn how much funding an organization needs, provide it when they need it, monitor how it’s used, and incentivize them to be even more impactful. It also provides a reliable source of funding and support for those organisations.

GWWC recommends most donors give to funds, with the exception of those who have unique donation opportunities that funds can’t access, or who believe they can identify more cost-effective opportunities themselves (eg. due to substantial expertise, or differing values to existing funds). You can find their recommended funds here.

(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 5, 2022, 9:42 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: The deathprint of replacing beef by chicken and insect meat
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
A recent study (Bressler, 2021) estimated that for every 4000 ton CO2 emitted today, there will be one extra premature human death before 2100. The post author converts this into human deaths per kilogram of meat produced (based on CO2 emissions for that species), and pairs this with the number of animals of that species that need to be slaughtered to produce 1kg of meat.
After weighting by neurons per animal, their key findings are below:
This suggests switching from beef to chicken or insect meat reduces climate change but increases animal suffering significantly, so might be bad overall. They suggest prioritizing a reduction of chicken meat consumption, and that policy makers stop subsidizing research on insect meat, tax meat based on climate and suffering externalities, and start subsidizing plant / cell based meat.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 5, 2022, 8:37 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: How VCs can avoid being tricked by obvious frauds: Rohit Krishnan on Noahpinion (linkpost)
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
Linkpost to an article by Rohit Krishnan, a former hedge fund manager. Haydn highlights key excerpts, including one claiming that “This isn’t Enron, where you had extremely smart folk hide beautifully constructed fictions in their publicly released financial statements. This is Dumb Enron, where someone “trust me bro”-ed their way to a $32 Billion valuation.”
They mention that “the list of investors in FTX [was] a who’s who of the investing world” and while “VCs don’t really do forensic accounting” there were still plenty of red flags they should have checked. Eg. basics like if FTX had an accountant, management team, back office, board, lent money to the CEO, or how intertwined FTX and Alameda were. The author has had investments 1/10th the size of what some major investors had in FTX, and still required a company audit, with most of these questions taking “half an hour max”.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 5, 2022, 8:36 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: “Insider EA content” in Gideon Lewis-Kraus’s recent New Yorker article
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
Linkpost and key excerpts from a New Yorker article overviewing how EA has reacted to SBF and the FTX collapse. The article claims there was an internal slack channel of EA leaders where a warning that SBF “has a reputation [in some circles] as someone who regularly breaks laws to make money” was shared, before the collapse.

(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 5, 2022, 8:34 PM
15 points
3 ∶ 0
on: Some notes on common challenges building EA orgs
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
The author’s observations from talking to / offering advice to several EA orgs:
- Many orgs skew heavily junior, and most managers and managers-of-managers are in that role for the first time.
- Many leaders are isolated (no peers to check in with) and / or reluctant (would prefer not to do people management).
They suggest solutions of:
- Creating an EA manager’s slack (let them know if you’re interested!)
- Non-EA management/leadership coaches—they haven’t found most questions they get in their coaching are EA-specific.
- More orgs hire a COO to take over people management from whoever does the vision / strategy / fundraising.
- More orgs consider splitting management roles into separate people management and technical leadership roles.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 5, 2022, 8:33 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Come get malaria with me?
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
There is a paid opportunity to be part of a Malaria vaccine trial in Baltimore from January to early March. The vaccine has a solid chance of being deployed for pregnant women if it passes this challenge trial. It’s ~55 hours time commitment if in Baltimore or more if needing to travel, and the risk of serious complications is very low. The author signed up, and knows 6 others who have expressed serious interest. Get in touch with questions or to join an AirBnB the author is setting up for it.

(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 5, 2022, 8:31 PM
5 points
0 ∶ 0
on: 2022 ALLFED highlights
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
Highlights for ALLFED in 2022 include:
- Submitted 4 papers to peer review (some now published)
- Started to develop country-level preparedness and response plans for Abrupt Sunlight Reduction Scenarios (US plan completed).
- Worked on financial mechanisms for food system interventions, including superpests, climate food finance nexus, and pandemic preparedness.
- Delivered briefings to several NATO governments and UN agencies on global food security, nuclear winter impacts, policy considerations and resilience options.
- Appeared in major media outlets such as BBC Future and The Times.
- Improved internal operations, including registering as a 501(c)(3) non-profit.
- Delivered 20+ presentations and attended 30+ workshops / events / conferences.
- Hired 6 research associates, 4 operations roles, 5 interns, and 42 volunteers.
ALLFED is funding constrained and gratefully appreciates any donations. The heightened geopolitical tensions from the Russo-Ukrainian conflict create a time-limited policy window for bringing their research on food system preparedness to the forefront of decision makers’ minds.

(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams Dec 5, 2022, 8:28 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: Altruistic kidney donation in the UK: my experience
Awesome, thanks for doing this!

Post summary (feel free to suggest edits):
Around 250 people on the UK kidney waiting list die each year. Donating your kidney via the UK Living Kidney Sharing Scheme can potentially kick off altruistic chains of donor-recipient pairs ie. multiple donations. Donor and recipient details are kept confidential.
The process is ~12-18 months and involves consultations, tests, surgery, and for the author 3 days of hospital recovery. In a week since discharge, most problems have cleared up, they can slowly walk several miles, and they encountered no serious complications.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)

Zoe Williams

EA & LW Fo­rums Weekly Sum­mary (28th Nov − 4th Dec 22′)

EA & LW Forums Weekly Summary (28th Nov − 4th Dec 22′)