Mr.Addison, critiquing an organization for being too western and western-focused is completely credible when that organization employs people only in the developed world with people and resumes that imply high privilege in the western society too.
This is not a critique on the people working these jobs, but on the organizational policy as a whole.
My opinion that 80.000 hours is turning into an echo-chamber is completely valid, because it would take 5 minutes to browse the employees and their backgrounds.
To wrap it up, I can be productive in engaging, literally look down and see my response to Michael, the fact that some people disliked my OPINION, is not good enough for me to decide that I am simply here for anger-farming.
NobodyInteresting
Karma: −145
To the unkept mind these seem like a waste of space and time and money.
Why genetic material is so important especially today?
I like to think of samples as books, the gene-bank as a library. Today we are inefficient in GM of crops, at least not to the point where we can pick and choose and everything comes out squeaky clean. Complicated process ya know. But with AGI, and general tools in the future, we might be on course to have a pick and choose approach to how we want our crops to act and how to produce, what and in what quantity.
The more samples, the more books, the more data and unique genetic pathways to produce the food, the higher the level of refinement.
Basically these samples are like the data we scrape now and teach the LLMs, but in biology.
EA as a whole acts globally, but the majority of big EA players are western based and I believe there is a big gap between what reality is to the average human on the planet and the average EA participant. Yes in terms of AGI, it’s a western game mostly, but 80,000 hours wasn’t an AI-focused organization it was an EA-focused organization. I think this is somewhat like putting all the eggs in one basket, but it’s one Fabergé egg that promises a lot of potential, but could be rotten on the inside. In my opinion AGI is somewhere around the 3-rd place for “biggest global issues” right now. First one for me is Climate Change, and the second one is Food production systems security. Again this aspect is inherently not-western because Western Europe and the majority of the US, don’t face the repercussions of climate change, or if they do, they are minor compared to India or parts of Africa.
I am references poor, I live and die by my views, sorry, I know not the most reliable person, but the whole hype about 2030 AGI feels just like hype, everything is just around the corner, in the early 2000s I remember every year we would have these huge corporations promising the next break-trough, everything within the reach of our fingertips but slipping away at the last moment. Cryonics, Theranos and the like, so much potential, so much “results”, but in the end it was all a sham. My fear is that we now have people cooking the books, cooking the reports, and overpromising the dreams, while the reality is bleak. My main fear it that we will invest too much and get little to no in returns, while the other causes pile up and cause real-life issues.
I am not against AI or AGI research, I just fear that diving deep just into that cause is a huge gamble, I am cheering you all on to succeed, but I am afraid of the scenario where it all goes down like a house of cards, and we have lost so much funding and resources working on this synthethic brain, but noting to show for.
I usually just sit down and type my thoughts directly, I don’t work trough my thinking, so my first point is somewhat moot at parts, but I feel like I addressed some things that I wanted to address now. Thanks for your feedback and comment, I enjoyed the difference in views.
This is why organizations need diversity, because this is exactly what happens when you have an organization that has the western developed mindset. The pallete of ideas and viewpoints is clearly lacking.
The AGI delivery by 2030 will fail, we barely have resources to properly run these current LLM models, and the AGI will surely be much more complex, if possible even. Congratulations you have now jumped on a trend-wagon that will take us nowhere, while forgetting about actual causes that are relevant right now.
It’s a shame that the same people that built you up, shaped you as an organization and gave you credibility, are now put on the pier, left behind.
My lunch every day for the past 3 years has been.
Piece of bread, piece of cheese, salad and a cold drink/greek yogurt.
Ending with a fruit usually an orange.
You can escape the sheep herding lifestyle, but you can never leave.
Okay, real talk now, I know I have been an asshole on this forum, but now I will speak from my heart.
I wanted to kill myself as early as 10, I still do, I can’t stand how miserable life is at times, and how everything I touch turns to shit. Literally, give me a grand, and bet against me on the stock market.
No matter how much I try, how much I do, nothing turns out good, everything is shit, I have the midas-touch of shit. In the past year I can’t remember a single good thing happening to me, it’s all pain (some of it chronic) and misery.
To end on a positive note, the fact why I am still here is not some greater purpose or hope for a better tomorrow. I am here because I enjoy the birds and the wilderness walks. I have owls in my local park, and I can hear them regularly, I like how crows sound, pigeons, sometimes I even see the bats dance around in the late night.
We are using way too much plastic in agriculture, lowkey someone needs to find a replacement and fast.
Anyone has any pointers on startups for more innovative mulching materials?
Nick I have one comment every three days (I have been a baaaad forum member) but I am here to answer your rebuttal honestly and truthfully.)
I come from a fairly rich background, in my country I would be in the top 0.5%, but I come from a developing country, that means that while I can afford pretty much everything, everyone around me is living on that edge between living and surviving, some are barely surviving as well.
My father was one of the first people to bring USAID donations to my country, specifically water treatment donations, and they built several water treatment plants that cleaned water to a drinkable level, our specification system is fairly outdated and I am unsure about the international ones. But like the whole course of water treatment. Those plants today are abandoned, there were not enough funds or the funds got mismanaged and those facilities are now rotting. My father moved in Western Europe in the early 2010s, because he was so depressed with the situation here, when he left, he had a company here that was running fairly well, we were doing great, he went to western Europe to cut grass and start all over again because he was done with how things were done here.
I am not as depressed as him, but in the past year I spent over 500 hours trying to deal with littering and improper waste disposal by local companies in my city. I invested my own money, time and health, because roaming dump sites is not the safest thing to do. In those 500 hours I have around 75 reports for various offences, out of those 75 reports the people in charge acted on 3 or 4.
For food safety, I have contacted my agency over 80 times, they have now blacklisted my number and don’t return my mails because the chain I am reporting has every one of the inspectors in their pockets.
In university a grant was stolen from us (the students), albeit with my colleagues and it was not my idea originally, but I worked on writing that grant, I spent time and effort, only to have my faculty misappropriate the funds, submit a false report, and present a falsified research document that we did the research. We didn’t even do any research, they probably manufactured the whole paper they presented.
Now tell me, why should I care about these people when they don’t even give me the time of their day, I have spent countless of hours on civic engagement, trying to make this place a better place to live, only to get spit in my face by corrupt officials. Why not go to the west and be a plumber, at least I will get paid what I deserve and know that “hey I have some rights”.
I am at a breaking point where I would rather be neck deep in shit in the west, than live leisurely here because it sucks. Also the job opportunities suck, being in agriculture, as an agronomist my salary would be near the minimum wage, while my software/engineering/any degree peers are way above that. It’s not about the money it’s about the recognition, although even if I decided to become a big time farmer, the main issues that I would face are pollution and corruption.
Sorry if this feels too raw and boring at times, I am a stream of consciousness on this platform and godspeed to you.
Exaggerated is a big word, the guy threw three heils, while it’s a roman salute as well, nobody in the west uses it as a roman salute tho, just like the swastikas.
Also let’s not forget, Elon forsake his own blood for being transgender, do you think that the average random transgender person on the street would mean anything more than a pebble in his shoe? What did he call that? The WOKE BRAIN VIRUS....
We can’t let small transgressions pass by because they are small, every avalanche starts with a little bit of slippage.
So I am basically the Trump of the forum, just not as influential or as rich as him lol.
I’ll address point by point, I would have made a post, but I am on timeout wooopsies.
My style of writing is really raw, stream of consciousness without thinking about what I type, I just type. I know I can be inflammatory sometimes, I like that way of communication, especially on sterile forums like this one, I feel like most of the posts here lack passion or a personal touch. They feel so well polished and digested, that they feel artificial at times. I like hot takes, I like angry posts and angry commenters.
I really am not, I feel like this forum is dead with posts or quick takes that are posted once or twice per day from the whole community. Even bad discussions in my opinion are better than no discussions at all, this place is a remake of silent hill most of the time.
People not being political on here is really weird for me because the whole of EA is affected directly by politics, from animal welfare to AI, everything is politics.
Anyways, thank you for your very constructive and well thought out response, thank you for taking the time, fairly new to posting on this forum and well I’ll probably melt in the pot, eventually.
Thanks for the time fam, have a good one.
Anyone want to give back criticism as to why I am getting down-voted?
“wE sHoULd PaNdEr mOrE tO cOnsErvatives”
Not 5 minutes in office, and they are already throwing the Nazi salutes.
Congratulations, Edelweiss was not just a netflix show, it’s reality.
And a great reminder, apart from the jews, there were slavic, roma, gay and disabled people in the camps as well. We can’t sit and just scoff at this, we need to fight back.
Global production of primary crop commodities reached 9.6 billion tonnes in 2022, increasing by 56 percent since 2000 and just 0.7 percent since 2021. (FAOSTAT)
We are growing more, and better, and now that we have CRISPR in plant selection, my guess is that we are going to start producing much more nutritious and tasty vegetables without sacrificing the yield rates.
I love how I come here, have a quick take about slave labor, something I have directly experienced, and something I fought hard against, and having neo-liberal westerners down-vote me because they think I am talking out of my ass.
For the record, I know of worker rights violations, that were squashed because a judge got a hefty payment, never proven because the right people were greased. For hell’s sake, I as an activist get threats on the daily, stop invalidating my experience when dealing with corruption.
Conservatism in the modern age is so bastardized I would argue that it goes directly against the EA principles.
Conservatives in my country are pushing for abolishment of minimum wage, and cutting down on already minimal worker rights. Right now there is some “slave-labor”, even tho laws forbid it, if conservatives vote in the new legislation, the slave labor will become an industry standard.
Conservatives today prioritize the economy, Liberals prioritize the people, and I know which side I am taking thanks.
I was confronted with the fact that EA is not as big as I think it is and that Agriculture as well as systemic changes are not directly possible by EA, with that I agree in some part. What is available to EA, at least in terms of underdeveloped rural agricultural economies.
Knowledge, we have knowledge, and I believe the transfer of knowledge is crucial when conversing with farmers, so how do we transfer this knowledge we have to the farmers?
Mini-courses? No, mini-courses would work for people who have internet connection, maybe we could conduct large scale mini-courses where a local could help us devise a classroom type of learning setting and where we could engage a large population of people, while keeping costs down. Yes.
On the topic of mini-courses, the most beneficial way to go is to divide them in two types of production, animal and plant production, because a lot of the people who I read about today were in either of the two. I believe with good practices we could address both poverty in the rural populations but also increase the comfort of the animals, proper feed, proper water and things alike that contribute to animal wellbeing.
I have a lot of things to write about, but I’ll keep it short. I’ll make a more defined outline on how we can do this, and maybe you (the community can help me guide my efforts).
Also I think EA should focus a bit more on agronomy as a whole because food production is a large and unaddressed topic.
Hey Jason, I was thinking about this today, I also visited GiveDirectly’s website and read some stories, and now I will make a post, I believe there is a way to make an impact, and I’ll elaborate more on that RIGHT NOW. Thanks for the feedback.
Ow boy, I wish I could upload screenshots, Yanni, I come on here and let the stream of my consciousness go wild, the farmer thing was my first thought and I spit it out, btw Gemini said that my answer was “Your answer is honest and insightful. It reflects a genuine desire for a more meaningful life and acknowledges the significant obstacles that stand in your way.”
Soooooooo yeah, don’t use Gemini.
You westerners have no idea how much corruption there is in the East. Like seriously.
AGI will never be of use in Agriculture as an example, yes it can replace agronomes, but the major plays in Agriculture are related to human power and investments.
Can AGI be trained to pick food instead of people, sure, but what will be the cost, are we at that level of dexterity, some crops require immense knowledge, particularly artichokes, tomatoes, peppers on how to be best picked. Okra is literally one of the most hit and miss crops, because the optimal age of the shoots is 4 days, 5 days is too old, 3 days is too young.
And let’s say we can completely change the workforce in agriculture, AI won’t change policies. Current low yields are due to people using low level of equipment, fertilizer and seed.
Also parcelization of fields is not solvable by AI but by policy.
Tell me how can AGI help us in Agriculture, I wanna know your viewpoints.