I am open to work.
Vasco Grilošø
Karma: 8,551
Thanks for sharing, Ben! Lots of interesting resources.
I liked Epoch After Hoursā podcast episode Is it 3 Years, or 3 Decades Away? Disagreements on AGI Timelines by Ege Erdil and Matthew Barnett (linkpost). Ege has much longer timelines than the ones you seem to endorse (see text I bolded below), and is well informed. He is the 1st author of the paper about Epoch AIās compute-centric model of AI automation which was announced on 21 March 2025.
Ege
Yeah, I mean, I guess one way to try to quantify this is when you expect, I donāt know, we often talk about big acceleration, economic growth. One way to quantify is when do you expect, maybe US GDP growth, maybe global GDP growth to be faster than 5% per year for a couple of years in a row. Maybe thatās one way to think about it. And then you can think about what is your median timeline until that happens. I think if you think about like that, I would maybe say more than 30 years or something. Maybe a bit less than 40 years by this point. So 35. Yeah. And Iām not sure, but I think you [Matthew Barnett] might say like 15 or 20 years.
Relatedly, the median expert in 2023 thought the median date of full automation to be 2073.
I remain open to betting up to 10 k$ against short AI timelines. I understand this does not work for people who think doom or utopia are certain soon after AGI, but I would say this is a super extreme view. It also reminds me of religious unbettable or unfalsiable views. Banks may offer loans with better conditions, but, as long as my bet is beneficial, one should take the bank loans until they are marginally neutral, and then also take my bet.
I have a question about the campaigner role. Are any of the 4 stages before the interview (5th stage) eliminatory?
Timeline
1 April ā 4 May 2025 ā Apply ā Time for you to apply.
10ā19 May 2025 ā Join us on a video call to answer a few brief questions ā It will be scheduled at a time convenient for you and take 15-30 minutes.
24 May ā 1 June 2025 ā Do role-specific tasks and answer cultural fit questions ā We will send you some tasks to complete in a questionnaire format.
Reference check ā We will ask you for contact information for a few professional references, such as former employers, supervisors, to talk about your skills and traits.
7ā15 June 2025 ā Join an interview ā If you successfully pass the previous stages, we will invite you for an interview. You will be compensated for your time.
25 June ā 25 July 2025 ā Do a short work trial with us ā If you successfully pass the interview stage, we will invite you to join us for a two-day work trial. You will be compensated for this.
26ā30 July ā Learn whether you are accepted ā We will contact you to let you know about the final decision regarding your application.
August 2025 ā Get feedback from us ā If you are interested, we will do our best to provide feedback to help you understand what we rated positively in your application and what we didnāt. We hope this will help you in getting another impactful position. This stage is heavily dependent on the amount of participants due to constraints in our capacity.
Please note: the timeline may slightly change due to unforeseen circumstances. We will do our best to make sure it wonāt.
Although I was wondering how sure we are that a death caused by the screwworm is worse than the average death in nature for those animals.
Thanks for noting this, Keyvan! I also worry about that.
I am fine with neglecting indirect effects on other wild animals besides the infected animals and screwworms, but I think these are the most directly affected (the goal of the intervention is their eradication), so they should be considered. Do you know whether the increase in welfare of the no longer infected wild animals would be larger than the decrease in welfare of the eradicated screwworms assuming these have positive lives? If it takes 100 worm-years, like 100 worms for 1 year, to kill a host animal, and each lethal infection is worse than the counterfactual death by 0.5 host-years of fully healthy life, the welfare per worm-year would only have to be more than 0.5 % (= 0.5/ā100) of the welfare per host-year of fully healthy life for the intervention to be harmful[1]. This seems possible considering that Rethink Prioritiesā median welfare range of silkworms is 0.388 % (= 0.002/ā0.515) of that of pigs. I also think the worms may have positive lives because they basically live inside the food they eat. I suspect there is a natural tendency to neglect the effect on worms because they are disguting (at least to me[2]), but this is not a good reason to disregard their welfare.
Thanks for the post, Matthew! Strongly upvoted.
I think it is very unclear whether wild insects have positive or negative lives. So I would focus on understanding their experiences, and how to improve them, instead of decreasing or increasing the number of insects. In any case, I like your recommendation to donate to the Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP) and Wild Animal Initiative (WAI). The Insect Institute may be good too, but I am not familiar with their work.
Thanks for sharing! The job ads are super comprehensive.
ļIs it 3 Years, or 3 Decades Away? DisagreeĀments on AGI Timelines
Thanks for the great clarifications, Lauren! Strongly upvoted.
Another specific i found out yesterday, someone was able to pass something through their local gov that led to 400 million animals being spared that wasnāt even on the radar before they entered. It seems extremely unlikely that this kind of leverage and counterfactual would be the case for the best vs. next best candidate in an NGO.
Interesting example! I would be interested to know more, but I understand it may be sensible information to share publicly. I think one can help 400 M shrimp donating 26.7 k$ (= 400*10^6/ā(15*10^3)) to the Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP). So, if your example was representative of the impact of a career in policy inside the system, and the impact per animal helped in your example matched that of SWP (which I estimated to be 0.0426 DALYs averted), maximising donations could still be better. For a career of 40 years, one would only need to donate 668 $ (= 26.7*10^3/ā40) more to SWP per year relative to the career in policy inside the system.
Thanks for the comment, Sjlver!
many downward adjustments (and lack of upward adjustments)
My cost-effectiveness estimate is supposed to be unbiased in the sense of not being too low or high in expectation.
During Veganuary 2020, my wife and I made the decision to become vegan. We had been vegetarians before, and found out during Veganuary that a fully vegan lifestyle was easier than expected. Since then, one of our flatmates transitioned from omnivore to vegan. Another flatmate stayed omnivore but ate mostly vegan during the year that she lived with us. This is an extreme example, but it shows that the 31 emails can affect more than just one person, and for a duration longer than 6 months.
To be clear, I think one single email or video can turn someone from omnivoure to vegan. However, I believe that is super far from the expected effect.
Overall, there seems to be a clear trend in Germany toward more vegan products.
The supply per capita of poultry meat in Germany has not had a clear downwards trend, although it does seem like it has already peaked.
Likewise for the supply per capita of fish and other seafood in Germany.
However, this is very weak evidence of the impact of Veganuary. There are many factors which affect meat consumption in Germany besides Veganuary, and that may well be the country which Veganuary targets with the most positive trends. In the UK, the consumption per capita of poultry meat has been increasing, although that on fish and other seafood has recently been decreasing.
Oat milk shelves are larger than cow milk shelves in many retailers nowadays
Nitpick. Dairy accounts for a very small fraction of animal suffering. I think decreases in its consumption only matter to the extent they predict decreases in the consumption of eggs, poultry birds, fish, or other seafood.
Thanks for the comment, Sjlver!
many downward adjustments (and lack of upward adjustments)
My cost-effectiveness estimate is supposed to be unbiased in the sense of not being too low or high in expectation.
During Veganuary 2020, my wife and I made the decision to become vegan. We had been vegetarians before, and found out during Veganuary that a fully vegan lifestyle was easier than expected. Since then, one of our flatmates transitioned from omnivore to vegan. Another flatmate stayed omnivore but ate mostly vegan during the year that she lived with us. This is an extreme example, but it shows that the 31 emails can affect more than just one person, and for a duration longer than 6 months.
To be clear, I think one single email or video can turn someone from omnivoure to vegan. However, I believe that is super far from the expected effect.
Overall, there seems to be a clear trend in Germany toward more vegan products.
The supply per capita of poultry meat in Germany has not had a clear downwards trend, although it does seem like it has already peaked.
Likewise for the supply per capita of fish and other seafood in Germany.
However, this is very weak evidence of the impact of Veganuary. There are many factors which affect meat consumption in Germany besides Veganuary, and that may well be the country which Veganuary targets with the most positive trends. In the UK, the consumption per capita of poultry meat has been increasing, although that on fish and other seafood has recently been decreasing.
Oat milk shelves are larger than cow milk shelves in many retailers nowadays
Nitpick. Dairy accounts for a very small fraction of animal suffering. I think decreases in its consumption only matter to the extent they predict decreases in the consumption of eggs, poultry birds, fish, or other seafood.
Thanks for the comment, Mathias! I strongly upvoted it. I love the transparency. I emailed Mal Graham, WAIās strategy director, right after my comment.
Wild Animal Initiative [WAI] is planning on funding a research investigating the welfare effects of screwworm eradication
Great to know! Do you know whether they will cover effects on screwworms, which I worry may make their eradication harmful? I think it is fine to pursue interventions which may be harmful to wild animals nearterm, but then it is important to learn from them to minimise harmful effects in the future.
Thanks, David.
The obvious difference is that an alternative candidate for a junior position in a shrimp welfare organization is likely to be equally concerned about shrimp welfare.
I understand this. However, the key is the difference in impact, not in concern about animals. I agree people completing the program care much more about animals than a random person in a junior position in EUās institutions, but my impression is that there is limited room for the greater care to translate into helping animals in junior positions. The Commission has 32 k people, whereas the largest organisation recommended by ACE, The Humane League (THL), has 136, so hierarchy matters much more in the former.
And a junior person progressing in their career may end up with direct policy responsibility for their areas of interest, whereas a person who remains a lobbyist will never have this. It even seems non-obvious that even a senior lobbyist will have more impact on policymakers than their more junior adviser or research assistant, though as you say it does depend on whether the junior adviser has the freedom to highlight issues of concern.
Makes sense. On the other hand, a lobbyist can interact with more policymakers than an APA. I do not know whether a lobbyist is more or less impactful than an APA. I think it depends on the specifics.
Thanks for putting this together! Looks great.
Thanks for the post, Max.
AGI might be controlled by lots of people.
Advanced AI is a general purpose technology, so I expect it to be widely distributed across society. I would think about it as electricity or the internet. Relatedly, I expect most AI value will come from broad automation, not from research and development (R&D). I agree with the view Ege Erdil describes here.
A 2024 survey of AI researchers put a 50% chance of AGI by 2047, but this is 13 years earlier than predicted in the 2023 version of the survey.
2047 is the median for all tasks being automated, but the median for all occupations being automated was much further away. Both scenarios should be equivalent, so I think it makes sense to combine the predictions for both of them. This results in the median expert having a median date of full automation of 2073.
Regarding prioritization: You can find details on how we allocate funding across programmatic areas in our financial statements. Our funding distribution varies from year to year, and different sources of funding also influences how resources are allocatedānot just cost-effectiveness.
I was looking for your thinking on prioritisation, not just the allocation of funds (this results from your thinking, but is not the prioritisation process itself).
As I mentioned earlier, the only portion of our unrestricted funding that supports our diet change work comes from donors who, while choosing to give unrestrictedly, have expressed that this program is their primary motivation for supporting us.
I am not sure I got it. If those donors give unrestrictedly, you could use their donations to support your cage-free work which you also think is more cost-effective than your meal replacement work?
Thanks, Carolina. I have followed up there too.
Thanks for the follow-up, Carolina!
Regarding your question, we want to emphasize that we have reflected extensively on our prioritization of resources, including by considering your own analysis. This is an area of constant strategic consideration for us.
Is there any public write-up of your thinking on prioritisation you could point me to?
It is important to clarify that our meal replacement (diet-change) program is funded through restricted donationsāmeaning the funds allocated to this initiative come from donors who would not otherwise contribute to our cage-free or pig welfare campaigns.
Have you considered making the case to such donors that your cage-free work is way more cost-effective? Do you spend any unrestricted funds on the meal replacement program? If yes, the difference in their cost-effectiveness suggests it would be good for your to spend less. If not, I do not understand why Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) assessed its cost-effectiveness, as donations would not fund it by default.
For instance, in 2023, we secured approximately USD 162K in restricted funding specifically for our meal replacement work, and at least USD 100K in donations were influenced by the programās objectives and results. These amounts combined exceeded the programās total expenditures for the year.
Where did the additional donations go to? If the meal replacement program caused additional donations equal to 61.7 % (= 100*10^3/ā(162*10^3)) of the spending on it, and they all went to the meal replacement program, it would only become 1.62 (= 1 + 0.617) times as cost-effective, or 0.173 % (= 1.62*1.07*10^-3) as cost-effective as your cage-free campaigns. On the other hand, if they all went to your cage-free campaigns, it would become 578 (= 1 + 0.617/ā(1.07*10^-3)) times as cost-effective, or 61.8 % (= 578*1.07*10^-3) as cost-effective as your cage-free campaigns. In this latter case, 99.8 % (= 1 ā 1ā578) of the impact of your meal replacement program would come from increasing the funds supporting your cage-free campaigns.
In short, when it comes to impact, we believe that cost effectiveness estimates per dollar do not tell the full story.
I think you mean that increases in welfare do not tell the full story. Even if you have other goals, such as ending factory-farming (even if it turns out this is not ideal in terms of decreasing suffering, and increasing happiness), you could estimate the cost-effectiveness in terms of decreases in the number of animals, adjusted for their capacity for welfare, per $.
I suspect the crux of the disagreement might be a skepticism about the potential impact of working within the system
I believe there are positions within the system which are more impactful than a random one in ACEās recommended charities. However, I think those are quite senior, and therefore super hard to get, especially for people wanting to go against the system in the sense of prioritising animal welfare much more.
they are often more replaceable in these roles than they would be in an APA position and their impact is limited only to the difference between their skills and the next best candidate which for many roles is not that much.
I guess this also applies to junior positions within the system, whose freedom would be determined to a significant extent by people in senior positions.
Thanks for sharing your views, Lauren!
I disagree quite strongly with this!
I find it hard to be confident considering the lack of detailed quantitative analyses about the counterfactual impact of policy roles.
But I think as discussed during this week it is because you have the need for greater certainty over direct impact and policy in general is a much messier theory of change.
My guesses above refer to the expected counterfactual impact of the roles. They are supposed to be risk neutral with respect to maximising expected total hedonistic welfare, which I strongly endorse. I most likely act as if I prefer averting 1 h of disabling pain with certainty over decreasing by 10^-100 the chance of 10^100 h of disabling pain, but still recognise 1 h of disabling is averted in expectation in both scenarios, and therefore think both scenarios are equally good.
I also think this missed the point entirely of personal fit which is a multiplier for every persons impact.
My guesses are about the impact of people in the roles, who have to be a good fit. Otherwise, they would not have been selected.
Therefore offering them opportunities for potential impact and career capital should be compared against no role in the movement at all, not another hypothetical role
I would also consider working outside animal welfare to earn more, and therefore donate more to the best animal welfare organisations. I think this may well be more impactful than working in impact-focussed animal welfare organisations.
I have now checked their publications. They seem to be trying to slow down the growth of the insect industry. I think this may be beneficial if farmed insects have negative lives, but harmful if they have positive lives. In any case, the direction of the effect also depends on how farmed insects replace other farmed animals. I believe the Arthropoda Foundation is more robustly beneficial. They focus on improving the conditions of insects, which is beneficial regardless of whether they have positive or negative lives, and how they replace other farmed animals.