I’m Emma from the Communications team at the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA). I want to flag a few media items related to EA that have come out recently or will be coming out soon, given they’ll touch on topics—like FTX— that I expect will be of interest to Forum readers.
I’ll add links for these episodes once they become available and plan to update this post as needed.
All punishment is tragic, I guess, in that it would be a better world if we didn't have to punish anyone. I guess I just don't think the fact that SBF on some level "believed" in EA (whatever that means, and if that is even true) - despite not acting in accordance with the principles of EA - is a reason that his punishment is more tragic than anyone else's
This post summarizes "Against the Singularity Hypothesis," a Global Priorities Institute Working Paper by David Thorstad. This post is part of my sequence of GPI Working Paper summaries. For more, Thorstad’s blog, Reflective Altruism, has a three...
I feel this claim is disconnected with the definition of the singularity given in the paper:
...The singularity hypothesis begins with the supposition that artificial agents will gain the ability to improve their own intelligence. From there, it is claimed that the intelligence of artificial agents will grow at a rapidly accelerating rate, producing an intelligence explosion in which artificial agents quickly become orders of magnitude more intelligent than their human creators. The result will be a singularity, understood as a fundamental discontinuity
Reflecting on the upcoming EAGx event in Utrecht, I find myself both excited and cautiously optimistic about its potential to further grow the Dutch EA community. My experiences from the last EAGX in the Netherlands marked a pivotal moment in my own EA journey (significantly grounding it locally) and boosted the community's growth. I think this event also contributed to the growth of the 10% club and the founding of the School for Moral Ambition this year, highlighting the Netherlands as fertile ground for EA principles.
However, I'm less inclined to view the upcoming event as an opportunity to introduce proto-EAs. Recalling the previous Rotterdam edition's perceived expense, I'm concerned that the cost may deter potential newcomers, especially given the feedback I've heard regarding its perceived extravagance. I think we all understand why these events are worth our charitable Euros, but I have a hard time explaining that to newcomers who are attracted to EA for its (perceived) efficiency/effectiveness.
While the funding landscape may have changed (and this problem may have solved itself through that), I think it remains crucial to consider the aesthetics of events like these where the goal is in part to welcome new members into our community.
Manifold is hosting a festival for prediction markets: Manifest 2024! We’ll have serious talks, attendee-run workshops, and fun side events over the weekend. Chat with special guests like Nate Silver, Scott Alexander, Robin Hanson, Dwarkesh Patel, Cate Hall, and...
Hi Ben! Thanks for your comment.
I'm curious what you think the upsides and the downsides are?
I'll also add to what Austin said — in general, I think the strategy of [inviting highly accomplished person in field X to a conference about field Y] is underrated to cross-pollinate among and between fields. I think this is especially true of something like prediction markets, where by necessity they're applicable across disciplines; prediction markets are useless absent something on which to predict. This is the main reason I'm in favor of inviting e.g. Rob Mile...
This post was partly inspired by, and shares some themes with, this Joe Carlsmith post. My post (unsurprisingly) expresses fewer concepts with less clarity and resonance, but is hopefully of some value regardless.
Content warning: description of animal death.
I live in a ...
This post was moving, thank you for writing it. I have dealt with a similar situation, and found it impossible. I've dealt with that impossibility by trying to justify what I've done, and absolve myself. Your post is forthright: you killed the moths. We can move on from it, but we don't need to rationalize it.
Share your information in this thread if you are looking for full-time, part-time, or limited project work in EA causes[1]!
We’d like to help people in EA find impactful work, so we’ve set up this thread, and another called Who's hiring? (we did this last in 2022[2]).
Consider...
TLDR: I write meta-analyses on a contract basis, e.g. here, here, and here. If you want to commission a meta-analysis, and get a co-authored paper to boot, I'd love to hear from you.
Skills & background: I am a nonresident fellow at the Kahneman-Treisman Center at Princeton and an affiliate at the Humane and Sustainable Food Lab at Stanford. Previously I worked at Glo Foundation, Riskified, and Code Ocean.
Location/remote: Brooklyn.
Resume/CV/LinkedIn: see here.
Email/contact: setgree at gmail dot com
Other notes: I'm reasonably subject-agnostic, thou...
Thanks for writing and sharing this Alexander – I thought it was an unusually helpful and transparent post.
Thanks, Philippe! Good luck at Boston!! I wanted to do it this year, but it didn't work out with my schedule.