At EAG: London 2024, I presented Ambitious Impact's strategic vision for maximizing career impact across the EA ecosystem. I introduced the concept of "high absorbency" careers and outlined why and how EA should create more targeted on-ramps, helping promising individuals bridge the final gap to truly impactful roles.
Understanding Trump's odds, Hurricanes, and Manifold's revenue
Dear Friend, What happens when committed public health professionals unite with a community of supporters to take on one of the biggest challenges? You get it done! Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the progress that Seva and our teams have been making. Our analytics from this past year show that more people than ever are ….
With clear eyes, Abdu can do anything! “Kids” and “cataracts” aren’t two words one hears very often in the same sentence. For one thing, the young person having the vision difficulty might not make that much of it, assuming everyone sees objects surrounded by a big fuzzy blur. They may be shy about bringing it ….
Today, there are an estimated 476 million indigenous peoples worldwide, speaking 4,000 of the world’s languages. No two communities are the same, and neither are their eye care needs. In the U.S. and around the world, Seva partners directly with indigenous communities to co-create eye care interventions. Indigenous partners lead conversations, sharing their knowledge, experiences, lived ….
Glasses. Chances are better than 50% that you, dear reader, rely on something to correct your refractive error (near- or far-sightedness) like contacts, prescription glasses, or readers. You may even have a few pairs stashed in your car, office, or workshop. But in low- and middle-income countries, refractive error is the leading cause of vision ….
A new Seva project in India will target babies’ and children’s needs; specifically, children’s need for eyeglasses (correcting quality refractive error), and treating Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) in babies. School-aged students will receive complete eye checkups, prescriptions, and a selection of stylish frames at their local Vision Centers. To ensure ongoing eye care there will ….
This past June, we wished Seva “original” Suzanne Gilbert a fulfilling retirement. As Senior Director of Research and Strategic Opportunities, Suzanne led Seva’s efforts to bring good science and research to the work she supported for over 47 years. Suzanne’s legacy of commitment to teaching and innovating local communities through training for excellence has been ….
Carole Blank Shares the Love Glasses have been part of Carole Blank’s life since she was a kid. So imagine her delight, make that astonishment, when a cataract surgery gave her 20/20 vision in one eye. “What an amazing gift!”, she wrote. “To see the face of a child, a sunrise, flowers blooming…something so many …. The post Donor Shout-Outs – Fall 2024 first appeared on Seva Foundation.
These young activists are eager to make the world a better place. From stories to rap to athletic endeavors, these projects reflect the talent and compassion of their creators. View their projects and full bios, on our website, seva.org/yap. Seva and the larger community are in good hands with upstarts like these. If you know ….
As we celebrate Mercy For Animals’ 25th anniversary, we reflect on the impact our work has made. Through protests, investigations, calls for a more plant-based food system, and partnerships with major celebrities, we have opened the hearts and minds of millions of people to the plight of animals raised and killed for food. With the […].
Will Slate call me America's creepiest blogger?
Introduction. Accurately quantifying animal suffering is a critical step in ensuring that welfare interventions are evidence-based and lead to meaningful improvements. We are excited to share this transcript from our workshop at EAG: London 2024, where we introduced the methodology behind the Welfare Footprint Project.
Thursday, October 17
We had the pleasure of exhibiting at New Scientist Live for the first time last weekend! New Scientist Live is a major science exhibition in London on October 12-14, bringing in visitors from all over London. It was a huge opportunity for us to showcase our work to science-keen audiences of all ages. On Monday […]. The post New Scientist Live 2024 appeared first on Target Malaria.
Land use for agriculture negatively impacts biodiversity and climate change. This article discusses farming technologies that can reduce land use. The post Can Technology Reduce Land Use For Agriculture? appeared first on Faunalytics.
To Advocate "Don't Do Anything Risky!" is Risky
CGD's Eeshani Kandpal speaks with Twaweza founder Rakesh Rajani and the World Bank's Halsey Rogers about how Twaweza's learning assessments influenced the 2018 World Development Report on education. Together they shed light on how partnerships between international actors and local institutions can have outsize impact on policy worldwide.
What problem do we get after we've solved all other problems?
Plus: OpenAI’s $6.6B fundraising round, AI data centers go nuclear, the FTC cracks down on misleading AI promises, and OMB’s AI acquisition guidance. The post DoD announces “Replicator 2” for counter-drone tech, Newsom vetoes SB 1047, and Commerce’s new (and upcoming) chip export rules appeared first on Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
This paper was published as a GPI working paper in October 2024. Abstract. I study a static production economy in which consumers have not only preferences over their own consumption but also external, or “ethical”, preferences over the supply of each good.
The second of our 'AI Safety Breakfasts' event series, featuring Dr. Charlotte Stix on model evaluations, deceptive AI behaviour, and the AI Safety and Action Summits.
On 8 October 2024, the British Pugwash group held an online seminar with Zhou Bo, Senior Fellow at the Centre … More...
Open Philanthropy is launching a search for an exceptional Program Officer to found and lead a new grantmaking portfolio focused on promoting economic growth in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). If we make a hire, we expect them to oversee at least $30 million in giving over their first three years.
I once heard the advice that you should write your own obituary. You can then see if you want to change it. Here are my first three attempts:
This is a crosspost for Why is it so hard to know if you're helping? by Erik Hoel, which was published on 25 January 2024. [Subtitle:] Even sending mosquito bed nets to Africa carries uncertainty. Art for The Intrinsic Perspective is by Alexander Naughton“We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? ...
Summary: I outline an argument for nonhuman animals mattering a lot in expectation on non-hedonic views, illustrating with desire and preference-based views (more). I argue against normalizing each individual's welfare by their desires/preferences about their own suffering (or about anything else) (more).
Why do smart people fall for stupid things? This week, we’re going to discuss an important part of the answer to that question: trust....
A shocking new exposé by Animal Justice reveals fish being brutally killed at Sustainable Blue, a “sustainable” salmon farm in Canada. The disturbing video shows multiple fish being stomped on. One clip shows a supervisor killing several fish—one who is pregnant—by slamming them against tanks. When asked whether workers received any slaughter training, the supervisor […].
In Rondonia, Brazil, a judge has ruled that several beef slaughterhouses are guilty of purchasing cattle from a protected area of former rainforest in the Amazon. The judge has also ordered the slaughterhouses and three cattle ranchers to collectively pay $764,000 for the environmental harm caused. Funds will be used to reforest 573 acres of […]. The post Does U.S.
This is a follow-up from a post I made a week ago. If you have fifteen minutes to spare, you can contribute to increasing the effectiveness of the UK's aid programme - which spends approximately US $20 billion each year - to try to direct as much of that money to go towards the most effective interventions to help the greatest number of people.
As a passionate animal activist and Mercy For Animals volunteer, I was thrilled when my good friend invited me to table at Black VegFest. Black VegFest is a Brooklyn-based vegan festival centered on uplifting and speaking on nonhuman-animal and Black liberation struggles to breathe more intersectionality into the vegan movement. Vegan activist and speaker Omowale […].
EA Forum Digest #211
Hello!. The application deadline for EA Global Boston is on the 20th October (this is the final reminder! ), you can apply here. If you can’t make it to an EAG(x) event in person, EAGxVirtual is also coming up soon, and can be attended from anywhere in the world. The application deadline for this is on the 14th November.
Wednesday, October 16
Policy and Advocacy Associate
admin_inox
Wed, 10/16/2024 - 18:00
vacancy_id
SYS-1225
location
Islamabad, Pakistan
Contract type
Fixed Term
Duration
24 Months
Frontend apply URL
https://jobs.gainhealth.org/vacancies/1225/apply/
Closing date
Thu, 10/31/2024 - 12:00
Department
Advocacy, policy and external relations
about_the_role
<p>The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition...
The post Nate Silver on making sense of SBF, and his biggest critiques of effective altruism appeared first on 80,000 Hours.
Neste workshop exploramos argumentos e contra-argumentos sobre as principais causas do Altruísmo Eficaz:
00:00 Introdução
04:06 Saúde global
07:36 Sofrimento animal na pecuária industrial
10:56 Riscos catastróficos globais
13:40 Riscos de Inteligência Artificial
16:36 Longoprazismo
20:42 Proposta de atividade
Peer-reviewed journals are a gold standard source among academics and advocates looking for insights. However, just like any industry, its important to understand the economics and ethics at play. The post The Ethics of Academic Journals: What Is An Animal Advocate To Do? appeared first on Faunalytics.
The proportion of industry-funded studies on the impacts of eggs on cholesterol have increased over the years. Does industry funding affect whether a study’s conclusion will agree with the actual data?. The post The Impact Of Industry Funding On Egg And Cholesterol Research appeared first on Faunalytics.
Malaria is a significant global public health challenge in Africa with the region carrying the burden over 90% of malaria cases and deaths. In the World Malaria Report 2023, Uganda is part of a group of five countries, including Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Papua New Guinea, as collectively responsible for an increase in global malaria […].
If you eat meat, you have no basis to be outraged about dog-eating Haitians
For English description and chapters, see accompanying blog post: https://futureoflife.org/ai-policy/paris-ai-safety-breakfast-3-yoshua-bengio/
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Inscrivez-vous pour être informé des prochains petits-déjeuners sur la sécurité de l'IA :
https://futureoflife.org/ai-safety-breakfasts/
L'article de blog et la transcription associés à cet événement...
The third of our 'AI Safety Breakfasts' event series, featuring Yoshua Bengio on the evolution of AI capabilities, loss-of-control scenarios, and proactive vs reactive defense.
Probably, but it's not obvious how
The Nobel Prize in Economics awarded this week to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson allows a lot of people to feel like winners. (Especially those in the know who refer to the group by the acronym “AJR.”) The general public wins in that all three have, unusually for academic economists, written extensively for […]...
The Nobel Prize in Economics awarded this week to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson allows a lot of people to feel like winners. (Especially those in the know who refer to the group by the acronym “AJR.”) The general public wins in that all three have, unusually for academic economists, written extensively for […]...
Many people wish EA was better at communicating with non-EA audiences and want to help, but aren’t sure how. We offer a few options below. If you’re unfamiliar with Good Impressions, our website is here and we’ve also provided some additional information below. 1. Submit your ideas for EA communications projects. Do you have an idea for an impactful EA communications project?
The men’s world conkers champion is accused of cheating with a steel chestnut.
At just 13 years old, Wademu Ngmarju has made a name for herself in her community as an expert in farming and nutrition. She grows food in a home garden, raises chickens to earn income, and mentors other teen girls in farming and nutrition. She started on this journey in 2022 when Helen Keller Intl […].
A simple model of a sad fact
TL;DR: Global Policy Research Group (GPRG) is launching an initiative to accelerate progress on neglected but pressing global health issues through policy advocacy. In the last 6 months, we spoke with several high-impact global health organizations and experts, who shared that finding "top local talent" in target countries (mostly Low- and Middle-Income Countries) is a significant challenge.
DOWNLOAD FULL PDF As Europe’s nascent industrial policy on AI gains steady momentum, potentially allocating significant public and private funds and shaping regulatory actions, we need public scrutiny and debate to assess these initiatives critically. That’s where this report intervenes: to ask hard questions about the resource allocation in these nascent strategies and the process […].
The share of the surface of the Earth which is very urban turns out to be a recurring question when estimating various catastrophic risks, like asteroids or volcanoes. Once we estimate the frequency of such events, we want to estimate the chance that they’d hit an urban area.
Most development interventions are considered “good buys” (for donors or governments) if they return $15 in social benefits for every $1 spent. Every $1 spent on reading glasses could result in $46 more in earnings. Discuss...
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post. The post Protected: Cybersecurity and the Clean Energy Transition appeared first on CLTC.
For the value of each funding round R, we distribute the total sum equally among all participating investors N, and by summing these values across all rounds, we estimate the total investment F by each funder j in the target company. A limitation of this methodology is the assumption of equal contribution among investors participating […].
Allan Lichtman’s “13 Keys” election prediction system has a disputed track record and serious flaws. But it might still be worth learning about. A politics update by Jacob Cohen (@Conflux).
This post is an overview of the Moral Two Envelopes Problem and a take on whether it applies to Rethink Priorities' Moral Weights Project. It is a product of discussions between myself, Michael St. Jules, Hayley Clatterbuck, Marcus Davis, Bob Fischer, and Arvo Muñoz Morán, but need not reflect anyone's views but my own. Thanks to Brian Tomasik, Carl Shulman, and Michael St. Jules for comments.
RSVP below!
Suppose two Bayesian agents are presented with the same spreadsheet - IID samples of data in each row, a feature in each column. Each agent develops a generative model of the data distribution. We'll assume the two converge to the same predictive distribution, but may have different generative models containing different latent variables.
While you can make a lot of progress in evals with tinkering and paying little attention to the literature, we found that various other papers have saved us many months of research effort. The Apollo Research evals team thus compiled a list of what we felt were important evals-related papers.
Tuesday, October 15
Webinar: Privacy, Security, and Innovation - Friends Not Foes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS1lGVTyTM4
Featuring: Andrew Trask | OpenMined Founder and Executive Director
Responsible AI development necessitates balancing the risks and rewards of open or closed-source development, respecting data privacy while promoting innovation, and supporting national security while protecting...
DOWNLOAD FULL PDF In the recent headlong proliferation of AI technologies, critical questions about who benefits from these advances and whether these changes are necessarily positive for society are often overlooked. The current AI ecosystem is dominated by a few tech giants whose incentives misalign with the public interest, necessitating a radical approach that empowers […]. The post IX.
DOWNLOAD FULL PDF Francesco Bonfiglio had a front-row seat in Europe’s previous attempts at digital sovereignty. As the former chief executive of the Gaia-X, an association created in 2020 to develop decentralized networks of cloud computing services across the European Union, the Italian oversaw a project that has become a political priority for Europe’s leaders […]. The post XI.
DOWNLOAD FULL PDF As the EU embraces industrial policy, it has spent little to no attention on how to guarantee that public money and resources actually serve the public interest. The EU would be well-advised to look back on previous industrial policy initiatives, such as the EU Chips Act, and learn from its mistakes. The […]. The post VI.
DOWNLOAD FULL PDF Industrial policy fell out of favor across much of the world during the first decade of the twenty-first century, particularly in the United States, where people were even reluctant to discuss it because of the risk of being associated with European-style socialism. But times have changed. Industrial policy is no longer taboo—it’s […]. The post VIII.
DOWNLOAD FULL PDF Following decades of a hands-off, neoliberal approach that relied on market forces to drive technological progress and digital industries to self-regulate, there is now growing recognition in EU policy circles that governments must play a more active role in shaping digital markets. Amid a wave of digital regulation—including the Digital Services Act […]. The post XII.
DOWNLOAD FULL PDF A Public-Interest Digital Industrial Strategy As digital services increasingly underpin critical sectors—healthcare, energy, transportation, and public administration—the ability to control and govern these infrastructures becomes a matter of strategic importance. Relying on external cloud services and AI capabilities means that sensitive data and strategic assets remain...
DOWNLOAD FULL PDF A small number of huge companies—Microsoft, OpenAI, and Alphabet—currently dominate in large language AI models. Because they have long had powerful positions, troves of data, and money to burn from existing markets, they could easily leverage themselves into the AI space. This has resulted in a worrying market-and-power concentration. Big market players […]. The post VII.
Cities represent the future of humanity — and that means we must figure out how to make them more livable. The share of people who live in urbanized areas more than doubled in the US and across the world from 1900 to 2000. More than eight in 10 Americans live in cities today, as do […]...
Crucial research exposes concerns about downed pigs in the food supply, calling for stricter regulations and greater public awareness. The post Downed Pigs: An Intersection Of Animal Welfare, Public Health, And Consumer Safety appeared first on Faunalytics.
Was modernism originally a way to signal taste instead of wealth?
The Washington Post has a long and detailed story about the operation that’s well worth reading (alternate version here). The sales pitch came from a marketing official trusted by Hezbollah with links to Apollo. The marketing official, a woman whose identity and nationality officials declined to reveal, was a former Middle East sales representative for the Taiwanese firm who had established...
WASHINGTON, DC: The PACE Forum, a first-of-its-kind convening held on October 8, 2024, brought together dozens of cybersecurity experts, education technology (edtech) vendors, procurement leaders, and other stakeholders…. The post PACE Forum convenes school officials, technology vendors to improve cybersecurity in K-12 Schools appeared first on CLTC.
Psychologists have done experiments that supposedly show how people behave irrationally. But in some of those experiments, people do behave rationally, and it’s the psychologists’ expectations that are irrational. Contents. Contents. Ultimatum game. Hyperbolic discounting. Dunning-Kruger effect. Non-examples: Asch and Milgram. Themes. Notes. Ultimatum game.
DOWNLOAD FULL PDF Situating the Current Political Moment The European Union stands on the brink of change. Its economic outlook remains uncertain, exacerbated by a cost-of-living crisis, growing geopolitical tensions, the aftershocks of COVID-19 supply shortages, and an energy crisis caused by Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine. Despite numerous lawsuits, cases, and major court rulings […].
Xenobiology. Catholic schools. When will we have artificial wombs? Old MacDonald meets Big Brother. Weird little guys. Malaria vaccines. The most important part is knowing when to quit. What’s going on with the kids these days? Unleash the DFC. All about GLP-1s. Urban planning, Weber-style. Of course the AI labs are lying to you.
During this Animal Welfare Debate Week, I’ve learned that the battery cage system in poultry farming can be considered a form of punishment for the birds. As a farmer currently using this system, I am eager to transition to a more humane, cage-free approach. Are there any funding or support programs available to assist farmers in making this change? If so, how can I access these resources?
Some reactions
See my piece on the history of microbiology and the vast, invisible worlds that come into focus every time we figure out how to look closer: Through the Looking Glass, and What Zheludev et al. (2024) Found There at Asterisk Magazine I’ve written for Asterisk before: What I won’t eat, on arriving at an equilibrium […]...
What if you could remove some information from the weights of an AI? Would that be helpful?. It is clearly useful against some misuse concerns: if you are concerned that LLMs will make it easier to build bioweapons because they have memorized such information, removing the memorized facts would remove this misuse concern.
If-then commitments might be the answer
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking at SOSS Fusion 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The event will be held on October 22 and 23, 2024, and my talk is at 9:15 AM ET on October 22, 2024. The list is maintained on this page.
Trump attempted to illegally install himself as president after losing a fair election
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post. The post Protected: PACE Forum convenes school officials, technology vendors to improve cybersecurity in K-12 Schools appeared first on CLTC.
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