One of the coolest EA things I saw during the pandemic was the creation of the microCOVID risk tracker by an EA group house in San Francisco. To me, it was a really inspiring example of the principles of effective altruism in action — using rationality and curiosity to solve a concrete problem to make people’s lives better.
I was having a dinner party with some friends last night with a theme of how we could improve indoor air safety, starting with our local community in New York. (Some background here on how my colleagues at 1Day Sooner and i think about the air safety problem). How can we get buildings to clean the air (by filtering it, mixing it with outdoor air, and sterilizing it with ultraviolet light) so that people don’t suffer from pollution and pathogens?
We were discussing what was feasible to accomplish politically and were struggling because a standard answer to “what air safety interventions are optimal for a space to adopt?” doesn’t yet exist. We agreed that it would be uniquely valuable to recruit early adopters (e.g. tech companies, private schools, universities) to try out solutions and test them for effectiveness in reducing disease. If well-designed, this could generate experimental evidence on effectiveness and create a template for later adopters and governments to implement.
An obvious place to start would be the EA community and trying to get EA spaces to implement air safety measures (like installing filters and upper-room UV light). There are a number of organizations that could fit the bill, and I’m aware of at least one that is exploring doing this in their own office.
One suggestion that uniquely resonated with me was the idea that the next EA Global (after EAG DC) should make its air safe. (That is, it should have a respiratory infection risk level it tries to achieve, some surrogate targets it aims to measure, and a set of indoor air interventions that are reasonably likely to achieve the intended risk level).
I don’t think this will be easy and in fact I think it might be more likely than not that we fail. But part of what is valuable about EA is our commitment to learning from failure and improve over time. Trying to implement air safety interventions will teach us about the existing gaps that need to be filled, which will get us closer for the next EAG (and EAGx) until we get to a point where we’re proud of our community for becoming safer and a better model for achieving good outcomes elsewhere.
I recognize it already takes a tremendous amount of effort to run EA Global, and I appreciate the work CEA does putting these events on. So my intention is not to create additional burden. But biosecurity is a cause many EAs are passionate about, and air safety is one of the most promising interventions to achieve deterrence-by-denial of engineered respiratory biothreats. I feel like making our own spaces safe from pathogens is a challenge that our community can and should rise to and that doing so will have outsized benefits on our ability to accomplish future policy. If you're interested in helping with this, let me know.
I would like to see this discussion re-ignited. I got sick at EAGxBerlin2024, ironically missing a talk on „The economic value of reducing indoor infections“, which argues that UVC-lamps are a very cost-effective measure for indoor gatherings (https://www.d-fine.com/en/news/reducing-indoor-infections/).
I understand that it is difficult to estimate the effect of indoor air quality improvements to EA events (which include reduced air pollution AND reduced pathogen load), because these events may be different from what has been studied in the past, e.g. there already is existing ventilation, some people wear masks, many are young etc. I still encourage people with more expertise in the area to try to make an estimate (@Dawn Drescher - I could not reach your weblink).
I firmly believe that investing in air purification at EAG(x) is worthwhile, as the associated costs are relatively minor, and Eli_Nathan's arguments against this, as the former organizer, lack validity.
I list them below:
Response: There is (now). The cost of renting 20 industrial-grade air purifiers for one weekend seems to be roughly 2500 pounds. Given the number of attendees at EAG, air purification is certainly cheaper than the shirts. (I just picked the first google response to base my estimate on: https://www.cas-hire.co.uk/air-cleaners/healthcare-bacterial-and-odour-control/)
quite logistically challenging
Response: How? As I understand it, air filter are directly shipped to the destination, and then shipped back afterwards. My volunteering experience tells me that organizers worry about stuff that I would consider of lesser importance, such as getting the number of toilets on descriptions exactly right. Renting a ton of furniture (as is the case for EAGxBerlin) surely is as logistically challenging, if not more.
there are also trade-offs re noise pollution
Response: What are these? Modern air filters tend to be relatively silent. In my experience, they are barely noticeable, even without anyone talking. Never has a guest at my house noticed the sound of my air filter (and the noise level is much lower than at EAG).
at the end of the day there are other marginal improvements to the conference I’m more excited about making
Response: Since when does it make sense to implement only the „best“ improvements? Is it not sufficient to robustly improve the event? I understand that the organizers do not want unnecessary additional hassle with this, but it does not seem to be more hassle than most other things at such events.
@Gordon Seidoh Worley also suggested that we bring our home equipment. Whilst I do not think that many are able and willing to do this, my air filter is lightweight and I would have been willing to bring it. If a small share (say 3%) of participants brought their equipment this could suffice as well.
I am tagging an event organizer here just so that this comment gets read by someone, @RobertHarling - the honor is yours.
Hi Robert, thanks for answering. I would like to add two more points to what you already said:
1. To get more bang for relatively little organising, why not get just a few air filters for those rooms which are most crowded? 100+ air filters seem indeed like a lot (I calculated with 12).
2. It would perhaps be easier to get data on the health benefit related to reducing indoor air pollution. There are plenty of studies on this, I will try to find a good one. This alone may be sufficient to justify the expense. Reducing respiratory diseases would come on top.