AI Use Note: Main body text entirely human written. Claude (Opus 4.8) helped develop models of animal life histories in the appendix.
Cross-posted from Good Structures.
Executive Summary
* Animal advocates sometimes make claims like “there are X of this animal...
“How long have you been v*g*n?”
This is one of the most common icebreakers at animal protection events. It’s a baseline assumption, and it mostly holds true: if you’re out advocating for animals not to be tortured or abused, realistically these days you are v**n, or close. And it makes for good conversation. It seems fairly safe to assume when you meet strangers.
But this assumption is hurting the movement in a way which we don’t always notice: someone new comes into the sp...
Summary
Back in November 2023 I posted here to launch Spiro and raise our first $198k. Two and a half years later this is an update and a fundraiser for the next step.
The short version: we've now reached over-5,900 people with TB preventive medicine, including over 3,000 children under five years old. Our early results have held up well an...
In the recent interview with Katja Grace referenced on ACX, she mentioned that many people may be opposed to slowing down AI progress because (I'm paraphrasing) they perceive AGI as a genie that will solve longevity and other problems and bring about the Cool Transhumanist Future, which they won't see otherwise - due to their age and/or longer timelines. I have been hanging out in longevity/anti-aging spaces for a while and this perspective is exceedingly common there. People are very hyped about AI coming and curing aging, and dismiss any concerns about AI safety.
From this point of view, solving aging, or even just making a tangible progress towards LEV , will make those people less resistant to the notion of slowing/stopping AI progress. This is complementary to the often mentioned idea that longer life expectancy will cause people to care more about AGI (and other existential risks). This of course doesn't imply that anti-aging is more important than direct work on AI alignment, but 1) it is likely more tractable and 2) not everyone can or want to work on AI alignment directly.