Open Philanthropy reports on their investment in Sherlock Biosciences to support the development of a diagnostic platform to quickly, easily, and inexpensively identify any human virus present in a sample. (15 mins.)
Shaping the development of artificial intelligence
Ajeya Cotra discusses how we might estimate how long it will take for transformative AI to emerge. This report is very long, so we recommend starting with Rohin Shah's summary.
For more research and discussion on AI timelines, see AI Impacts and LessWrong.
An argument for how advances in military technology (including but not limited to AI) can impede decision-making and create risk, thus demanding greater attention by the national security establishment. (60 mins.)
An explanation of how atomically precise manufacturing could displace industrial production technologies and bring radical improvements in production cost, scope, and resource efficiency. (10 mins.)
A documentary exploring what artificial intelligence can reveal about the ancient game of Go, and what that can teach us about the future potential of artificial intelligence. (Video - 1 hour 30 mins.)
An exploration of ways in which the future of surveillance could be bad, and an investigation into accountable, privacy-preserving surveillance protocols. (Video - 15 mins.)
A preliminary estimate, and a request for better ones.
Summary
I believe the standard literature estimates for the number of DALYs attributable to a case of stunting are too low, largely because they don’t account for the long term effects. This means that childhood nutritional interventions that reduce the prevalence of stunting may be substantially more cost-effective than previously believed.
Epistemic status
Exploratory and back-o...
I’ve been feeling pretty shaken since the METR report about the Hugging Face incident came out last week. Over the weekend, I wrote up some thoughts on how lonely the AI situation sometimes feels to me. It’s more personal than what I’d usually share publicly, but I thought I’d post it here in case it resonates with anyone else.
I’m very grateful to the man...
TL;DR: Kairos has raised $50 million from Coefficient Giving for two years of funding, one of the largest commitments they’ve made towards AI safety fieldbuilding to date. We’re using this to make an ambitious push for growing Kairos, broadening our portfolio of talent infrastructure projects and incubating new organizations. We’ve doubled in size in the last six mon...