Quick takes

I went to jail yesterday in Wisconsin. I helped rescue 23 beagles in a large mass open rescue against a factory farm, Ridglan Farms, near Madison. We were trying to push the police to act on documented animal cruelty at Ridglan. Instead they arrested me and 26 other activists. I wrote a blog post about why I did it.. Excerpt: More info and stories from Wayne Hsiung: https://blog.simpleheart.org/p/im-in-jail-for-rescuing-dogs-its If you're in the DC area, I'll be sharing more about my experience at Revolutionists' Night, an animal welfare meetup, this Thursday. Reach out for an invite. [Edited to add:] I believe there is a lawful basis for this action and I intend to fight any attempted prosecution in court! I'm not advocating any illegal activity, of course.

Hi! This has been in my backlog, so I wanted to quickly post about a one-on-one app that we made a couple of months ago for the West Coast EA Retreat and Midwest EA Retreat. Pairwise is a simple scheduler for 1:1s at retreats and other events. You can sign in with a magic link, mark the slots you're free, browse other attendees and see when your availability overlaps, and request meetings. You can try a demo retreat here and read about its use at the West Coast EA retreat here.  If you want to use pairwise for an EA or AI safety or similar retreat/event, please let me know! You can email [email protected] or DM me. Made by Jesse Gilbert with help from Saul Munn. Open source on GitHub.

Please list any new funding opportunities you can think of here on the Forum? I feel like we might already be in the early ramp-up to significantly more EA aligned funding. At the same time, the Forum's overview over funding opportunities feels like it is quickly getting outdated. I think as things move quickly, coordination might become looser and new promising interventions are identified, it is helpful for people to have a good overview over available funding sources and their priorities. I have heard on the grapevine there is already funding on several fronts that might not be very public. I am a little bit uncertain if perhaps it is better these sources remain anonymous. At the same time, I think there might be several promising EA projects that are not sufficiently visible to people influencing funding decisions.  Epistemic note: I am not listing these yet as I have not had time yet to verify how much they qualify as EA funding opportunities. Here are a few recent developments I am considering listing on the funding opportunities page, but would like someone that knows these funds better to list them: * Probably several I have missed - please list these here * OpenAI Foundation - AI Resilience * OpenAI Rosalind * The Launch Sequence (not a fund in itself, but plausibly one can treat this kind of like a funding source?) * Several of Renaissance Philanthropy's (RP) funds (several quite plugged in EAs do not even know of RP!) * Astralis Foundation

You should volunteer at your first EAG! (Especially if you are a student or early career) * If you don’t have a network in EA, EAG’s can be overwhelming. Volunteering gives you a ready-made, organic network. * Volunteering is pretty chill - a lot of the shifts aren’t that hard. * At your first EAG, it’s unlikely that you are using your time so efficiently that a few hours of volunteering would cut into the value of your conference.

I am currently the only Fund Manager at the EA Infrastructure Fund... and that needs to change! I work full-time on something else within the Centre for Effective Altruism, and the EAIF needs a dedicated owner who will drive it forwards. I think we're sitting on a big opportunity here. There's so much that the EA movement could achieve, and so much great work that could be enabled by EAIF. Some indicators of promise here: * CEA is growing, but there's only so much that CEA can work on in-house. We need to fund and nurture great work that's happening elsewhere, too! * There are potential new sources of funding that EAIF could tap into; building a strong product here that donors are excited about is essential. * We have a mini roadmap laid out by recent successes within EA Funds. Let me say more on that last one. I've been extremely impressed by what another EA Fund, the Animal Welfare Fund, has achieved over the past year or two, improving it's evaluation quality, it's staffing, and it's available pool of resources. I think the EAIF has the potential for a similar rocketship trajectory; it needs the right person to come in and make that happen. CEA is hiring for a new Head of the EA Infrastructure Fund: full job description and application form here, apply by 4th May. Let me know if you have questions! I can't promise deep engagement with all potential candidates, but I'll help out with key/quick uncertainties if I can! Some additional thoughts from Loic, new Head of EA Funds, here.

Not sure who needs to hear this, but Hank Green has published two very good videos about AI safety this week: an interview with Nate Soares and a SciShow explainer on AI safety and superintelligence. Incidentally, he appears to have also come up with the ITN framework from first principles (h/t @Mjreard). Hopefully this is auspicious for things to come?

Dwarkesh (of the famed podcast) recently posted a call for new guest scouts. Given how influential his podcast is likely to be in shaping discourse around transformative AI (among other important things), this seems worth flagging and applying for (at least, for students or early career researchers in bio, AI, history, econ, math, physics, AI that have a few extra hours a week). The role is remote, pays ~$100/hour, and expects ~5–10 hours/week. He’s looking for people who are deeply plugged into a field (e.g. grad students, postdocs, or practitioners) with high taste. Beyond scouting guests, the role also involves helping assemble curricula so he can rapidly get up to speed before interviews. More details are in the blog post; link to apply (due Jan 23 at 11:59pm PST).

I am sure someone has mentioned this before, but… For the longest time, and to a certain extent still, I have found myself deeply blocked from publicly sharing anything that wasn’t significantly original. Whenever I have found an idea existing anywhere, even if it was a footnote on an underrated 5-karma-post, I would be hesitant to write about it, since I thought that I wouldn’t add value to the “marketplace of ideas.” In this abstract concept, the “idea is already out there” - so the job is done, the impact is set in place. I have talked to several people who feel similarly; people with brilliant thoughts and ideas, who proclaim to have “nothing original to write about” and therefore refrain from writing. I have come to realize that some of the most worldview-shaping and actionable content I have read and seen was not the presentation of a uniquely original idea, but often a better-presented, better-connected, or even just better-timed presentation of existing ideas. I now think of idea-sharing as a much more concrete, but messy contributor to impact, one that requires the right people to read the right content in the right way at the right time; maybe even often enough, sometimes even from the right person on the right platform, etc. All of that to say, the impact of your idea-sharing goes much beyond the originality of your idea. If you have talked to several cool people in your network about something and they found it interesting and valuable to hear, consider publishing it! Relatedly, there are many more reasons to write other than sharing original ideas and saving the world :)