Quick takes

Are you an EU citizen? If so, please sign this citizen’s initiative to phase out factory farms (this is an approved EU citizen’s initiative, so if it gets enough signatures the EU has to respond): stopcrueltystopslaughter.com It also calls for reducing the number of animal farms over time, and introducing more incentives for the production of plant proteins. (If initiatives like these interest you, I occasionally share more of them on my blog) EDIT: If it doesn't work, try again in a couple hours/days. The collection has just started and the site may be overloaded. The deadline is in a year, so no need to worry about running out of time.

The Belgian senate votes to add animal welfare to the constitution. It's been a journey. I work for GAIA, a Belgian animal advocacy group that for years has tried to get animal welfare added to the constitution. Today we were present as a supermajority of the senate came out in favor of our proposed constitutional amendment. The relevant section reads: It's a very good day for Belgian animals but I do want to note that: 1. This does not mean an effective shutdown of the meat industry, merely that all future pro-animal welfare laws and lawsuits will have an easier time.  And, 2. It still needs to pass the Chamber of Representatives. If there's interest I will make a full post about it if once it passes the Chamber. EDIT: Translated the linked article on our site into English.

The recently released 2024 Republican platform said they'll repeal the recent White House Executive Order on AI, which many in this community thought is a necessary first step to make future AI progress more safe/secure. This seems bad. From https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24795758/read-the-2024-republican-party-platform.pdf, see bottom of pg 9.

At this point, we need an 80k page on "What to do after leaving Open AI" 1. Don't start another AI safety lab

Of 1500 climate policies that have been implemented over the past 25 years, the 63 most successful ones are in this article (that I don't have access to, but a good summary is here). The 63 policies reduced between 0.6 billion and 1.8 billion metric tonnes CO2 emissions. The typical effects that the 63 most effective policies had, could close the emissions gap by 26%-41%. Pricing is most effective in developed countries, while regulations are the most effective policies in developing countries. The climate policy explorer shows the best policies for different countries and sectors. I just wanted to write this if EA:s who are interested in climate change and policy have missed this. Kind regards, Ulf Graf

SB 1047 is a critical piece of legislation for AI safety, but there haven’t been great ways of getting up to speed, especially since the bill has been amended several times. Since the bill's now finalized, better resources exist to catch up. Here's a few: * A four-page summary of the bill [written by bill proponents] * A recent post from Zvi Mowshowitz explaining the latest version of the bill * A summary of the latest round of amendments [written by bill proponents] * Latest bill text If you are working in AI safety or AI policy, I think understanding this bill is pretty important. Hopefully this helps.

I believe people are substantially underestimating how much the economy contributes to Trump’s support, and being more aware of it would help better protect the democracy of the most powerful country in the world.  In 2020, the US budget deficit more than tripled. This and other (I think much smaller) factors resulted in US real median household income increasing by a completely unprecedented 11.6% in 2020 according to the Congressional Budget Office. Prior to that year, US real median household income under the Trump administration had improved by the 7% it had under the last Obama administration. However, by the end of 2020, US real median household income had increased by 19.3% total during the Trump administration, more than the 17.8% it had increased over all 4 previous presidential terms combined. If this had been accomplished in a way that didn't decrease long run incomes, we would have called it a miracle. Nothing anywhere near this has happened in the 41 years this statistic has been recorded. Caring about the long run impacts of deficits is esoteric. A miracle is what Americans of normal education experienced.  Polling bears this out. While partisans typically care deeply about culture wars, swing voters (who overall switched from voting from Biden to planning to vote for Trump) are concerned about the economy instead.  For the median income data source, see the supplemental data section. After thinking about various sources' methodology for this statistic more than my economics professors have, I believe this is the highest quality source for this statistic.  

The UK government has announced the foundation of the Laboratory for AI Security Research (LASR) with around £8m funding, which appears to have largely flown under the radar. --- To help the UK stay ahead in the “new AI arms race” the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will announce a new Laboratory for AI Security Research (LASR) to protect the UK and its allies against new threats, saying: "The lab will pull together world-class industry, academic and government experts to assess the impact of AI on our national security. "While AI can amplify existing cyber threats, it can also create better cyber defence tools and presents opportunities for intelligence agencies to collect, analyse, and produce more useful intelligence."