Quick takes

In Bruce Friedrich's new book, he writes, "Sometimes when I talk about cultivated meat someone will bring up the handful of states that have banned it. I'm mostly unconcerned. Cultivated meat companies won't be able to supply all 50 US states anytime soon anyway. Once there are multiple companies selling their products in...the majority of cities all across the country, the states that banned will-- I predict-- quietly repeal their laws" (p. 191). It's hard to know how literally to interpret this apparently sanguine attitude, as the book is designed to generate enthusiasm for alternative proteins. But, still it seems raise an important question about the cost-effectiveness of repealing existing bans or preventing further ones. Initial thoughts:   * My guess is that he'd still view preventing additional bans as important, at least in key regions expected to be first-adopters. Maybe Florida and Texas would be laggards in adoption even if cultivated meat were legal. * It'd be interesting to do an outside view analysis to see how quickly bans on other novel products have been undone once they've achieved a certain level of popularity elsewhere. * He's writing as if the industry can definitely succeed in spite of the bans. But, even if the bans spread no further, they already apply to >140M potential consumers across the US and Europe. That, combined with uncertainty about the prospect of additional bans, may chill the sort of public and private investment necessary for industry success.  

One happy news for the world - Poland just banned fur farming. The legislative battle is over, the president of the country signed the bill, which is the last chapter of the process.

In two days (March 21st, 12-4pm), about 140 of us (event link) will be marching on Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI in SF asking the CEOs to make statements on whether they would stop developing new frontier models if every other major lab in the world credibly does the same. This comes after Anthropic removed its commitment to pause development from their RSP. We'll be starting at 500 Howard St, San Francisco (Anthropic's Office, full schedule and more info here). This is shaping to be the biggest US AI Safety protest to date, with a coalition including Nate Soares (MIRI), David Krueger (Evitable), Will Fithian (Berkeley Professor) and folks representing PauseAI, QuitGPT, Humans First.

The UK is set to pass a law that bans the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 2008. Once the king signs it into law, the UK will become the second country in the world to introduce a generational smoking ban, after the Maldives did so last November. (New Zealand also considered such a ban a few years ago, but did not go through with it.) 

There are two UK government consultations closing March 9th, for: (1) banning cages for 7 million hens, and (2) reducing the pain that castration and tail docking practices for lambs cause, such as requiring pain relief. In the UK are 7 million hens (21%) still in cages, and roughly 17 million lambs that go through these painful procedures every year.  You can use these guides to make your response, to make these changes more likely to happen:  Hens: https://tinyurl.com/cage-consultation  Lambs: https://tinyurl.com/lamb-consultation  If you prefer, you can sign up for this online event on Sunday 5pm-6pm UTC, where we'll be writing and submitting our responses together. 

Update (January 28): Marco Rubio has now issued a temporary waiver for "humanitarian programs that provide life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter and subsistence assistance."[1] PEPFAR's funding was recently paused as a result of the recent executive order on foreign aid.[2] (It was previously reauthorized until March 25, 2025.[3]) If not exempted, this would pause PEPFAR's work for three months, effective immediately. Marco Rubio has issued waivers for some forms of aid, including emergency food aid, and has the authority to issue a similar waiver for PEPFAR, allowing it to resume work immediately.[4] Rubio has previously expressed (relatively generic) positive sentiments about PEPFAR on Twitter,[5] and I don't have specific reason to think he's opposed to PEPFAR, as opposed to simply not caring strongly enough to give it a waiver without anyone encouraging him to. I think it is worth considering calling your representatives to suggest that they encourage Rubio to give PEPFAR a waiver, similarly to the waiver he provided to programs giving emergency food aid. I have a lot of uncertainty here — in particular, I'm not sure whether this is likely to persuade Rubio — but I think it is fairly unlikely to make things actively worse. I think the argument in favor of calling is likely stronger for people who are represented by Republicans in Congress; I expect Rubio would care much more about pressure from his own party than about pressure from the Democrats.   1. ^ https://apnews.com/article/trump-foreign-assistance-freeze-684ff394662986eb38e0c84d3e73350b 2. ^ My primary source for this quick take is Kelsey Piper's Twitter thread, as well as the Tweets it quotes and the articles it and the quoted Tweet link to. For a brief discussion of what PEPFAR is, see my previous Quick Take. 3. ^ https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/pepfars-short-term-reauthorization-sets-an-uncertain-course-for-its-long-term-future/ 4. ^ htt

AI governance could be much more relevant in the EU, if the EU was willing to regulate ASML. Tell ASML they can only service compliant semiconductor foundries, where a "compliant semicondunctor foundry" is defined as a foundry which only allows its chips to be used by compliant AI companies. I think this is a really promising path for slower, more responsible AI development globally. The EU is known for its cautious approach to regulation. Many EAs believe that a cautious, risk-averse approach to AI development is appropriate. Yet EU regulations are often viewed as less important, since major AI firms are mostly outside the EU. However, ASML is located in the EU, and serves as a chokepoint for the entire AI industry. Regulating ASML addresses the standard complaint that "AI firms will simply relocate to the most permissive jurisdiction". Advocating this path could be a high-leverage way to make global AI development more responsible without the need for an international treaty.

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.