All of Madhav Malhotra's Comments + Replies

The UX has so much improvement since the 2022 version of this :-) It feels concise and the scrolling to each new graph makes it interesting to learn each new thing. Kudos to whoever designed it this way!

Just to play devil's advocate (without harmful intentions :-), what are the largest limitations or disclaimers that we should keep in mind regarding your results or methods?

Sorry if I missed this in your post, but how many policies did you analyse that were passed via referendum vs. by legislation? How many at the state level vs. federal US vs. international?

@trevor1 Thank you for the detailed response!

RE: Crossposting to LessWrong

• I've crossposted it now. If there are other forums relevant to cybersecurity topics in EA in particular, I'd appreciate suggestions :-)

RE: Personal Cybersecurity and IoT

• Yes, I agree that the best way to improve cybersecurity with personal IoT devices is to avoid them. I'll update the wording to be more clear about that. 

Here's a summary of the report from Claude-1 if someone's looking for an 'abstract':

There are several common misconceptions about biological weapons that contribute to underestimating the threat they pose. These include seeing them as strategically irrational, not tactically useful, and too risky for countries to pursue.

In reality, biological weapons have served strategic goals for countries in the past like deterrence and intimidation. Their use could also provide tactical advantages in conflicts.

Countries have historically taken on substantial risks in p

"There are many other things that could have been done to prevent Russia’s unprovoked, illegal attack on Ukraine. Ukraine keeping nuclear weapons is not one of them."

• Could you explain your thinking more for those not familiar with the military strategy involved? What about having nuclear weapons makes an invasion more viable? Which specific alternatives would be more useful in preventing the attacks and why?

Context: I'm hoping to learn lessons in nuclear security that are transferable to AI safety and biosecurity. 

Question: Would you have any case studies or advice to share on how regulatory capture and lobbying was mitigated in US nuclear security regulations and enforcement?

Are there any misconceptions, stereotypes, or tropes that you commonly see in academic literature around nuclear security or biosecurity that you could correct given your perspective inside government?

Could you share the top 3 constraints and benefits you had in improving global nuclear security while you were working for the US DoD compared to now, when you're working as an academic?  

Context: I'm hoping to find lessons from nuclear security that are transferable to the security of bioweapons and transformative AI. 

Question: Are there specific reports you could recommend on prevening these nuclear security risks:

• Insider threats (including corporate/foreign espionage)
• Cyberattacks
• Arms races
• Illicit / black market proliferation
• Fog of war

Any updates on how the event went? :-) Any cause priorities or research questions identified to mitigate existential cybersecurity risks?

A lot of people have gotten the message: "Direct your career towards AI Safety!" from EA. Yet there seem to be way too few opportunities to get mentorship or a paying job in AI safety. (I say this having seen others' comments on the forum and applied to 5+ fellowships personally where there were 500-3000% more applicants than spots). 

What advice would you give to those feeling disenchanted by their inability to make progress in AI safety? How is 80K hours working to better (though perhaps not entirely) balance the supply and demand for AI safety mentorship/jobs?

For what it's worth, I run an EA university group outside of the U.S (at the University of Waterloo in Canada). I haven't observed any of the points you mentioned in my experience with the EA group:

• We don't run intro to EA fellowships because we're a smaller group. We're not trying to convert more students to be 'EA'. We more so focus on supporting whoever's interested in working on EA-relevant projects (ex: a cheap air purifier, a donations advisory site, a cybersecurity algorithm, etc.). Whether they identify with the EA movement or not. 
• Since we're

Out of curiosity @LondonGal, have you received any followups from HLI in response to your critique? I understand you might not be at liberty to share all details, so feel free to respond as you feel appropriate.

It takes courage to share such detailed stories of goals not going right! Good on you for having the courage to do so :-) 

It seems that two kinds of improvements within EA might be helpful to reduce the probability of other folks having similar experiences. 

Proactively, we could adjust the incentives promoted (especially by high-visibility organisations like 80K hours). Specifically, I think it would be helpful to: 

• Recommend that early-career folks try out university programs with internships/coops in the field they think they'd enjoy. This

Thank you for your thoughtful questions! 

RE: "I guess the goal is to be able to run models on devices controlled by untrusted users, without allowing the user direct access to the weights?"

You're correct in understanding that these techniques are useful for preventing models from being used in unintended ways where models are running on untrusted devices! However, I think of the goal a bit more broadly; the goal is to add another layer of defence behind a cybersecure API (or another trusted execution environment) to prevent a model from being stolen a... (read more)

Hi! 

As I mentioned in the post, I'd delete the database in a month from the post for privacy reasons. My apologies for the inconvenience :/

This is certainly a useful resource for those who live in areas without the effective altruism groups around them! Thank you for sharing :-)

Could you please share more details on which parts of the curriculum would be inaccessible to recent graduates? From the outline of the book alone, it's hard to estimate the level of technical depth needed.

I'd look forward to seeing you post the results of the in-depth survey on the forum :-) 

I'm not sure this is a good idea. 

• It seems possible that the individual interventions you're linking to research on are not representative of every possible intervention about skill development. 
• Also, it seems possible that future interventions may integrate both building human and economic capital to enable recipients to make changes in their lives. Ie. Skill-building  + direct cash transfers. 
• Also, it's generally uncertain whether GiveDirectly will continue to be the most effective or endorsed donation recommendation. I say this given

I'm surprised to see how the book giveaway is more expensive than the costs of actually placing the ads to get eyes on the sites! Why did you decide to give away a physical book? What do you think the cost-effectiveness of that is compared to ebooks or not having a giveaway?

It would be helpful to hear more details (including sources) about the problem you've found:

• What has the NSA publicly announced in its position on AGI? 
• What has the external academic community or relevant nonprofits assessed their likely plans to be? 
• Which decision-makers are involved in determining the NSA's policies on AGI development and/or safety?

Also, please add a more specific call to action describing:

• The action you want to be taken
• Which kinds of people are best suited to do this 

"I'm not sure I buy the fourth point - while there will be some competition between plant-based and cell-based meat, they also both compete with the currently much larger traditional meat market, and I think there are some consumers who would eat plant-based but not cell-based and vice versa."

• How confident are you in your reasoning here? 
• What kind of empirical evidence do you think would disprove/prove this argument? 

The evidence I've seen (Source) suggests that consumers are largely confused about the difference between cell-based and lab-based ... (read more)

@Brad West Would you know any Canadian colleagues?

I'm curious, how do you think about the relative importance of promoting cell-based (cultivated) vs. plant-based meat? 

• From an animal suffering perspective, they both displace animals that might suffer. 
• From an environmental perspective, plant-based meat is currently much better. (Source) 
• Economically, one could argue that more competition will lead to more product choice, winning over more consumers. 
• But one could also argue that the competition between plant-based and animal-based meats will keep traditional meats being consumed for l

I appreciate you formatting the post summary with brevity in mind :-) Makes it easy to quickly understand the main points and I can see you put in deliberate thought into formatting as a table. 

I'd be interested in hearing someone from Anthropic discuss the upsides or downsides of this arrangement. From an entirely personal standpoint, it seems odd that Anthropic gave up equity AND had restrictions in how the investment could be used. That said, I imagine there are MANY other details about I'm not aware of since I wasn't involved in the decision. 

For anyone seeking more information on this, feel free to search up the key terms 'data poisoning' and 'Trojans.' The Centre for AI Safety has somewhat accessible content and notes on this under lecture 13 here.

Key takeaway: "He preferred to be good, rather than to seem so."

Where can we get more information on projects done 

in the past fellowship?

Confirming this issue

Appreciate you summarising these resources! Still helping people years later :-)

Update: lesson learned - read the fine print effectively

• My donation wasn't matched. I didn't do enough due diligence to read a final clause on their website that said we had to email our donation receipt somewhere.
• One 'little' mistake on my part is the difference between 50 people not stuck in poverty vs. 18 people not stuck in poverty. 
• Doing good effectively = reading the fine print effectively.

I'm interested in building a career around technological risks. Sometimes, I think about all the problems we're facing. From biosecurity risks to AI safety risks to cybersecurity risks to ... And it all feels so big and pressing and hopeless and whatnot. 

Clearly, me being existential about these issues wasn't helping anyone. So I've had to accept that I have to pick a smaller, very specific problem that my skillset could be useful in. Even if it's not solving everything, I won't solve anything if I don't specialise in that way. 

Maybe some spirit ... (read more)

Thank you for clarifying :-) I wasn't trying to be pedantic, I was just choosing between donating to StrongMinds with a 100% match or here. 

Update: the Double Up Drive donation matching is no longer available. 

Donations to Animal Charity Evalutators, Hellen Keller International, and StrongMinds are still being matched. 

For Canadian donors, donations to GiveDirectly are being matched to at least 50%.

Sorry, does the 1.5x match mean we donate $X and 50% of that will be matched? Or 150% of our donation will be added to the amount we donated? 

Thank you for arranging this list!

@Tessa - thank you for introducing me to Dr. Millet's course in your reading list on biosecurity!

Good on you for taking on more work and trying to figure out how you can best contribute to the world :-) It might be easier for us to share opportunities with you if we know what cause areas are important to you and which skills/prior experience you have. Feel free to let us know!

Tell us more :-) There's lots of people on the forum that can help triage through them to find the most effective ones to work on :-)

Ex: @Tessa might have thoughts

Brief comment, but it is GREAT to see Kurzgesagt making more EA-aligned videos! I just watched their videos. on how helping others lead prosperous lives is good for your own interest. 

• It's great to see EA content in other languages. When I watched the videos, they weren't yet released in English though I'll comment a link to the English video later.
• The simple explanations and cute visuals are quite a relief compared to complex/endless posts on the forum. I'd never heard of this line of reasoning on the forum and I'm pretty glad I got to learn it like

To elaborate on the point that I think Arjun is making, the general tip seems self-evidently good. It's not very valuable to state it, relative to the value of precise tips on HOW to get a mentor or how good this is relative to other good things (to figure out how much it should be prioritised compared to something else). 

Useful context: I'm 19. I stopped reading after the "Use your brainspace wisely." 

Overall impression: boring as stated :D

More specific feedback: 

• The tips seem very diverse (tips on relationships, mental health, physical environment, and learning skills were all under the "Use your brainspace wisely". It's unclear how they relate together. Thus it's confusing to read / figure out where you can find what tip. 
  • This could be addressed by having very clear headings. Ex: "Tips on Where You Live." Ex: "Tips on the Relationships You Develop." Ex: "T

I appreciate you taking the time to read and encourage :-)

My aim in this article wasn't to be technically precise. Instead, I was trying to be as simple as possible. 

If you'd like to let me know the technical errors, I can try to edit the post if: 

1. The correction seems useful for a beginner trying to understand AI Safety. 
2. I can find feasible ways to explain the technical issues simply.

Again, I agree with you regarding the reality that every civilisation has eventually collapsed. I personally also agree that it doesn't currently seem likely that our 'modern globalised' civilisation won't collapse, though I'm no expert on the matter. 

I have no particular insight about how comparable the collapse of the Roman Empire is to the coming decades of human existence.

I agree that amidst all the existential threats to humankind, the content of this article is quite narrow.