NickLaing
Bio
Participation1
I'm a doctor working towards the dream that every human will have access to high quality healthcare. I'm a medic and director of OneDay Health, which has launched 53 simple but comprehensive nurse-led health centers in remote rural Ugandan Villages. A huge thanks to the EA Cambridge student community in 2018 for helping me realise that I could do more good by focusing on providing healthcare in remote places.
How I can help others
Understanding the NGO industrial complex, and how aid really works (or doesn't) in Northern Uganda
Global health knowledge
Posts 28
Comments1689
Thanks @mal_graham🔸 this is super helpful and makes more sense now. I think it would make your argument far more complete if you put something like your third and fourth paragraphs here in your main article.
And no I'm personally not worried about interventions being ecologically inert.
As a side note its interesting that you aren't putting much effort into making interventions happen yet - my loose advice would be to get started trying some things. I get that you're trying to build a field, but to have real-world proof of this tractability it might be better to try something sooner rather than later? Otherwise it will remain theory. I'm not too fussed about arguing whether an intervention will be difficult or not - in general I think we are likely to underestimate how difficult an intervention might be.
Show me a couple of relatively easy wins (even small-ish ones) an I'll be right on board :).
Yes Jim that's a good point.
1. Yes I'm in favour of wildlife conservation and have donated towards it. But I'm still extremely uncertain about wild animal welfare, so hardly confident enough to be "all-in" on it
2. I'm not at all sure whether human welfare dominates wild animal welfare. If I were to calculate based on my assumptions I imagine wild animal welfare would dominate. For reference though my welfare ranges might be orders of magnitude below RPs
Thanks that's helpful
From what Daniel said I thought his median was 2028 when he started to write it? But that's perhaps a bit nitpicky.
I think there might be a wider EA/Rationalist Comms issue here when communicating with the general public. Communicating projects like this isn't just about whether it "feels" fine - I think its important to think about how it might come accross and future implications. To the general public, this scenario even in 2030 still feels mega-soon and sci-fi. The problem is if we go past 2027 now, many people will say "those tech-bro idiots they're always wrong" and might miss the point o the thing
If anything I think here picking a more conservative, tail end of the timeline (2028-2030) would have been better, to keep it relevant for longer.
I agree not the biggest deal though.
Thanks appreciate that a lot :)
For the record my vote is for cG.
But you might struggle to control "the people" on this one, there has been as lot of "CoGi" and other variations floating around. When said out loud starting with "co" is catchier than starting with the letter "c". Also there's a strong associatoin between CG and computer generated? There are like 3 separate threads in the replies to your renaming post discussing possible shortenings, and I think all suggestions start with "co" lol.
These are the important things which define organizations.
As for me I I will respect cG's wishes ;).
The concreteness is fine makes sense for sure
Isn't then somewhere between 2028 and 2031 really "things go roughly as expected" and 2027 is "things go faster than expected if every AI improvement rolls out without roadblocks?" I feel like if you're going to put something out there in the public sphere as a leader in AI, a bit of timeline conservatism might be prudent. Not the biggest deal though I suppose
Thanks Toby interesting one on the communication. For policy makers I think that communcation style can work OK, less so with my friends haha.
I'm still confused by why they picked 2027 even in 2025. Back when they made it, Daniel's median forecast was 2028 and Eli's 2031. Surely you then pick 2029 or 2030 for your scenario? Picking the "most likely year for it to happen" still feels a bit disingenous to me.
Thanks for the update, and the reasons for the name change make s lot of sense
Instinctively i don't love the new name. The word "coefficient" sounds mathsy/nerdy/complicated, while most people don't know what the word coefficient actually means. The reasoning behind the name does resonate through and i can understand the appeal.
But my instincts are probably wrong though if you've been working with an agency and the team likes it too.
All the best for the future Coefficient Giving!