Do you have friends who live in Manhattan? Today is election day; if they are registered Democrats in the 12th district, I recommend texting them to ask them to vote for Alex Bores today. Alex is the best legislator on AI issues anywhere in the country, and it would be really great if he makes it to Congress. I've thought about it a bunch, and I think that one vote for Alex Bores is as impactful for AI safety policy as a week of work from a typical AI safety researcher. See here for why I think this race is so important -- and if you're reaching out to someone for whom AI safety isn't their #1 issue, you could link them to this doc I wrote about why I like Alex so much, which talks about but doesn't center AI.

Abi Olvera's Golden rice delay dashboard, includes BOTEC calculations and sources, supplement to her Substack article A blocked GMO rice could have saved 100,000 children. The same tech makes pineapples pink:

Re the grand “does individual giving/etg still matter post Anthropic IPO” question: I think it pushes towards individuals acting more like grantmakers themselves. Anthropic billionaires don’t know about your Twitter follower who could do something great with $1k and they aren’t gonna have the capacity to find out, but you do!  There are just a lot of freedoms one has as an individual donor who isn’t a public figure: You… * Don’t have to justify yourself on the EA Forum to friends and colleagues for something illegible * Know about lots of random things that others don’t, like which of your friends you trust to do a good job at X Y or Z * Don’t have to worry about smear campaigns or hostile journalists bc nobody is going to know or care how you spent $2k * Can own whatever reputational stuff there is if you want to (or not, your call) * Probably don’t have to worry about the community-level effects of some policy unless you’re giving away say at least 6 figures/year and probably more like 7 * Can set arbitrary terms and conditions like “here’s a bounty that I’ll pay out at my own discretion” * Don’t have to worry about giving some project or other entity any sort of reputation * Regrant to your trusted friend who finds micro-granting fun and interesting * Probably can do other cool things I’m not thinking of rn Also: the same dynamic between Anthropic ~billionaires and folks reading this as a group also holds within that latter group: there are diminishing returns even at low margins so Jane Street should look a little less good than it used to (still pretty good tbc) and “having a couple thousand bucks around and being on the lookout for one-off opportunities” should seem a bit better than it used to.