ABlank's Quick takes

Epistemic status: This post — the result of a loosely timeboxed ~2-day sprint[1] — is more like “research notes with rough takes” than “report with solid answers.” You should interpret the things we say as best guesses, and not give them much more weight than that. Summary There’s been some discussion of what “transformative AI may arrive soon” might mean for animal advocates. After a very shallow review, we’ve tentatively concluded that radical changes to the animal welfare (AW) field are not yet warranted. In particular: * Some ideas in this space seem fairly promising, but in the “maybe a researcher should look into this” stage, rather than “shovel-ready” * We’re skeptical of the case for most speculative “TAI<>AW” projects * We think the most common version of this argument underrates how radically weird post-“transformative”-AI worlds would be, and how much this harms our ability to predict the longer-run effects of interventions available to us today. Without specific reasons to believe that an intervention is especially robust,[2] we think it’s best to discount its expected value to ~zero. Here’s a brief overview of our (tentative!) actionable takes on this question[3]: ✅ Some things we recommend❌ Some things we don’t recommend * Dedicating some amount of (ongoing) attention to the possibility of “AW lock ins”[4]  * Pursuing other exploratory research on what transformative AI might mean for animals & how to help (we’re unconvinced by most existing proposals, but many of these ideas have received <1 month of research effort from everyone in the space combined — it would be unsurprising if even just a few months of effort turned up better ideas) * Investing in highly “flexible” capacity for advancing animal interests in AI-transformed worlds * Trying to use AI for near-term animal welfare work, and fundraising from donors who have invested in AI * Heavily discounting “normal” interventions that take 10+ years to help animals * “Rowing” on na

About the program Hi! We’re Chana and Aric, from the new 80,000 Hours video program. For over a decade, 80,000 Hours has been talking about the world’s most pressing problems in newsletters, articles and many extremely lengthy podcasts. But today’s world calls for video, so we’ve started a video program[1], and we’re so excited to tell you about it! 80,000 Hours is launching AI in Context, a new YouTube channel hosted by Aric Floyd. Together with associated Instagram and TikTok accounts, the channel will aim to inform, entertain, and energize with a mix of long and shortform videos about the risks of transformative AI, and what people can do about them. [Chana has also been experimenting with making shortform videos, which you can check out here; we’re still deciding on what form her content creation will take] We hope to bring our own personalities and perspectives on these issues, alongside humor, earnestness, and nuance. We want to help people make sense of the world we're in and think about what role they might play in the upcoming years of potentially rapid change. Our first long-form video For our first long-form video, we decided to explore AI Futures Project’s AI 2027 scenario (which has been widely discussed on the Forum). It combines quantitative forecasting and storytelling to depict a possible future that might include human extinction, or in a better outcome, “merely” an unprecedented concentration of power. Why? We wanted to start our new channel with a compelling story that viewers can sink their teeth into, and that a wide audience would have reason to watch, even if they don’t yet know who we are or trust our viewpoints yet. (We think a video about “Why AI might pose an existential risk”, for example, might depend more on pre-existing trust to succeed.) We also saw this as an opportunity to tell the world about the ideas and people that have for years been anticipating the progress and dangers of AI (that’s many of you!), and invite the br

Cross-posted from my personal blog after strong encouragement from two people. The text is partially personal musings over my journey through the pre-surgery process, and partially a review of arguments why it might or might not make sense for a person who cares about effective altruism to donate a kidney. Some of the content is specific to where I am based in (Finland), and some of the content is less honed than I'd like, but if I didn't timebox my writing and just push whatever I have at the end of it I probably would not publish anything. Hope you enjoy! June 4, 2025 I was eating phở in the city center when the call came. The EM study had been done. "Bad news," my nephrologist said. "You have a kidney disease." The words hit harder than the spicy broth. After more than nine months of tests, blood draws, and even a kidney biopsy, my journey to donate a kidney to my friend had just come to an abrupt end. Let’s rewind to where this all began. The Decision When Effective Altruism volunteer Mikko mentioned that his kidney transplant was showing signs of chronic rejection, I jumped and offered him my kidney. I had read Dylan Matthew’s kidney donation story, Scott Alexander’s kidney donation story, and had taken part in a discussion on estimating the level of kidney demand in Finland in a local EA discussion group that had at least one Finnish doctor involved. The statistics were reassuring. Kidney donations are very safe with a perioperative death rate of around 0.03% to 0.06%. You will have a slightly increased risk of kidney-related issues later in life (1-2% likelihood of kidney failure), and there is also some weak evidence that suggests people who donate a kidney have very slightly shorter life expectancy than those who have both kidneys intact. The QALY Trade-off There are multiple attempts to calculate what the quality-adjusted life year (QALY) trade for a kidney donation actually is, and to me it looks like donating a kidney is by default similar to