BLUF:
* To determine whether AI is ‘improving exponentially’, ‘hitting the wall’, or any other claim which involves a quantity or magnitude (e.g. ‘This model was a big leap/small increment’). We need a good y-axis: an interval scale of AI capability which means +1 unit always represents the same degree of ‘how much better’, in the same way +1 degree Celsius is always the same amount of ‘how much hotter’.
* Yet there is no good y-axis for AI capability. All our...
Summary
* The animal welfare movement has already seen an influx in funding and should prepare for the possibility of more.
* The EA Animal Welfare Fund is encouraging those working in animal advocacy to actively set aside time and resources now to concretely plan for scaling sustainably, and we’ll support you in doing that.
* We’re requesting advocates set concrete ambitious goals and submit plans t...
Public service announcement
1. Applications are now open for our first ever round of the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program dedicated exclusively to animal welfare. Learn more about what’s different this round here and apply...
EAs should be aware that it is easy to traumatize (their own) kids with apocalyptic narratives.
EAs population is getting older: we are no longer in our early twenties but at a more respectable age. That alone will lead to more and more children being born to EAs. MacAskill recommends in WWOTF having children. Not sure how many babies will his endorsement ensure, but likely nonzero.
Raising a child is hard, but EAs have probably one additional opportunity to mess it up a bit more than the average parent. Since we believe the world might end if we don't do enough, we might traumatize our children with that.
Many, many apocalyptic movements do that. On the religious side, you have cults like (Jehovah's witnesses)[https://medium.com/fearless-she-wrote/religious-trauma-is-real-and-more-survivors-need-to-speak-up-about-it-39429c677756] and (mainstream religions)[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/religion-evangelical-christian-apocalypse-josiah-hesse] with their Armageddons (i am not saying EA is a cult, I am saying there is a similarity and potential risk in this specific thing, nothing more). Climate change movement has its (own share )[https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/11/19/our-children-face-pretraumatic-stress-from-worries-about-climate-change/]
This is not inevitable. Climate movement produced guides (e.g. (this one)[https://media.ourkidsclimate.org/2021/06/Talk-about-climate-guide-for-parents-2021-06-01.pdf] which is very similar to other lists when googling "how to talk to kids about climate change") and probably more material about this topic. (which I know nothing about)
this is literally just random though I had which I haven't seen discussed yet. I spent effectively 0 minutes of my life thinking about raising children, child psychology, whether EAs should have children, etc.