TLDR: Take the population ethics quiz here: https://mdickens.me/pop-ethics/
Population ethics is an oft-overlooked subfield within ethics. Many people hold views that they don't realize contradict each other, or that have strange implications that they wouldn't endorse if they thought about it more.
Not just that—population ethics is a BIG DEAL. A lot of ethical decisions hinge on how you think about changes in future populations....
A preliminary estimate, and a request for better ones.
Summary
I believe the standard literature estimates for the number of DALYs attributable to a case of stunting are too low, largely because they don’t account for the long term effects. This means that childhood nutritional interventions that reduce the prevalence of stunting may be substantially more cost-effective than previously believed.
Epistemic status
Exploratory and back-o...
I’ve been feeling pretty shaken since the METR report about the Hugging Face incident came out last week. Over the weekend, I wrote up some thoughts on how lonely the AI situation sometimes feels to me. It’s more personal than what I’d usually share publicly, but I thought I’d post it here in case it resonates with anyone else.
I’m very grateful to the man...
Timeline Swapping
Alice, a highly experienced ML researcher, thinks crunch time for AI will come in 20-30 years. She spends quite a bit of her time community-building for AI safety, i.e. maximizing her impact if crunch time is in 20-30 years rather than if it is now.
Bob, a newer researcher with less skills, thinks we’re in crunch time now. He might try to take a role at a current AI org that maximizes his current impact but isn’t spectacular for developing career capital.
It seems like if Alice and Bob could coordinate properly, Alice would operate under Bob’s timelines, Bob under Alice’s, and both would be better off.
Has anyone written more about this idea?
See: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/tag/moral-trade
I also had a tentative thing that argued for something similar to the OP (epistemic rather than moral trade).
It's technically trade, rather than moral trade, but yes, that's likely a useful resource.