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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...
Note: This post was crossposted from Planned Obsolescence by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.
Subtitle: It’s a major warning shot, and might be the last one we get
All opinions are my personal view, and don’t represent my employer or fellow investigators.
This week, METR and Redwood Research published...
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Overview
This post summarizes a new preprint on alternative proteins from the Humane and Sustainable Food Lab: New alternatives, same orders. We investigated 19...
Recent opportunities to take action
I'd love to see an 'Animal Welfare vs. AI Safety/Governance Debate Week' happening on the Forum. The risks from AI cause has grown massively in importance in recent years, and has become a priority career choice for many in the community. At the same time, the Animal Welfare vs Global Health Debate Week demonstrated just how important and neglected the cause of animal welfare remains. I know several people (including myself) who are uncertain/torn about whether to pursue careers focused on reducing animal suffering or mitigating existential risks related to AI. It would help to have rich discussions comparing both causes's current priorities and bottlenecks, and a debate week would hopefully expose some useful crucial considerations.
This would be great!
Even better would be something dedicated to the topic of the impact AI will have on animals. It's very likely (unavoidable?) that most of the beings affected by AI will be animals (although artificial sentience could be somewhere).
An AI aligned with humans but not animals would have terrible effects for many beings in the world, so just pushing for AI safety for humans is not enough by itself to bring a positive world.
The intersection on AI x animals seems promising though.
I would like to see this. I have considerable uncertainty about whether to prioritize (longtermism-oriented) animal welfare or AI safety.