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...
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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...
TL;DR: Kairos has raised $50 million from Coefficient Giving for two years of funding, one of the largest commitments they’ve made towards AI safety fieldbuilding to date. We’re using this to make an ambitious push for growing Kairos, broadening our portfolio of talent infrastructure projects and incubating new organizations. We’ve doubled in size in the last six mon...
What is EA's stance on Gain-of-Function Research? (OC)
I recently interviewed a Columbia University parasitologist on GOF research. I picked him, in part, because he was strongly in favor of conducting GOF. According to him, the risks are minimal, and the benefits far outweigh them.
I'm not a scientist (obviously), but I can't say I agree with the entirety of his argument on the risks. Smallpox has been released from the lab 3 times, so we know that human error has allowed a deadly virus to escape from a lab and kill people.
It's pretty obvious that GOF has a lot of upsides though. Many scientists studying it are conducting this research explicitly to prevent pandemics in the future.
It doesn't seem obvious to me which route will produce the least risk.
Maybe we should send all scientists doing this kind of research into a quarantine bubble, and have them do 6 weeks on/6 weeks off shifts. Other than that, I'm out of ideas.
Clip of the interview if you're interested: