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
Hello all, I've known about Effective Altruism for years, but have decided it’s time to get involved.
I apologize ahead of time for my overall lack of knowledge about the breadth of ideas and suggestions that are entertained, But I personally know that thick skins and good faith arguments can produced refined concepts. As any group who has sat down and hammered out homebrew dnd rules can attest. (a joke and also not a joke)
I have taken a short, surely inadequate, I preeminently grant, examination of some core ideas and I believe my suggestion is worth at least, an explanation based dismissal. With that I offer my case for an Effective Altruism program.
I seek to combat climate change, extreme poverty, and eventually a myriad of other dire situations, under a single framework.
step 1. Fund 6 million usd
2. Install solar panels and home battery systems on residences and apartments whose occupants, have applied for and been accepted into the program. One county/region at a time. I'm arguing the concept, but I'll provide a figure as a starting point to be argued up or down. Per home cost estimated at $35,000-$70,000. ($20,000 for 30 kWh panel and $1,000 per battery 1kWh capacity. $5,000 per install) (2 panels and 25kHw battery capacity for 4-person home)
3. Sell the solar electricity to the program participants, at a subsidized rate of up to "half off" of their current local kWh price.
4. In addition to this source of income, the panels will also sell excess solar energy back to the grid, after filling the attached battery for the day.
5. These funds can be directed entirely to the desired effective relief, on a monthly basis. Marketing the program to potential residents could be based on the intended charity to increase willingness to participate with lower subsidies for themselves, and could also generate more engaged effective altruism members.
6. Calculating total proceeds and overall impact: no expertise here, but I can surmise some of the factors. Including, but probably not limited to, Local, current and projected, kWh price (this is the big one and is seemingly readily available info), local climate, the amount of the solar energy subsidy offered, investment dispersal between panels and batteries, and ensuring that those being provided solar energy, were previously receiving polluting energy.
7.Again, I'll stake a starting figure for sake of encouraging discourse, from those with greater understanding. After subsidies and assuming 15 cents per kWh(expensive estimation for the states), I’ll say 300,000 usd per year. I'm not showing my math here cause I didn't do any worth writing down. concept here.
8. By virtue of the axiom "a penny saved is a penny earned" this program seems to me, to be virulent in a positive way. Again, sorry if these arguments have been covered, I humbly accept all good faith arguments and positions.
"A carbon molecule not released into the atmosphere, that would have been released without your mitigation is a carbon molecule removed from the atmosphere.”
9. Calculate the dollar value of 1 carbon molecule removed from the atmosphere.
10. factor that into the long-term estimates, of the value of this program.
Honest, good faith question, does this idea fit with longtermism?
I know persuasion isn't important here, but I offer these heart string tugs to suggest that this program could be used to create an informed and engaged population, who go on to perpetuate similar good work. If I could speak to those suffering from plights, great and small, I would offer this statement, in humility for all those with power.
"I wish I could say that we’re just now dropping the ball, on short term relief, to invest in a system that will hold the ball for generations to come, but the truth is we haven’t ever held the ball, in a truly adequate way. I ask forgiveness on the world’s behalf as we diligently plant the seeds of prosperity, that will lift up all peoples, given time to bear fruit.”
I don't have time to review all of this, but I'm glad you've written it all out! You should make sure to bookmark or otherwise save this link to your comment, so that you can access this text in case you want to explain the idea to anyone else.
In my role, I see lots of people propose very big ideas. Things to keep in mind about these:
- The more things need to go right for an idea to work, the less likely it is to work. Consider which elements of your plans are flexible, and be ready to adjust them. This especially applies to working with relatively inflexibl
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