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...
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...
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...
Title:
I'd like to draw attention to a new (very old) cause area. It is this: Feeling our body more fully and working with it to improve every aspect of life and work
Context:
Buddhism and a host of other practices are what I've been engaging with over the last 8 months while living and training with others in a small community, a new Canadian Monastic Academy near Toronto called Willow. growingwillow.org
After working on EA community building for 3 years, I see the last 8 months as a very effective use of my resources for many reasons.
Premise:
Scale - everyone has a body and everyone that I have met has trouble with it, for example, the body sends information to the mind--information which we could label as 'pain' or 'shame' or 'lots/AHHH'--and this information plays a role in causing misery internally and externally
Neglectedness - the time, space, and teaching/methodology to compassionately listen to the body has been hard for me to find until recently, and this seems true for most people that I have met
Tractability - various teachers, methods, and communities are already in place which demonstrate valuable, accessible, true paths to greater embodiment
Summary:
Embodiment, as a cause area, is something that I would love to see EAs work much more closely and deeply with for the benefit of all beings.
Closing:
I welcome all reactions and feedback to this.
I look forward to sharing more of what I now have and later will have to offer, at the least to help fellow EAs find more calm and energy, though more deeply and truly to encourage the young movement of EA to work more closely with the old movement of Buddhism and other sources of wisdom on problems that we all face, problems that EAs are working on one way or another.