BLUF:
* To determine whether AI is ‘improving exponentially’, ‘hitting the wall’, or any other claim which involves a quantity or magnitude (e.g. ‘This model was a big leap/small increment’). We need a good y-axis: an interval scale of AI capability which means +1 unit always represents the same degree of ‘how much better’, in the same way +1 degree Celsius is always the same amount of ‘how much hotter’.
* Yet there is no good y-axis for AI capability. All our...
Public service announcement
1. Applications are now open for our first ever round of the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program dedicated exclusively to animal welfare. Learn more about what’s different this round here and apply...
Summary
* The animal welfare movement has already seen an influx in funding and should prepare for the possibility of more.
* The EA Animal Welfare Fund is encouraging those working in animal advocacy to actively set aside time and resources now to concretely plan for scaling sustainably, and we’ll support you in doing that.
* We’re requesting advocates set concrete ambitious goals and submit plans t...
In July 2022, Jeff Masters wrote an article (https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/07/the-future-of-global-catastrophic-risk-events-from-climate-change/) summarizing findings from a United Nations report on the increasing risks of global catastrophic risk (GCR) events due to climate change. The report defines GCRs as catastrophes that kill over 10 million people or cause over $10 trillion in damage. It warned that by increasingly pushing beyond safe planetary boundaries, human activity is boosting the odds of climate-related GCRs.
The article argued that societies are more vulnerable to sudden collapse when multiple environmental shocks occur, and that the combination of climate change impacts poses a serious risk of total societal collapse if we continue business as usual.
Although the article and report are from mid-2022, the scientific community has been messaging that climate change effects are increasing faster than models predicted. So I'm curious - what has the EA community been doing over the past year to understand, prepare for and mitigate these climate-related GCRs? Some questions I have:
I'm very interested to hear others' thoughts. While a lot of great climate-related work is happening in EA, I worry that climate GCRs remain relatively neglected compared to other GCRs.
I feel like this would be a good post. It might get unfairly buried as a quick take.