'Future risks' chapter of The Precipice, Introduction and 'Pandemics' section

TLDR: Take the population ethics quiz here: https://mdickens.me/pop-ethics/ Population ethics is an oft-overlooked subfield within ethics. Many people hold views that they don't realize contradict each other, or that have strange implications that they wouldn't endorse if they thought about it more. Not just that—population ethics is a BIG DEAL. A lot of ethical decisions hinge on how you think about changes in future populations....

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...

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...