Open Philanthropy reports on their investment in Sherlock Biosciences to support the development of a diagnostic platform to quickly, easily, and inexpensively identify any human virus present in a sample. (15 mins.)
Shaping the development of artificial intelligence
Ajeya Cotra discusses how we might estimate how long it will take for transformative AI to emerge. This report is very long, so we recommend starting with Rohin Shah's summary.
For more research and discussion on AI timelines, see AI Impacts and LessWrong.
An argument for how advances in military technology (including but not limited to AI) can impede decision-making and create risk, thus demanding greater attention by the national security establishment. (60 mins.)
An explanation of how atomically precise manufacturing could displace industrial production technologies and bring radical improvements in production cost, scope, and resource efficiency. (10 mins.)
A documentary exploring what artificial intelligence can reveal about the ancient game of Go, and what that can teach us about the future potential of artificial intelligence. (Video - 1 hour 30 mins.)
An exploration of ways in which the future of surveillance could be bad, and an investigation into accountable, privacy-preserving surveillance protocols. (Video - 15 mins.)
With the AI windfall, mental health may be taken increasingly seriously by mainstream EA. There’s increasingly room to explore the cause area and answer some of the biggest uncertainties; at the same time, costs of the most effective interventions are continuing to fall. StrongMinds is now treating for ~$35, about a third of GiveWell’s best guess from a few years ago, and is expected to...
Summary: The actions taken this decade may be exceptionally important for the future of civilization, but we should be unusually hesitant to proclaim that any course of action is “best.” Still, we should try to think carefully about how we'll influence the future.
This post was written as part of an introduction to a new reading group I’m starting called “Doing Good in the Age of AGI.” If you want to follow along, the full curriculum can be found ...