(Just contributing by adding that yeah, GiveDirectly’s fund works because Yemen is so dominantly muslim that the odds of going to a non-Muslim are basically nil). Even in Nigeria, the additional cost of trying to achieve Zakat compliance for a non-cash-or-in-kind-transfer charity may hamper expansion beyond the supermajority states enough to not be worth it. Unsure.

Always loved your work, but fully understand the decision. Thank you for it!

One thing which is unclear to me is, why aren’t these users counterfactually using free commercial offerings? Price is clearly not a barrier, is it just language? And why, then, wouldn’t a frontier lab be well-positioned to capture that market?

During the OpenAI board fiasco, we saw a large number of employees exert pressure on OpenAI to re-form under Sam Altman, suggesting labour power in AI labs is real and effective. Companies do have a hard time shutting themselves down for no reason, but have a much easier time scapegoating labour unions and strikes. And it’s relatively inexpensive to build a labour union, and easy to do when talent is scarce. Just sayin’

It would be quite funny for my intern to be the highest-paid person at my org if they keep that salary 😭

I’m not sure about whether this argument is reassuring even if you buy it. In economies with a lot of surplus labour, jobs certainly get filled, but we find menial things for people to do. Last time I was in India, there was a man employed to open the door for me at the bank so that I could use the ATM, in an example that feels particularly prescient. (There was a separate person standing next to him who was qualified to give directions, and a third who was a security guard—this man’s job was just to open the door for me).

I can imagine that this man feels like he is getting paid and can put food on the table, perhaps, but it is a stretch to imagine that his job gives him meaning, needed to happen, or had any point at all. Indeed, it is probably the case that a lot of India’s economic development has not occurred because of the vast amounts of surplus labour available—automatic doors do exist, after all.

India does not use genetically modified crops, for example, even though they have demonstrably higher yield. Why? Well, in one telling, GM crops would require less labour to tend to them, but they already have plenty of labour to slosh around. And you know what they say about idle hands…

A vast and rapid injection of surplus labour into the global economy is potentially very bad, but perhaps not in a way that is measurable in income or employment.

I think it’s worth noting that Larissa and Kerry have denied being involved with Leverage until after they departed CEA.

There is a thread here where Kerry (now deleted) makes claims on his side of this story.

I’m also willing to make a longer-term bet that the AI industry is in a bubble

This should be fairly realisable as a short on NVIDIA, may I ask why you’d prefer a bet?

The acceptable baseline amount of sexual harassment in a community that is otherwise steadfastly committed to rejecting the status quo and improving the state of the world, is zero. We are not comparing ourselves to the average workplace or university.

Alternatively, I have my 1:1s without a recording and then immediately debrief over voice to a transcriber afterward. Seems to bridge the best of both worlds.