Yeah it might not increase that much or at all (although perhaps lightcone folks are more connected to doers the fund might be funding, which would increase conflict of interest). My point was that especially in AI grantmaking where the field is small, I think it might always be too strong/incorrect to say there might not be even "the perception of conflict of interest"

Conflict of interest is not necessarily a big problem and probably completely unavoidable in the AI safety sphere, but I think it's good to be honest that it's a reality.

This is great I love the framing, helps me think more clearly.

For our nurses at OneDay Health, its very much "bar" hiring. We might interview 15 nurses and offer between 1 and 3 jobs. Wheras for management positions its "slot" hiring really.

"Oliver, I, and potentially other LTFF staff will participate in the first round, so routing this money through the Commons means the remaining LTFF balance is still allocated in part by the judgement of the LTFF fund managers at the time the donors made their donation. To avoid any perception of conflict of interest, Lightcone has agreed to waive its administrative fees on this transaction, so the 3% platform fee and 2% evaluator fee will not be charged on the LTFF contribution."

I think this is a good move, but I think there will remain many genuine conflicts of interests in these grants (which is both inevitable and OK as long as its recognised). Conflict of interest is about more than admin fees - more importantly its about bias towards where money gets allocated. Given how small the field is I'm sure many who get allocated money will be friends and former colleagues of those given the money, whether its former LTFF or Lightcone staff who are giving the money.

Thanks and I should clarify this EXCLUDES people I know pretty well working in GHD grantmaking jobs outside EA, where salaries are often much higher.

#Quickmaths

So researchers have used AI to make new viruses and broadcast the achievement to the world!

This could be fine, but given the commentaries alongside it seems there is some disagreement at least. 

"But concerns have already been raised that the same technology could be used maliciously to create new disease

"In a commentary accompanying the publication in the journal Science, Dr Thomas Inglesby and Dr Moritz Hanke from the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University wrote that the findings raise "urgent biosafety and biosecurity questions".

They said it was no longer a question of "whether generative viral genome design will exist" but whether it can be used without "enabling serious harm".

For example, they said new viruses with the potential to cause disease "should not be pursued".

The researchers themselves took steps to maximise safety. They excluded viruses that could infect complex organisms from the training database, performed the research on phage rather than viruses that infect people and it all took place in a secure laboratory."

I'm interested in what biosec people here think. Is making virus's and publicising the achievement genuinely OK and safe at this point with the safeguards, or could it be net bad?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y3j3ngevmo

 

I couldn't see it there on first glance, but I suspect @Gregory Lewis🔸 this would go down well and stimulate more conversation on the dark side.






I mean the LessWrong forum.

A small point on this - the 80,000 hours and probably good jobs board post EA paygrade jobs. The median GHD development worker salary would be WAAAAAAAY below 100k. Of perhaps 30 people I know well working in GHD (not including the majority of jobs which are in-country and way lower) maybe 3 of them have salaries over 100k US. These salaries are kind of wildly high IMO (disagree votes incoming) - apart from the Animal Welfare range of course which from my perspective seems reasonable stand-alone but definitely unreasonably lower than the rest!