Posts

Looking for data on distribution of income/wealth over time for rural households 2023-03-15T10:59:16.916Z
Strange Love - Developing Empathy With Intention (or: How I Learned To Stop Calculating And Love The Cause) 2022-10-01T14:03:50.740Z
Increasing Urban Density as a Recommended Cause Area? 2022-09-11T13:23:04.565Z
Any corporate donation matching platform? 2022-07-30T13:11:31.489Z
H-Day, a case study in coordinated change 2022-04-16T07:51:51.607Z
What are some examples of EA <-> Academia collaborations? 2022-02-18T10:18:44.851Z
An ML safety insurance company - shower thoughts 2021-10-18T07:45:32.978Z
$3M XPRIZE for a company fighting Malaria 2021-06-28T15:24:28.880Z
A new proposal for regulating AI in the EU 2021-04-26T17:25:07.032Z
Announcing "Naming What We Can"! 2021-04-01T10:17:28.990Z
Doing Good Badly? - Michael Plant's thesis, Chapters 5,6 on Cause Prioritization 2021-03-04T16:57:44.352Z
List of Under-Investigated Fields - Matthew McAteer 2021-01-30T10:26:32.896Z
Impact of Charity Evaluations on Evaluated Charities' Effectiveness 2021-01-25T13:24:59.265Z
Is Earth Running Out of Resources? 2021-01-02T20:08:59.452Z
Requests on the Forum 2020-12-22T10:42:51.574Z
What are some potential coordination failures in our community? 2020-12-12T08:00:25.858Z
On Common Goods in Prioritization Research 2020-12-10T10:25:10.275Z
Does Qualitative Research improve drastically with increasing expertise? 2020-12-05T18:28:55.162Z
Summary of "The Most Good We Can Do or the Best Person We Can Be?" - a Critique of EA 2020-11-28T07:41:28.010Z
Proposal for managing community requests on the forum 2020-11-24T11:14:18.168Z
Prioritization in Science - current view 2020-10-31T15:22:07.289Z
What is a "Kantian Constructivist view of the kind Christine Korsgaard favours"? 2020-10-21T04:44:57.757Z
Criteria for scientific choice I, II 2020-07-29T10:21:30.000Z
Small Research Grants Program in EA Israel - Request for feedback 2020-07-21T08:35:16.729Z
A bill to massively expand NSF to tech domains. What's the relevance for x-risk? 2020-07-12T15:20:21.553Z
EA is risk-constrained 2020-06-24T07:54:09.771Z
Workshop on Mechanism Design requesting Problem Pitches 2020-06-02T06:28:04.538Z
What are some good online courses relevant to EA? 2020-04-14T08:36:22.785Z
What do we mean by 'suffering'? 2020-04-07T16:01:53.341Z
Announcing A Volunteer Research Team at EA Israel! 2020-01-18T17:55:47.476Z
A collection of researchy projects for Aspiring EAs 2019-12-02T11:14:24.310Z
What is the size of the EA community? 2019-11-19T07:48:31.078Z
Some Modes of Thinking about EA 2019-11-09T17:54:42.407Z
Off-Earth Governance 2019-09-06T19:26:26.106Z
edoarad's Shortform 2019-08-16T13:35:05.296Z
Microsoft invests 1b$ in OpenAI 2019-07-22T18:29:57.316Z
Cochrane: a quick and dirty summary 2019-07-14T17:46:42.945Z
Target Malaria begins a first experiment on the release of sterile mosquitoes in Africa 2019-07-05T04:58:44.912Z
Babbling on Singleton Governance 2019-06-23T04:59:30.567Z
Is there an analysis that estimates possible timelines for arrival of easy-to-create pathogens? 2019-06-14T20:41:42.228Z
Innovating Institutions: Robin Hanson Arguing for Conducting Field Trials on New Institutions 2019-03-31T20:33:06.581Z
China's Z-Machine, a test facility for nuclear weapons 2018-12-13T07:03:22.910Z

Comments

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Data on how much solutions differ in effectiveness · 2023-03-21T13:15:39.024Z · EA · GW

Yea, I agree with your analyses in the article, though I'd be interested in understanding the relative effects

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Data on how much solutions differ in effectiveness · 2023-03-21T11:17:25.229Z · EA · GW

Some of these DCP cost-effectiveness estimates are terribly low:  few dollars per QALY, compared to GiveWell's evaluation of their top charities (on the order of $100/QALY). 

Even more surprisingly, looking into DCP3, the top 4 interventions had negative cost-effectiveness values.

This seems to me to be mostly because these cost-effectiveness analyses are from a decision-maker standpoint. Say, a hospital that can choose between different medications (e.g. for malaria, $4/DALY) or a governmental policy that can reduce overall health costs (e.g. reducing salt intake, reduction of $1.4k per DALY). 

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Help GiveDirectly beat "teach a man to fish" · 2023-02-28T13:52:36.662Z · EA · GW
Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Help GiveDirectly beat "teach a man to fish" · 2023-02-28T13:39:31.376Z · EA · GW
Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Help GiveDirectly beat "teach a man to fish" · 2023-02-28T13:30:37.855Z · EA · GW
Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Help GiveDirectly beat "teach a man to fish" · 2023-02-28T13:27:20.638Z · EA · GW

Also

Sure, I'd be happy to submit some ideas for your proverb contest! Here are ten proverbs that might help convince the world of the wisdom of giving directly:

  1. "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Give him money, and you empower him for a lifetime."
  2. "Teaching a man to fish is only effective if he can afford the fishing rod."
  3. "A dollar given directly can do more than a dollar given with strings attached."
  4. "Money in hand is better than promises in the future."
  5. "A person in need knows their own situation better than anyone else."
  6. "Trust in the wisdom of those in need to decide how best to use the resources given to them."
  7. "Giving directly allows individuals to take ownership of their own solutions."
  8. "Empowering individuals with resources and agency fosters long-term independence and sustainability."
  9. "Providing cash transfers can break the cycle of poverty by allowing individuals to invest in their future."
  10. "Giving directly is not just about charity, it's about justice and dignity for all."
Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Help GiveDirectly beat "teach a man to fish" · 2023-02-28T13:23:52.857Z · EA · GW

ChatGPT:

  1. "Give a person a hammer, and they can build a house. Give them money, and they can build a home."
  2. "Giving cash is like giving a seed to a farmer, it allows them to plant and grow their own future."
  3. "Teaching a man to fish is important, but giving him the resources to buy a fishing net and boat is just as crucial."
  4. "Cash is not dependency, it is empowerment. It allows people to make their own choices and shape their own future."
  5. "Giving cash is not a handout, it's a hand up. It provides the resources needed for people to lift themselves out of poverty."
  6. "Empower people with cash, and they will teach others how to fish."
  7. "Cash is like fuel for the engine of economic growth. It allows people to invest in themselves and their communities."
  8. "Giving cash is not a one-time fix, it's a sustainable solution to poverty."
  9. "Cash is not just a means to an end, it's an investment in human potential."
  10. "When you give cash, you give people the freedom to determine their own path and create their own success."
Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on How to ‘troll for good’: Leveraging IP for AI governance · 2023-02-26T09:10:49.593Z · EA · GW

Deepmind seems to have ~400 patents (link), while OpenAI doesn't seem to file patents. This is a recent Forbes article on OpenAI being potentially open to a lawsuit from google regarding the use of transformers (link). 

A really brief and naive search for patent litigations for terms like "neural networks" or "machine learning" here didn't find any substantial increasing trend, but I don't understand this database at all.. 

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Announcing the Launch of the Insect Institute · 2023-02-23T08:15:29.337Z · EA · GW

Really important and exciting! Good luck!

Looking a bit at your website, and the description here, it isn't clear to me how core is the focus on insect welfare compared to other considerations. Do you have a strong position on the matter? E.g. do you oppose or support insect farming? 

(I guess this could also be a strategic choice to collaborate with the existing ecosystem)

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on How effective are the "Best Charities by Cause" organizations recommended by Charity Navigator? · 2023-02-22T18:22:14.961Z · EA · GW

Looking briefly at their rating methodology guide, I am cautiously impressed with their approach to impact evaluation, considering that they try to perform shallow evaluations at a large scale, at least within-cause. Specifically, it seems to me that they understand the limitations of their models well. 

That said, between-cause comparison doesn't exist, the quality of evidence isn't taken into account as far as I can tell, and there probably are some other issues.

I'll try and take a closer look 🕵️‍♂️

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on How effective are the "Best Charities by Cause" organizations recommended by Charity Navigator? · 2023-02-22T17:15:49.869Z · EA · GW

As a side-note,  I was really impressed to see now their donation guide have this article on effective giving  by Dr. Lucious Caviola and Dr. Joshua Greene, which hits all the usual EA points very well. The article itself is the second link on "Giving 101". (It seems to have been written a couple of months ago)

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on EA London Hackathon Retrospective · 2023-02-17T16:37:08.802Z · EA · GW

Sounds fun! I think we can set up a few teams in Israel, and run such an event in parallel, if that makes sense. 

@Yonatan Cale 

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on edoarad's Shortform · 2023-02-15T17:45:35.277Z · EA · GW

An automated database of philanthropic grants in the US: https://www.grantmakers.io

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on What are the best examples of object-level work that was done by (or at least inspired by) the longtermist EA community that concretely and legibly reduced existential risk? · 2023-02-12T12:25:23.306Z · EA · GW

Just out of curiosity, and maybe it'd help readers with answers, could you share why you are interested in this question? 

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Funding opportunity: 100x Impact Accelerator · 2023-02-10T14:05:16.718Z · EA · GW

@GidiKadosh 

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Update to Samotsvety AGI timelines · 2023-01-24T11:22:04.719Z · EA · GW

Plotting the estimates, we get:

This looks logarithmic. Plotting the probability over Log(Year - 2022) does look linear (although clearly it is't, as it is bounded to [0,1], so a better fit would probably be something "arctan"y):

Also, it makes sense to me that uncertainty over "time until E" would behave more like a log-normal distribution (when the probability is fixed). That is, I'd expect that a forecaster's estimate for years-until-AGI in particular probability p would itself be a lognormal distribution over the years (as I imagine the forecaster would be equally likely to be wrong by twice as many years or half as many years). 

This justifies taking the geometric mean over the years (as it corresponds to an average over the log of the years), but not when looking at the probabilities.

Fitting the curve with a linear function (excluding the N/As), we get 

For , we'd get 

For , we'd get 

For , we'd get 

Or, for a probability , we'd get the year 

For , we'd get 

For , we'd get 

For , we'd get 

 

Overall, I got rather similar numbers 😊

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on EA Taskmaster Game · 2022-12-05T06:41:34.709Z · EA · GW

OMG!!!

Comment by edoarad on [deleted post] 2022-12-02T11:36:15.289Z

What do you think of ACE's recent recommendations?

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Using artificial intelligence (machine vision) to increase the effectiveness of human-wildlife conflict mitigations could benefit WAW · 2022-11-25T16:30:32.553Z · EA · GW

It brings to mind birds colliding with windows (wiki). It's estimated that more than 100 million birds die each year from colliding into a window in the US alone and there are some legislative work to address it (say, by "painting" them with patterns visible in the UV spectrum).

It might be cost-effective to promote such legislation. I haven't looked into the details at all, except for the wiki page.

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Rethink Priorities’ 2022 Impact, 2023 Strategy, and Funding Gaps · 2022-11-25T16:15:17.173Z · EA · GW

(also the inner-doc links inside footnote 46 point to the doc)

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on A positive perspective on the future of the movement · 2022-11-13T18:12:10.749Z · EA · GW

Mind expending on this?

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Give For Good: make your donations to charity more effective · 2022-11-04T20:00:45.312Z · EA · GW

Thanks for the write up :) Quick question, when would the charities prefer getting money through you rather than directly?

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Dark mode (Forum update November 2022) · 2022-11-03T18:06:47.195Z · EA · GW

Thank you! 💖

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Dark mode (Forum update November 2022) · 2022-11-01T16:37:53.153Z · EA · GW

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nDgCKwjBKwFvcBsts/corporate-campaigns-for-chicken-welfare-are-10-000-times-as#Cost_effectiveness_of_GiveWell_s_Maximum_Impact_Fund1

Tables:

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Dark mode (Forum update November 2022) · 2022-11-01T16:34:00.946Z · EA · GW

Moderator comments behave weirdly in dark mode

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Map of Biosecurity Interventions · 2022-10-31T05:34:13.391Z · EA · GW

I love this! These kinds of maps give so much clarity, and I find this one particularly well designed. Makes me want many more of these for other causes!

Comment by edoarad on [deleted post] 2022-10-27T13:35:08.873Z

Should we encourage or discourage people from adding their projects here?

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Open Thread: October — December 2022 · 2022-10-18T13:07:48.174Z · EA · GW

How about changing this into some sort of a "Change My View" system, or commit to some reward? Not sure why someone would want to put in time to prove you wrong, or to vote correspondingly, in order to ban you.

Also, you might very well be wrong in some important way, but still add a meaningful and novel viewpoint to an important problem.

A lot of your comments have been very well received and possibly have meaningfully contributed to doing more good, but I see that you haven't made any posts. Maybe you should try more of a "long-form" writing first? Possibly, send it to some people for review first, and edit accordingly, and then publish it. It's really hard to do justice to any topic, and the four arguments you allude to involve deep questions that have been on the minds of many people. 

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Announcing "Naming What We Can"! · 2022-10-15T10:37:12.075Z · EA · GW

"Good Mood Institute"

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Open Thread: October — December 2022 · 2022-10-15T07:33:54.961Z · EA · GW

(And generally, you or anyone else should feel free to report comments from moderators if you find them damaging the forum's discussion. It may well happen, and it's important to get that kind of feedback)

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Open Thread: October — December 2022 · 2022-10-15T07:31:13.471Z · EA · GW

Thanks, you may be right. 

To be clear, I found these generated examples clearly false and misleading but still something that I can understand people who feel like this, so I found it a bit funny and uncanny, while I totally agree with JoyOptimizer's concern.

has two cats, presumably trained to attack his enemies.

They are only trained to be maximally adorable and cuddle my enemies to a fluffy friendship! 

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Introduction to Effective Altruism Reading List · 2022-10-12T14:19:23.515Z · EA · GW

Yea, I think you are correct and it should be 90,000

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Open Thread: October — December 2022 · 2022-10-12T14:15:51.393Z · EA · GW

Beautiful

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Ask Charity Entrepreneurship Anything · 2022-10-12T06:52:53.568Z · EA · GW

I know of ~3 people who've applied or are applying, and expect there to be more I don't know of :) 

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on BenevolentAI - an effectively impactful company? · 2022-10-11T15:18:41.046Z · EA · GW

I don't think I've heard of them, but they seem to do really exciting work! I'm more enthusiastic about the direct health benefits they could offer, rather than the potential flowthrough effects of preventing x-risks, unless they have specially designed programs for major pandemics. 

I like that their main solution is "disease agnostic" (in their principles for the ethical deployment of AI), and that they work in building tools for (their medical) researchers rather than just automating everything. Looking at their work it does look like there's a lot of low-hanging fruits to be plucked. 

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on The Case for Rare Chinese Tofus · 2022-10-11T12:36:27.664Z · EA · GW

Hey George! 

Curious if you have any updates to share about this project :) 

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Ask (Everyone) Anything — “EA 101” · 2022-10-11T08:49:55.163Z · EA · GW

Edited to include the text. Did only a little bit of formatting, and added the appendix as is, so it's not perfect. Let me know if you have any issues, requests, or what not :) 

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Embedding AI into AR goggles · 2022-10-09T06:51:37.695Z · EA · GW

Hey! This looks like a really interesting space and I wish you all the best with your endeavor! 

I'm not sure how this fits in with the forum though. Are you interested in ideas that can maximize impact or financial return? (Both are fine! Just that the latter has less relevance here)

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Pentathlon: join a wholesome team competition with other EAs/Rationalists · 2022-10-09T05:18:05.500Z · EA · GW

Maybe you could start an "EA Forum" team? I bet they'd approve that, but I know nothing :)

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Why defensive writing is bad for community epistemics · 2022-10-09T05:09:24.916Z · EA · GW

Thanks for writing this! The section on "stop rewarding modesty" was especially interesting and will stick with me

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Nathan Young's Shortform · 2022-10-07T15:59:02.282Z · EA · GW

OMG

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Ask (Everyone) Anything — “EA 101” · 2022-10-07T06:20:22.238Z · EA · GW

Agree! Hauke, let me know if you'd want me to do that on your behalf (say, using admin permissions to edit that previous post to add the doc content) if it'll help :)

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Effectiveness of Malala fund versus Global Health and Development Fund · 2022-10-01T09:13:53.495Z · EA · GW

For readers, here are links to The Malala Fund and the Global Health and Development Fund (part of EA Funds).

The consideration of whether to help people in poverty without solving the problem of poverty itself is a good one! In a slightly different formulation, it had been addressed in this amazing work - Growth and the case against randomista development

However, the question of how exactly we can alleviate poverty is still very tough. For example, GiveWell's analysis of educational programs in developing countries concludes that there's very limited evidence on the impact of education on improved future earnings, and their cost-effectiveness model suggests that they are about (0.5x-3x) as cost-effective as direct cash transfers. This contrasts with the large potential effects of direct health interventions, like deworming, which could be much higher (but there's still a lot of uncertainty and debate).

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Yonatan Cale's Shortform · 2022-09-29T05:45:45.907Z · EA · GW

Having worked with Yonatan on various community-building efforts, and discussing many technical and nontechnical projects with him, I'm very optimistic about the value he can give if he has the resources and freedom to do so. Happy to serve as a reference.

Main impressions:

  1. He is very aligned and happy to sacrifice his time, money, and credit to do more good. 
  2. Very helpful to EA community members and organizations, and makes sure to be very pleasant and accessible.
  3. Thinks clearer than most about ways of doing good, and acts based on the resulting logical conclusions, even if controversial.
  4. Evidently, very open, honest, and direct.
  5. Great quick-and-dirty approach to starting new projects.
  6. Very independent, and knows how to solicit design requirements and quick feedback.
  7. He may not be the most ridiculous EA in Israel, but he is close 🐱‍🚀⛸🥽
  8. To work with him effectively long-term, one should have very open communication and give him the freedom to pursue the goals and directions he believes in. 

(Yonatan, I'm curious as to whether/how much you agree with these 😊)

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Announcing EA Pulse, large monthly US surveys on EA · 2022-09-21T07:52:05.181Z · EA · GW

Thanks!💕

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on Announcing EA Pulse, large monthly US surveys on EA · 2022-09-20T19:36:16.540Z · EA · GW

This is amazing! I never knew how much I want to know about changes in people's attitudes over time 😊

Some questions that interest me here, changes in time of the following [written with haste]

  1.  moral attitudes  (utilitarianism vs deontology, welfare vs preferential, human vs animal, maximizing vs satisficing, ...)
  2. Particular moral values like nationalism, globalism, pacifism,  consumerism, pursuit of happiness, importance of freedom,  justice, equality, ...
  3. Trust in institutions (government, academia, types of media, large tech companies, other countries [China, Russia])
  4. attitude about the future (extinction? AI? pandemics? war? settling other star systems? utopia? digital life?)
  5. attitude toward philanthropy, EA, other social movements, particular and nonparticular billionaires
Comment by edoarad on [deleted post] 2022-09-18T07:44:07.890Z

🤣

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on CEA Ops is now EV Ops · 2022-09-17T13:53:57.235Z · EA · GW

Thanks, yea. I guess I'm asking if there are other people or functionalities of EV outside of EV Ops or the constituent orgs, and outside the board.

Comment by EdoArad (edoarad) on CEA Ops is now EV Ops · 2022-09-14T16:51:58.811Z · EA · GW

Does EV have any current employees outside of EV Ops? 

Comment by edoarad on [deleted post] 2022-09-14T14:08:53.833Z

Love her work, looking forward to the interview! 😊