Funding Constraints for EA Orgs
How much better is time than money? While I do think currently in EA it's generally better to use your time than earn to give, the ratio matters a lot. One way to express this is, for each person...
View ArticleYudkowsky and MIRI
In talking to ML researchers, many were unaware that there was any sort of effort to reduce risks from superintelligence. Others had heard of it before, and primarily associated it with Nick Bostrom,...
View ArticleBuses and Railroad Crossings
A while ago I proposed that we not require buses to stop and open their doors at railroad crossings. This is something I had thought was universal in the US, but is actually state-specific. In MA this...
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More Giving vs Doing
I'm thinking about going back to earning to give, and earlier this week I wrote: My main reservation about earning to give continues to be that I think the most important things are mostly constrained...
View ArticleChildcare II
When Lily was about ten months old I wrote a post going over the different childcare options we'd tried. Since then we've tried several more configurations, and have a second kid, so I thought I'd...
View ArticleConversation with an AI Researcher
Earlier this week I had a conversation with an AI researcher [1] at one of the main industry labs as part of my project of assessing superintelligence risk. Here's what I got from them: They see...
View ArticleExamples of Superintelligence Risk
In talking to people who don't think Superintelligence Risk is a thing we should be prioritizing, it's common for them to want an example of the kind of thing I'm asking about. Unfortunately, I have...
View ArticleConversation with Bryce Wiedenbeck
A few days ago I spoke with Bryce Wiedenbeck, a CS professor at Swarthmore teaching AI, as part of my project of assessing superintelligence risk. Bryce had relatively similar views to Michael: AGI is...
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Window Vent
During the summer (here) night-time outdoor temperatures are typically pretty pleasant, but sleeping inside can still be uncomfortable because of heat stored from during the day. The normal fan-based...
View ArticleSuperintelligence Risk Project Update II
This is the beginning of my third week looking into potential risks from superintelligence (kickoff, update 1) and I think I'm hitting diminishing returns. I'm planning to wrap up in the next day or...
View ArticleThinking about going back to earning to give
I'm wrapping up my AI risk project and at this point I'm thinking like I should probably go back to earning to give: Most of my best altruistic options probably look a lot like what I did the past...
View ArticleTechnical Distance to AGI
I think the largest piece of the disagreement between ML people over how to prioritize AI risk may turn out to be: how likely is it that we get AGI soon that looks a lot like systems we have now?...
View ArticleSuperintelligence Risk Project Update
I've now been working on my project of assessing risk from superintelligence for a little over a week, though I was traveling for the end of last week. To keep me motivated, and let other people...
View ArticleConversation with Michael Littman
A few days ago I talked to Michael Littman, a CS professor at Brown working in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, as part of my project of assessing superintelligence risk. Michael doesn't...
View ArticleConversation with Dario Amodei
Earlier this week I talked to Dario Amodei, a research scientist at OpenAI and one of the authors of Concrete Problems in AI Safety ( pdf). I wanted to talk to him as part of my superintelligence risk...
View ArticleSuperintelligence Risk Project
I've decided to make a larger project out of looking into AI risk. I don't think we really know why there's such a disconnect between people who think we should strongly prioritize it and the...
View ArticleLooking into AI Risk
In considering what to work on, I wrote that recently many people I respect have started to think that AI risk is the most valuable place to focus EA efforts. For example, 80000 Hours ranks it first...
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Triple Play Recorder
If you want to play recorder but have fewer than eight fingers the current options are all very expensive. This is a problem in elementary schools that use the recorder as a very cheap instrument that...
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June 2017 Time Tracking
Every so often Julia and I like to track how we spend our time, trying to keep things fair. (2015, 2011) Here's the most recent round, which corresponds to the week from 2017-06-14 to 2017-06-20:...
View ArticleWhat's Next?
I was laid off from Wave yesterday: they've decided that having engineers build a mobile money system in East Africa while living in the US has a lot of drawbacks, and I (and my family) aren't up for...
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