EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular‪)‬ EA Forum Team

Epistemic Status: somewhat confident: I may have made coding mistakes. R code is here if you feel like checking.
Introduction: 
In their 2022 article, Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Kahneman looked to reconcile the results from two of their papers. Kahneman (2010) had reported that above a certain income level ($75,000 USD), extra income had no association with increases in individual happiness. Killingsworth (2021) suggested that it did.
Kahneman and Killingsworth (henceforth KK) claimed they had resolved this conflict by (correctly) hypothesizing that:
1) There is an unhappy minority, whose unhappiness diminishes with rising income up to a threshold, then shows no further progress (i.e., Kahnemann's leveling off);
2) In the happier majority, happiness continues to rise with income even in the high range of incomes (i.e., Kllingsworth continued log-linear finding)
(More info on this discussion can be found in Spencer Greenberg's thoroughly enjoyable blog post. Spencer [...]
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Outline:
(00:18) Introduction:
(03:04) Summary of Findings
(04:07) Results
(05:07) Median Regressions
(05:21) Figure 1
(06:16) Regressions at Various Percentiles
(06:55) Figure 2
(08:38) Implications
(10:50) Table 1: Happiness at Different Percentiles (above, KK; below, me)
The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:

May 28th, 2024


Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/A5voYMFhPkWTrGkuJ/against-a-happiness-ceiling-replicating-killingsworth-and

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

From my new blog: AI Lab Watch. All posts will be crossposted to LessWrong. Subscribe on Substack.
Many AI safety folks think that METR is close to the labs, with ongoing relationships that grant it access to models before they are deployed. This is incorrect. METR (then called ARC Evals) did pre-deployment evaluation for GPT-4 and Claude 2 in the first half of 2023, but it seems to have had no special access since then.[1] Other model evaluators also seem to have little access before deployment.
Clarification: there are many kinds of audits. This post is about model evals for dangerous capabilities. But I'm not aware of the labs using other kinds of audits to prevent extreme risks, excluding normal security/compliance audits.
Frontier AI labs' pre-deployment risk assessment should involve external model evals for dangerous capabilities.[2] External evals can improve a lab's risk assessment and—if the evaluator can publish [...]
The original text contained 5 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:

May 26th, 2024


Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZPyhxiBqupZXLxLNd/ai-companies-aren-t-really-using-external-evaluators-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post. The report concludes that the cage-free fulfillment rate is maintaining its momentum at 89%. The producer, retailer, and manufacturer industries are some of the most cage-free forward sectors when it comes to fulfillment. Some major companies across sectors that fulfilled their commitments in 2023 (or years ahead of schedule) include Hershey (Global), Woolworths (South Africa), Famous Brands (Africa), Scandic Hotels (Europe), Monolog Coffee (Indonesia), Special Dog (Brazil), Azzuri Group (Europe), McDonald's (US), TGI Fridays (US), and The Cheesecake Factory (US).
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First published:

May 24th, 2024


Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SG38cPw5C7wLXAeFn/89-of-cage-free-egg-commitments-with-deadlines-of-2023-or

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post. A brief overview of recent OpenAI departures (Ilya Sutskever, Jan Leike, Daniel Kokotajlo, Leopold Aschenbrenner, Pavel Izmailov, William Saunders, Ryan Lowe Cullen O'Keefe[1]). Will add other relevant media pieces below as I come across them.
Some quotes perhaps worth highlighting:
Even when the team was functioning at full capacity, that “dedicated investment” was home to a tiny fraction of OpenAI's researchers and was promised only 20 percent of its computing power — perhaps the most important resource at an AI company. Now, that computing power may be siphoned off to other OpenAI teams, and it's unclear if there’ll be much focus on avoiding catastrophic risk from future AI models.
-Jan suggesting that compute for safety may have been deprioritised even despite the 20% commitment. (Wired claims that OpenAI confirms that their "superalignment team is no more").
“I joined with substantial hope that OpenAI [...]


The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.
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First published:

May 17th, 2024


Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ckYw5FZFrejETuyjN/articles-about-recent-openai-departures

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

TL;DR It's time for an absurd challenge. On June 7th around 11:00, I'm going to (try to) break the world record for cycling without hands! 🚴🏻‍♂️ For more than 100km, I am raising money for the The Against Malaria Foundation (100% donated, costs covered by my company and myself) with the help of The Life You Can Save. Pledge your donation per kilometer or fixed amount here (tax deductibility possible in most countries, email me on vin@boas.co). The full story
I'm Vin from Amsterdam, and I'm doing a world record attempt for cycling without hands for charity on the 7th of June. I am donating 100% to The Against Malaria Foundation, with the goal of saving at least one life (5.000 USD). You can participate and push me to go further by joining here.
It's going too far to say that my bike saved my life, but at [...]

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First published:

May 20th, 2024


Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cj2Qauvc3tQRyXuBW/i-m-attempting-a-world-record-to-raise-money-for-amf

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

How well do you know the details of the Giving What We Can Pledge? A surprising number of people we’ve spoken to — including many who know a lot about effective giving — shared some or all of these pledge misconceptions.
Misconception #1: If you sign the pledge, you have to donate at least 10% of your income each year.
The Giving What We Can Pledge is a public commitment to donate at least 10% of your lifetime income to the organisations that can most effectively use it to improve the lives of others. Giving 10% of your income each year is a good rule of thumb for most people, as it helps them stay on track with their lifetime pledge. However, there are certainly cases where it doesn’t make sense to give annually. Provided you continue reporting your income[1] on your personal pledge dashboard, the “Overall Progress” bar [...]
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Outline:
(00:20) Misconception #1: If you sign the pledge, you have to donate at least 10% of your income each year.
(02:18) Misconception #2: Only the charities on the Giving What We Can Platform count towards your pledge
(03:25) Misconception #3: The pledge is a legal document
(04:43) Misconception #4: There's no good reason to sign the pledge if you’re already donating 10% or more
(09:22) Misconception #5: There's only one pledge
The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:

May 15th, 2024


Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Y5QKkt9PFhqvG7CEn/5-things-you-ve-got-wrong-about-the-giving-what-we-can

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.