EA Talks

Evan discusses some of the different proposals for building safe advanced AI that are currently actively being researched at OpenAI and DeepMind. Asya then discusses some recent updates on AI safety work she's excited about.
Evan Hubinger is a research fellow at MIRI, and before that was an AI safety research intern at OpenAI. His current work is aimed at solving inner alignment for iterated amplification. He was an author on “Risks from Learned Optimization in Advanced Machine Learning Systems,” was previously a MIRI intern, designed the functional programming language Coconut, and has done software engineering work at Google, Yelp, and Ripple. He studied math and computer science at Harvey Mudd College.
Asya Bergal has an BA in computer science from MIT. Since graduating, she has worked as a trader/software engineer for Alameda Research, and as a research analyst at Open Philanthropy. Most recently, she has been at AI Impacts, heading up their operations and working as a researcher.
This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.

Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Jacob Cates and Aron Mill, research associates at the Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED), explore the scope for industrial production of food should the sun become blocked from soot in a nuclear war. ALLFED considered two methods for constructing facilities producing suitable alternative foods, such as cellulosic sugar: new construction and retrofitting existing plants. Jacob and Aron share how ALLFED compared the costs of these options, estimated the build time and production rates, and concluded that a significant fraction of the global diet could come from these food sources within one year.

This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.

Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.

Original Video

Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have enabled a new architecture for peer-to-peer transactions without a trusted broker. As we have seen with the internet, distributed protocols can give users the ability to directly transact, circumventing slow-moving and sometimes corrupt intermediaries. One benefit of these systems is protecting consumers from payment censorship. Another potential benefit is opening up the currently privatized infrastructures underlying our financial and data systems. Beyond the realm of finance, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology development have sparked an effort to rethink the way that power and authority is embedded into the digital infrastructures that pervade our social, political, and economic lives.

Source: Effective Altruism Global (video).

Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Juan presents the latest research on industrial food solutions for feeding everyone in the case of food-related global catastrophic risks. He focuses on sun-blocking global food catastrophes such as large asteroid impacts, supervolcanic eruptions and nuclear winter. The solutions presented include single-cell protein (SCP) from natural gas or from hydrogen and CO2, sugar from lignocellulosic biomass, and synthetic margarine from petroleum.
Juan García Martínez is a Research Assistant at Alliance to Feed the Earth In Disasters. Juan obtained his master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Twente and went on to join ALLFED as a research associate, where he had volunteered prior to finishing his studies. He has done research on carbon dioxide capture and utilization with his MSc thesis and his internship at the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands, and is eager to apply his energy and knowledge to new research on making humanity’s food system more resilient.
This talk was taken from EA Global Asia and Pacific 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.

Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Daniel talks about why self-care is challenging yet essential for almost anything you care about, and how you can manage your resources more deliberately.

Quote from Daniel’s bio: “In my coaching practice, I help people in the effective altruism community face difficult challenges and make their biggest contribution to the world while taking care of themselves. I love to enter someone’s world and help them do what they’re capable of. It’s one of the most fulfilling things for me. Besides, coaching also pushes me into my own learning zone very consistently. I’ve grown just as much as my clients did throughout 300+ coaching sessions so far. Click here to access my coaching page. As the COO at the Center for Emerging Risk Research (CERR), I work to improve the quality of life of future generations as comprehensively as possible. CERR is a charitable investment fund and grantmaker that promotes research and the implementation of solutions to avoid technological risks. I’m curious about almost everything and love to learn new things. I’m particularly interested in how to have peak energy and focus, get the most out of my time, and struggle more gracefully. I spend my downtime meditating, hiking, and enjoying dark chocolate.

This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.

Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.