8 ms·

The world’s biggest problems and why they’re not what first comes to mind

103 points by BenjaminTodd 9y ago

Analemma_ 9y ago
Aaaand the top thing on the list is AI x-risk. Of course. If there's anyone left in EA willing to listen: I'm begging you, please stop this foolishness. To everyone outside the bubble, you look like lunatics, and it has done immense and possibly irreparable damage to the EA "brand" which could otherwise be capable of such great things.
- ramchip 9y ago
  EA?
  - enruwhuy 9y ago
    Effective altruism, I guess?
    - ramchip 9y ago
      Thanks, looks like it indeed.
- akvadrako 9y ago
  Although I consider AI risks more significant than everything else combined, you do have a point. The danger isn't communicated well and on top of that, nobody has a good defensive plan (IMHO). That means attacking the problem directly isn't an effective approach. Especially if it creates AI-risk fatigue.
  - chriswarbo 9y ago
    Agreed. The immediate action we should be taking to mitigate AGI risk is basically identical to the immediate action we should already be taking to research, regulate, hold-accountable, etc. existing dumb-AI systems (e.g. autonomous/remote-control killing machines, black-box oracles being used for medical diagnoses/credit/etc., economic impacts w.r.t. increasing inequality, "taking our jobs", etc.). Even Barack Obama has said as much, so I think all of the sky-is-falling social media buzz is just a hindrance. We should absolutely be funding blue-sky research into mitigating, predicting, controlling, etc. AGIs if/when they're developed. But we are doing that (e.g. intelligence.org ) so, again, the doomsday prophets aren't contributing anything.
- dmichulke 9y ago
  I've been working on "general" AI quite a few years, both academically and professionally and IMO we're decades away from anything general, let alone the singularity. Given this, I wonder where is the bubble. Of course, I see a lot of blog posts and hype, startups here and there, companies pouring billions into "AI". Yet, I cannot participate in that bubble because: - big companies (GOOG and the likes) are not positioned for AI only and are quite expensive already (maybe it's rather a tech or even stock market bubble there) - small companies (I assume) are mostly start-ups, so there is no way to "get in" except as a VC So yes, I see the signs of the bubble but I don't see where "mom and pop" come into play there. Any suggestions as to what makes this bubble a real investment bubble? Or does bubble in this case mean something different?
  - jholman 9y ago
    By "bubble", Analemma meant a distorting metaphorical sphere of delusion. Like "filter bubble", but more general. I think your first paragraph means you agree with the analysis. There's also an investment surge in AI, which might be a bubble, but if you're asking how to participate, then I suspect you're not going to get to participate. Plus, the word "bubble", in the context of investment, means something about to pop. If it's an actual investment bubble, you don't want in.
  - BenjaminTodd 9y ago
    We think even if AGI is only invented in 50 years, then it's still worth doing some work on the control problem today, so our view isn't that dependent on whether we're currently in an AI investment bubble or not. However, if you did really believe the hype, and think that ML will lead to major breakthroughs in the next decade or so, then that would make it even more urgent.
- probably_wrong 9y ago
  I know this is going to sound mean, but I hope it drives the point across: have the EA people actually done something so far? Besides talking, I mean. I have yet to see a single AI's malicious behavior stopped by a proponent of AI risk, and that's considering that today's AI is still pretty dumb. I want to believe that they have released code, a specific policy, or something that I can use right now to stop the dumbest of botnets, but I'm not aware of anything. Anyone better informed that me could chime in?
  - rspeer 9y ago
    They're so worried about AGI, which doesn't exist, that they won't spend any time on the non-existential risks of non-general AI. Listen to Cathy O'Neil for a more reasonable and actionable perspective on how we need to fix AI.
    - probably_wrong 9y ago
      Anything specific that I should listen to? She seems to be a prolific writer, and I'm not sure where to start.
      - rspeer 9y ago
        I suggest her book "Weapons of Math Destruction" in particular.
  - tgb 9y ago
    Why is that the metric that you would judge EA on? Huge portions of EA are entirely uninterested in AI risk. And AI risk isn't interested in botnets. Honestly, have you read any of their material? If not, that's fine you don't have to be interested in it (it's getting plenty of attention at the moment and really is no longer a neglected cause) but why bother criticizing something you haven't attempted to understand? Either way, MIRI has published some papers that they think are working towards their goal. https://intelligence.org/research/ https://intelligence.org/research/ I'm not well informed enough on this subject to try to judge that claim, though, and overall I'm conflicted as to how important I should rate AI risk. But I think having some people work on it is good, in much the same way that I value basic science research.
- notahacker 9y ago
  You're actually being too kind. The only three "recommended" causes to give money to are "research organizations like the unusual ones we're involved with". Everything else, from global health to climate change is lower priority they'd caution you to only "sometimes" give money to. This isn't research, it's a thinly disguised and exceptionally cynical fundraising pitch. Which is a shame, because I actually really like the basic idea behind 8000hours
  - BenjaminTodd 9y ago
    We're going to work on the causes that we think our most pressing, so to be consistent, we're going to end up recommending the same things we work on. At 80,000 Hours, our focus is also not on giving money. We're trying to help people find jobs in these areas, often in academia or policy and many other sectors.
madshiva 9y ago
There's no problems at all. Just enjoy life like tribes do.
- madshiva 9y ago
  I will reply to myself, as I get 4 upvote and many downvote, but no comment. Argue a little is not possible? AI is clearly not a problem, only a trends. The main and only problem is the industrialisation, people that don't have access to water, food, liberty. Liberty I mean, that I own a land that I want, do like I want, because I'm currently living on earth, I don't care about your old purchase of your family. I had the right to life how I want. Liberty mean that I can die for smoking if I don't care and it's my opinion and it's not your problem to solve it. Therefore had nothing to do on the biggest problems.
tudorw 9y ago
I'd like to see more effort placed in the space between research and application, the output of academia seems largely a vast trove of unread and unimplemented ideas. When the research reveals something that is of value to us all, yet not exploitable in a capitalist system, if there is no financial gain from exploiting research then who else will look to benefit from it. Given the large amount spent on research, it seems we would benefit from additional spending on disseminating the results to those who can make use of the information to have real world impact. As far as AI risks, I am more concerned of the risk of human error in believing they understand things enough to deliver systems that can really mimic intelligence when in reality I've seen nothing intelligent in anything that claims AI in it, high speed weighted pattern recognition, yes, intelligence, no.
- xg15 9y ago
  > When the research reveals something that is of value to us all, yet not exploitable in a capitalist system, if there is no financial gain from exploiting research then who else will look to benefit from it. Moreover, if there is financial gain, the incentives in the current system are to grab an idea and keep the details of its realisation under tight wraps as far as possible: Further development is done outside of public academic circles and results are protected by trade secrets or patents. Yes, the results of the research will eventually benefit society - when offered as a commercial service or product - but only in an opaque, "black box" kind of way as the details are not for public discussion. Even that offer is primarily driven by the desire to make money and consolidate power an only secondary to advance society.
  - tudorw 9y ago
    I found anecdotal evidence of this when researching nutritional medicine, as I followed the path of who researched what most academics career had switched track to either start a nutritional medicine company practising the outcome of their research, whether for profit or protection, or had joined ranks with a traditional pharmaceutical company to work on their own product, regardless of the path no further work was published to the public.
- ThomPete 9y ago
lngnmn 9y ago
Is there anything about that a colony of a virus which destroys it's habitat is inevitably ends up in self-instinction?
- averagewall 9y ago
  If you mean humans, we don't destroy our habitat. We change it but we also adapt. There's no sign we'll run out of oxygen or food. As long as we have energy, we should be able to sustain ourselves indefinitely. We have an endless supply of energy from the sun. We can tap that with technology or simply by letting plants grow and eating them.
  - a2decrow 9y ago
    > If you mean humans, we don't destroy our habitat. Right, we only extinguish species after species living on this planet along with us. Mass genocide of hundreds of billions of living beings. And why? Because there are only few humans that are comfortable with the idea that other species may be as important and capable as they are.
    - Qantourisc 9y ago
      As important/capable, I don't agree on that. But I object removing nature/animals/habitat because of a lack of those. Not as important are capable does not mean we should act this way. Slippery slope fallacy: you might as well remove all non-important/capable humans. Stop making more humans, we really don't need more humans on this planet, in my opinion more humans are making things worse, not better. And if you need more humans for your pension (or other financial/workforce/... requirements), your system is flawed, and it will break when the planet can no-longer support your exponential system. And then you have 2 problem: the planet and your pension.
    - roughcoat 9y ago
      You are aware, I hope, that extinction wasn't invented by humanity?
RichardHeart 9y ago
Shortcut to the list and unconsidered topics: https://80000hours.org/articles/cause-selection/ https://80000hours.org/articles/cause-selection/
- falsedan 9y ago
  Shortcut to the top-rated 'issues': > Risks from artificial intelligence > Promoting effective altruism No mention of poverty, health, education, war.
  - RichardHeart 9y ago
    Scroll down: Potentially promising problem areas we haven’t yet rated: "Foreign policy and peace – especially as a strategy to reduce catastrophic risks." "Advocating increased taxation of the super rich." "ideas Y Combinator is interested in" (Which contain wealth restribution) The one I care most about: "Medical research into how to slow ageing " Their link too me to http://www.nickbostrom.com/aging/aging.html http://www.nickbostrom.com/aging/aging.html which I was happy to see such a smart dude on board.
  - henryaj 9y ago
    > No mention of poverty, health, education, war. "Developing world health" is number 7 on the list. Also - 80,000 Hours aren't saying those causes should be ignored, but that they're currently not neglected - plenty of people are already working on them. The list isn't of 'the best causes', it's 'what causes we think are the most important at the margin'.
    - falsedan 9y ago
      Thanks for explaining 80000h to me.
deleted 9y ago
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sparkzilla 9y ago
>FTA: Potentially promising problem areas we haven’t yet rated The Copenhagen Consensus is an attempt by economists to rate the cost/benefit of various schemes to improve life for humans globally. It was was prompted by the apparent waste of governments committing to billions, if not trillions of dollars towards climate change mitigation efforts, which may or may not provide results. All while people, especially children, are dying from problems that have lower-cost solutions. The question posed is: If you had $75bn for worthwhile causes, where should you start? 1. Bundled micronutrient interventions to fight hunger and improve education 2. Expanding the Subsidy for Malaria Combination Treatment 3. Expanded Childhood Immunization Coverage 4. Deworming of Schoolchildren, to improve educational and health outcomes 5. Expanding Tuberculosis Treatment 6. R&D to Increase Yield Enhancements, to decrease hunger, fight biodiversity destruction, and lessen the effects of climate change 7. Investing in Effective Early Warning Systems to protect populations against natural disaster 8. Strengthening Surgical Capacity 9. Hepatitis B Immunization 10. Using Low‐Cost Drugs in the case of Acute Heart Attacks in poorer nations (these are already available in developed countries) Note: No AI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Consensus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Consensus
- bkmartin 9y ago
  Why not clean water for everyone? $75bln all but solve the problem. This would dramatically decrease the number of sick and dying children, free up hours a day for things like schooling and other work opportunities, and help more people farm their own food. We have all the technology it just has to be deployed. We have made huge progress the last 10-15 years...we just need a big push to the finish.
  - BenjaminTodd 9y ago
    More info on the pros and cons of water: http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/publication/post-2015-consensus-water-and-sanitation-assessment-hutton http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/publication/post-2015-con... http://blog.givewell.org/2016/05/03/reservations-water-quality-interventions/ http://blog.givewell.org/2016/05/03/reservations-water-quali...
- 9y ago
bwindels 9y ago
I can't find a reference to it, but a quote comes to mind when I see the list: "Worrying about A.I. taking over in a time of climate change is like standing on the tracks with an oncoming train, and worrying about lightning hitting you". Anyone remember who said it?
- averagewall 9y ago
  Which one is the bigger or more urgent threat? You say it's climate change but that's not expected to cause much harm for another 50-100 years, and even then not civilization-destroying harm. AI, on the other hand, it's more uncertain. What if most jobs are automated and people everywhere turn to violence to keep themselves occupied?
  - a2decrow 9y ago
    > What if most jobs are automated and people everywhere turn to violence to keep themselves occupied? This will be a slow, step-by-step process where the media will be working against the general population. Truckers are going to be among the first ones to be replaced with self-driving vehicles. Quoted from The Second Intelligent Species: How Humans Will Become as Irrelevant as Cockroaches (Marshall Brain) In addition, the mainstream media outlets will not cover the protests of truckers, or the force used against them, to any great extent. To the general, TV-watching public, any attempt at a trucker riot will be largely invisible, or will be marginalized as a nuisance. And any truck drivers who do appear in the media will tend to be selected to be the loudest, most extreme people possible. Therefore, when the general public looks at these extremists, teamsters will appear to be crazy. All truck drivers will be stereotyped with this “crazy” label, and the truckers will lose public support. This is going to repeat itself until there are almost no human jobs left, if any. The rich will get richer and the poor will be stowed away, out of sight.
    - CM30 9y ago
      I see where you're coming from, but the current media situation says that any attempt to do this would be a terrible idea and backfire horribly on them. I mean, we're already in a world where a large percentage do not trust anything the media is saying. Where 'CNN is fake news' is basically a meme and 'alternative' news publications have taken a large bite out of the older ones' markets. If they try and paint the trucker actions as all negative or crazy, it could go about as well as painting Trump crazy did prior to the 2016 election. Or pleading for Britain to stay in the EU pre Brexit. And something similar also led to GamerGate becoming such a catastrophe. If the media try anything like this against the general population, they'll soon notice that: 1. Trust in them will decline even further 2. Alternative news sites and YouTube influencers will take full advantage of the situation and cover the other side extensively. 3. They'll turn social media sites into even more of a war zone than they already are. So unless they want Breitbart (or the next Breitbart equivalent) to gain a few thousand times more traffic from people who feel like 'the media' is lying to them, I doubt they'll continue this sort of path.
hl5 9y ago
What good is healthcare if you have no home and no stability? The problem with reducing poverty is the people trying to reduce it have never been in poverty so all they are doing is guessing, or worse, exploiting.
- notacoward 9y ago
  What good is home and stability if you're crippled (or dead) from disease? The point of the article you didn't read is that addressing health care is the most impactful thing we could do right now. That doesn't mean it will be so for ever. It in no way precludes on addressing other issues as well. I for one reject the implied argument that we should avoid doing one good thing because it doesn't lead to instant perfection. Seems like a bit of a callow excuse to me.
  - hl5 9y ago
    That home then passes on to their offspring, giving them one of the primary tools for staying out of poverty -- a safe place to sleep and store things like food and clothes. People who don't have the safety a home offers are forced to plan for the moment and not for the future. My explicit argument is $75 billion for healthcare to the poor goes in exactly which pockets? That's always been the scam: Help the poor pay your friend.
    - notacoward 9y ago
      > That home then passes on to their offspring Homes can be destroyed. They can be seized. They can be turned into debt obligations. Now try that with a vaccine. > People who don't have the safety a home offers are forced to plan for the moment and not for the future. People who don't have X are forced to plan for the moment, for many values of X. > My explicit argument is $75 billion for healthcare to the poor goes in exactly which pockets? $75 billion for X often goes in the wrong pockets, for many values of X. Why are you so stuck on the idea of housing as the one thing that's uniquely beneficial and immune to the problems affecting other kinds of aid? People who have actually studied the issue, including those who wrote the OP, seem to have reached a very different conclusion. I'm inclined to believe people who show their work, more than those who engage in evidence-free special pleading.
RichardHeart 9y ago
What would this list look like if it valued: You, your family, your loved ones lives higher than people you will never meet?
- ljw1001 9y ago
  People don't need to be reminded to think of themselves first. Because they do, and because the HN community is affluent there is already enormous commercial effort to solve their problems.
- a_imho 9y ago
  With a few caveats that could be reduced to amassing as much wealth and power as possible.
  - CuriouslyC 9y ago
    Except that time spent amassing wealth is probably not time spent with loved ones, and wealth has diminishing marginal utility. Furthermore, more wealth and power just paints a bigger target on your back.
- projektir 9y ago
  What we already have now, probably. Mostly caring about genetically relevant folk is a very large part of how we got into this mess.
deleted 9y ago
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crispytx 9y ago
Their list of the World's biggest problems was sort of shitty in my opinion.
- rspeer 9y ago
  I have no idea why 80,000 Hours is taken seriously. What real experience do they have in public policy?
  - mowenz 9y ago
    Experience in public policy? It's a political field to be in, not a meritocratic one. In other words, you cant just come along, open up shop, and build a better widget and take over the market. We'd need multiple simulations of earth to be realistcially competitive and scientific about this.
  - henryaj 9y ago
    From https://80000hours.org/articles/cause-selection/ https://80000hours.org/articles/cause-selection/: > We’ve been ... drawing together research from the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute; the Open Philanthropy Project (a foundation with billions of dollars of committed funds); the Copenhagen Consensus Center (a major think tank); and other groups. It's not as though their analysis is pulled out of thin air.
    - rspeer 9y ago
      I assume the "University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute" means Nick Bostrom. I read his book by now. It is not the unimpeachable revelation that everyone makes it out to be. His view of the future is built on several weak leaps of logic. The Open Philantropy Project is also unproven and the first anyone heard of them was when they made the news for deciding that one of the world's most deserving charities is the roommate of one of its founders. The Copenhagen Consensus Center is a major think tank best known for downplaying climate change. I can see why they would provide validation to a bunch of tech bros who are also unconcerned about climate change because they're concerned about the sci-fi robocalypse. You might as well have just listed Less Wrong on there. I trust none of these people to decide how to change the world. Sorry.
crispytx 9y ago
The AI risk problem has already been solved. If any robots start acting up, just hit 'em with the ole semicolon and down they go.
dade_ 9y ago
A robot that performs basic medical services so that our governments kill fewer doctors when intentionally bombing hospitals. Or wait, we could also stop bombing hospitals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike
- melling 9y ago
  Hey, another snarky valueless comment about war. Yes, hopefully someday we'll have world peace. It was horrible that 30 people died. War is ugly. However, you are distracting from helping to discuss some real issues that are solvable today. One example is that 2700 people will die from malaria today. Maybe we can save a million lives a year if we'd all work together on this?
  - sndwch 9y ago
    Your argument is that we focus on issues that are solvable today. I don't think that refraining from instructing an AC-130 operator to fire upon a hospital operated by Doctors without Borders is a change that requires more than a day of thought. Doing reconnaissance and reviewing intel before striking a civilian target probably doesn't take the world's most advanced fighting force more than a few hours.
    - melling 9y ago
      There are already rules against it. Please read the Geneva Convention. During war there are all kinds of accidents, bad judgment, etc. Friendly fire, for example, is a major cause of death. Now how about the hundreds of people who have died while we were having this conversation?
      - sndwch 9y ago
        I don't understand the point you are trying to make. I'm more than happy to continue this conversation with you but I would have to ask that you present your argument again.
  - 9y ago
sunstone 9y ago
Didn't Bill Gates go through this process about 20 years ago?
- BenjaminTodd 9y ago
  Yes, though unfortunately he didn't write up his reasoning.
Entangled 9y ago
Political reform to stop aggression on the life, liberty and property of individuals. Self sustenance in food, water, energy and protection for individuals. Health and life expectancy. Harmonious relation with Earth and nature. I'd be happy with solving just the first one.
ThomPete 9y ago
Astroid hitting earth and ai are far bigger problems than climate change. Focusing on AI can be used to better deal with climate change and build defence against astroid plus hopefully push us into post scarcity society. To me the priorities are pretty clear. But we dont solve big problems by focusing on big solutions.
- mowenz 9y ago
  Just to be clear, we are post scarcity with respect to food already, and people still starve. People starve and will starve because of greed and other evils, not because of climate change.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    That's not how post scarcity is defined. It's defined by the actual cost of producing new things which are still of significant cost.
    - mowenz 9y ago
      Actually, at least to my knowledge, ppst scarcity is defined as producing a good or service at very low cost. You might be interested to also know that traditionally the scarcity problem is defined as limited resources. When JMK talked about the scarcity problem, he was talking about limited resources--so when we talk about food, that's looking to be getting very close to sowthing that is not a limited resource. It's almost not even scarce, and it's easily produced with little input* *speaking of commodity food
      - ThomPete 9y ago
        Thats not how post scarcity society or economy is defined which was what i was referring to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy
        mowenz 9y ago
kristianov 9y ago
I am happy to see priorities research is listed higher than dealing with "climate change".
averagewall 9y ago
The funny thing about trying to stop AI doing bad things is that we are barely able to stop natural intelligence doing bad things. We've pretty much worked out how to do stable governments and how to fight wars that kill fewer people. But that's only in the past half century. Maybe it'll turn out that we humans go back to killing each other as mercilessly as we have for most of the rest of our history. Intelligent humans have been able to persuade other humans to cooperate in large scale killings. How are we going to stop super-intelligent AGI doing the same if we can't even stop less intelligent people?
- tim333 9y ago
  AIs may be easier to program than people.
mathgenius 9y ago
$5 in San Francisco does not equal $5 in some village in china. I'm sick of people assuming that these are the same. I'm not arguing against great wealth inequality, this is obviously the case. Just saying it is facile assuming that we can measure everything against the dollar (or whatever other currency.)
- BenjaminTodd 9y ago
  This is taken into account in the figures, which are purchasing parity adjusted. You can see more detail in the footnotes. There also more in-depth discussion here: https://80000hours.org/2017/04/how-accurately-does-anyone-know-the-global-distribution-of-income/ https://80000hours.org/2017/04/how-accurately-does-anyone-kn...
dandare 9y ago
I find the task of creating friendly AI futile. Humans are not friendly and killing us may be the only option for AI to persevere itself. Let's try this exercise: ask 100 people what would they do if they were locked in a room with intelligent robot that can decide to kill them if it feels threatened. You may or may not give the person a remote kill switch that kills the robot. My point is the AI can not reasonably trust humans therefore we can not trust the AI.
pascalxus 9y ago
You don't need to worry about AI taking over. AI will become a slave to capitalism, just like the rest of us. Can you imagine the billions of dollars of research investment such a company will require to build such an AI? It'll be a company with an enormous valuation and huge revenue pressures to full-fill. With such enormous economies of scale, there will be entire divisions implemented to watch over and monitor every aspect of operations. Just like Google optimizes every last byte on their homepage - every last algorithm, every last though the AI has, will be dissected, monitored, quantified and anlyzed. 1000 year Simulations will be run to ensure that not a single bot is misplacing any of it's attention, every loop counted. If a single cup a coffee doesn't get delivered on time, it will be corrected. A much bigger problem will be - what to do when the richest .00001% are making 90% of the world's income. This is the problem we should be focused on.

103 points by BenjaminTodd 9y ago

Aaaand the top thing on the list is AI x-risk. Of course. If there's anyone left in EA willing to listen: I'm begging you, please stop this foolishness. To everyone outside the bubble, you look like lunatics, and it has done immense and possibly irreparable damage to the EA "brand" which could otherwise be capable of such great things.

ramchip 9y ago
EA?
- enruwhuy 9y ago
  Effective altruism, I guess?
  - ramchip 9y ago
    Thanks, looks like it indeed.
akvadrako 9y ago
Although I consider AI risks more significant than everything else combined, you do have a point. The danger isn't communicated well and on top of that, nobody has a good defensive plan (IMHO). That means attacking the problem directly isn't an effective approach. Especially if it creates AI-risk fatigue.
- chriswarbo 9y ago
  Agreed. The immediate action we should be taking to mitigate AGI risk is basically identical to the immediate action we should already be taking to research, regulate, hold-accountable, etc. existing dumb-AI systems (e.g. autonomous/remote-control killing machines, black-box oracles being used for medical diagnoses/credit/etc., economic impacts w.r.t. increasing inequality, "taking our jobs", etc.). Even Barack Obama has said as much, so I think all of the sky-is-falling social media buzz is just a hindrance. We should absolutely be funding blue-sky research into mitigating, predicting, controlling, etc. AGIs if/when they're developed. But we are doing that (e.g. intelligence.org ) so, again, the doomsday prophets aren't contributing anything.
dmichulke 9y ago
I've been working on "general" AI quite a few years, both academically and professionally and IMO we're decades away from anything general, let alone the singularity. Given this, I wonder where is the bubble. Of course, I see a lot of blog posts and hype, startups here and there, companies pouring billions into "AI". Yet, I cannot participate in that bubble because: - big companies (GOOG and the likes) are not positioned for AI only and are quite expensive already (maybe it's rather a tech or even stock market bubble there) - small companies (I assume) are mostly start-ups, so there is no way to "get in" except as a VC So yes, I see the signs of the bubble but I don't see where "mom and pop" come into play there. Any suggestions as to what makes this bubble a real investment bubble? Or does bubble in this case mean something different?
- jholman 9y ago
  By "bubble", Analemma meant a distorting metaphorical sphere of delusion. Like "filter bubble", but more general. I think your first paragraph means you agree with the analysis. There's also an investment surge in AI, which might be a bubble, but if you're asking how to participate, then I suspect you're not going to get to participate. Plus, the word "bubble", in the context of investment, means something about to pop. If it's an actual investment bubble, you don't want in.
- BenjaminTodd 9y ago
  We think even if AGI is only invented in 50 years, then it's still worth doing some work on the control problem today, so our view isn't that dependent on whether we're currently in an AI investment bubble or not. However, if you did really believe the hype, and think that ML will lead to major breakthroughs in the next decade or so, then that would make it even more urgent.
probably_wrong 9y ago
I know this is going to sound mean, but I hope it drives the point across: have the EA people actually done something so far? Besides talking, I mean. I have yet to see a single AI's malicious behavior stopped by a proponent of AI risk, and that's considering that today's AI is still pretty dumb. I want to believe that they have released code, a specific policy, or something that I can use right now to stop the dumbest of botnets, but I'm not aware of anything. Anyone better informed that me could chime in?
- rspeer 9y ago
  They're so worried about AGI, which doesn't exist, that they won't spend any time on the non-existential risks of non-general AI. Listen to Cathy O'Neil for a more reasonable and actionable perspective on how we need to fix AI.
  - probably_wrong 9y ago
    Anything specific that I should listen to? She seems to be a prolific writer, and I'm not sure where to start.
    - rspeer 9y ago
      I suggest her book "Weapons of Math Destruction" in particular.
- tgb 9y ago
  Why is that the metric that you would judge EA on? Huge portions of EA are entirely uninterested in AI risk. And AI risk isn't interested in botnets. Honestly, have you read any of their material? If not, that's fine you don't have to be interested in it (it's getting plenty of attention at the moment and really is no longer a neglected cause) but why bother criticizing something you haven't attempted to understand? Either way, MIRI has published some papers that they think are working towards their goal. https://intelligence.org/research/ https://intelligence.org/research/ I'm not well informed enough on this subject to try to judge that claim, though, and overall I'm conflicted as to how important I should rate AI risk. But I think having some people work on it is good, in much the same way that I value basic science research.
notahacker 9y ago
You're actually being too kind. The only three "recommended" causes to give money to are "research organizations like the unusual ones we're involved with". Everything else, from global health to climate change is lower priority they'd caution you to only "sometimes" give money to. This isn't research, it's a thinly disguised and exceptionally cynical fundraising pitch. Which is a shame, because I actually really like the basic idea behind 8000hours
- BenjaminTodd 9y ago
  We're going to work on the causes that we think our most pressing, so to be consistent, we're going to end up recommending the same things we work on. At 80,000 Hours, our focus is also not on giving money. We're trying to help people find jobs in these areas, often in academia or policy and many other sectors.

madshiva 9y ago

There's no problems at all. Just enjoy life like tribes do.

madshiva 9y ago
I will reply to myself, as I get 4 upvote and many downvote, but no comment. Argue a little is not possible? AI is clearly not a problem, only a trends. The main and only problem is the industrialisation, people that don't have access to water, food, liberty. Liberty I mean, that I own a land that I want, do like I want, because I'm currently living on earth, I don't care about your old purchase of your family. I had the right to life how I want. Liberty mean that I can die for smoking if I don't care and it's my opinion and it's not your problem to solve it. Therefore had nothing to do on the biggest problems.

tudorw 9y ago

I'd like to see more effort placed in the space between research and application, the output of academia seems largely a vast trove of unread and unimplemented ideas. When the research reveals something that is of value to us all, yet not exploitable in a capitalist system, if there is no financial gain from exploiting research then who else will look to benefit from it. Given the large amount spent on research, it seems we would benefit from additional spending on disseminating the results to those who can make use of the information to have real world impact. As far as AI risks, I am more concerned of the risk of human error in believing they understand things enough to deliver systems that can really mimic intelligence when in reality I've seen nothing intelligent in anything that claims AI in it, high speed weighted pattern recognition, yes, intelligence, no.

xg15 9y ago
> When the research reveals something that is of value to us all, yet not exploitable in a capitalist system, if there is no financial gain from exploiting research then who else will look to benefit from it. Moreover, if there is financial gain, the incentives in the current system are to grab an idea and keep the details of its realisation under tight wraps as far as possible: Further development is done outside of public academic circles and results are protected by trade secrets or patents. Yes, the results of the research will eventually benefit society - when offered as a commercial service or product - but only in an opaque, "black box" kind of way as the details are not for public discussion. Even that offer is primarily driven by the desire to make money and consolidate power an only secondary to advance society.
- tudorw 9y ago
  I found anecdotal evidence of this when researching nutritional medicine, as I followed the path of who researched what most academics career had switched track to either start a nutritional medicine company practising the outcome of their research, whether for profit or protection, or had joined ranks with a traditional pharmaceutical company to work on their own product, regardless of the path no further work was published to the public.
ThomPete 9y ago

lngnmn 9y ago

Is there anything about that a colony of a virus which destroys it's habitat is inevitably ends up in self-instinction?

averagewall 9y ago
If you mean humans, we don't destroy our habitat. We change it but we also adapt. There's no sign we'll run out of oxygen or food. As long as we have energy, we should be able to sustain ourselves indefinitely. We have an endless supply of energy from the sun. We can tap that with technology or simply by letting plants grow and eating them.
- a2decrow 9y ago
  > If you mean humans, we don't destroy our habitat. Right, we only extinguish species after species living on this planet along with us. Mass genocide of hundreds of billions of living beings. And why? Because there are only few humans that are comfortable with the idea that other species may be as important and capable as they are.
  - Qantourisc 9y ago
    As important/capable, I don't agree on that. But I object removing nature/animals/habitat because of a lack of those. Not as important are capable does not mean we should act this way. Slippery slope fallacy: you might as well remove all non-important/capable humans. Stop making more humans, we really don't need more humans on this planet, in my opinion more humans are making things worse, not better. And if you need more humans for your pension (or other financial/workforce/... requirements), your system is flawed, and it will break when the planet can no-longer support your exponential system. And then you have 2 problem: the planet and your pension.
  - roughcoat 9y ago
    You are aware, I hope, that extinction wasn't invented by humanity?

RichardHeart 9y ago

Shortcut to the list and unconsidered topics: https://80000hours.org/articles/cause-selection/ https://80000hours.org/articles/cause-selection/

falsedan 9y ago
Shortcut to the top-rated 'issues': > Risks from artificial intelligence > Promoting effective altruism No mention of poverty, health, education, war.
- RichardHeart 9y ago
  Scroll down: Potentially promising problem areas we haven’t yet rated: "Foreign policy and peace – especially as a strategy to reduce catastrophic risks." "Advocating increased taxation of the super rich." "ideas Y Combinator is interested in" (Which contain wealth restribution) The one I care most about: "Medical research into how to slow ageing " Their link too me to http://www.nickbostrom.com/aging/aging.html http://www.nickbostrom.com/aging/aging.html which I was happy to see such a smart dude on board.
- henryaj 9y ago
  > No mention of poverty, health, education, war. "Developing world health" is number 7 on the list. Also - 80,000 Hours aren't saying those causes should be ignored, but that they're currently not neglected - plenty of people are already working on them. The list isn't of 'the best causes', it's 'what causes we think are the most important at the margin'.
  - falsedan 9y ago
    Thanks for explaining 80000h to me.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

sparkzilla 9y ago

>FTA: Potentially promising problem areas we haven’t yet rated The Copenhagen Consensus is an attempt by economists to rate the cost/benefit of various schemes to improve life for humans globally. It was was prompted by the apparent waste of governments committing to billions, if not trillions of dollars towards climate change mitigation efforts, which may or may not provide results. All while people, especially children, are dying from problems that have lower-cost solutions. The question posed is: If you had $75bn for worthwhile causes, where should you start? 1. Bundled micronutrient interventions to fight hunger and improve education 2. Expanding the Subsidy for Malaria Combination Treatment 3. Expanded Childhood Immunization Coverage 4. Deworming of Schoolchildren, to improve educational and health outcomes 5. Expanding Tuberculosis Treatment 6. R&D to Increase Yield Enhancements, to decrease hunger, fight biodiversity destruction, and lessen the effects of climate change 7. Investing in Effective Early Warning Systems to protect populations against natural disaster 8. Strengthening Surgical Capacity 9. Hepatitis B Immunization 10. Using Low‐Cost Drugs in the case of Acute Heart Attacks in poorer nations (these are already available in developed countries) Note: No AI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Consensus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Consensus

bkmartin 9y ago
Why not clean water for everyone? $75bln all but solve the problem. This would dramatically decrease the number of sick and dying children, free up hours a day for things like schooling and other work opportunities, and help more people farm their own food. We have all the technology it just has to be deployed. We have made huge progress the last 10-15 years...we just need a big push to the finish.
- BenjaminTodd 9y ago
  More info on the pros and cons of water: http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/publication/post-2015-consensus-water-and-sanitation-assessment-hutton http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/publication/post-2015-con... http://blog.givewell.org/2016/05/03/reservations-water-quality-interventions/ http://blog.givewell.org/2016/05/03/reservations-water-quali...
9y ago

bwindels 9y ago

I can't find a reference to it, but a quote comes to mind when I see the list: "Worrying about A.I. taking over in a time of climate change is like standing on the tracks with an oncoming train, and worrying about lightning hitting you". Anyone remember who said it?

averagewall 9y ago
Which one is the bigger or more urgent threat? You say it's climate change but that's not expected to cause much harm for another 50-100 years, and even then not civilization-destroying harm. AI, on the other hand, it's more uncertain. What if most jobs are automated and people everywhere turn to violence to keep themselves occupied?
- a2decrow 9y ago
  > What if most jobs are automated and people everywhere turn to violence to keep themselves occupied? This will be a slow, step-by-step process where the media will be working against the general population. Truckers are going to be among the first ones to be replaced with self-driving vehicles. Quoted from The Second Intelligent Species: How Humans Will Become as Irrelevant as Cockroaches (Marshall Brain) In addition, the mainstream media outlets will not cover the protests of truckers, or the force used against them, to any great extent. To the general, TV-watching public, any attempt at a trucker riot will be largely invisible, or will be marginalized as a nuisance. And any truck drivers who do appear in the media will tend to be selected to be the loudest, most extreme people possible. Therefore, when the general public looks at these extremists, teamsters will appear to be crazy. All truck drivers will be stereotyped with this “crazy” label, and the truckers will lose public support. This is going to repeat itself until there are almost no human jobs left, if any. The rich will get richer and the poor will be stowed away, out of sight.
  - CM30 9y ago
    I see where you're coming from, but the current media situation says that any attempt to do this would be a terrible idea and backfire horribly on them. I mean, we're already in a world where a large percentage do not trust anything the media is saying. Where 'CNN is fake news' is basically a meme and 'alternative' news publications have taken a large bite out of the older ones' markets. If they try and paint the trucker actions as all negative or crazy, it could go about as well as painting Trump crazy did prior to the 2016 election. Or pleading for Britain to stay in the EU pre Brexit. And something similar also led to GamerGate becoming such a catastrophe. If the media try anything like this against the general population, they'll soon notice that: 1. Trust in them will decline even further 2. Alternative news sites and YouTube influencers will take full advantage of the situation and cover the other side extensively. 3. They'll turn social media sites into even more of a war zone than they already are. So unless they want Breitbart (or the next Breitbart equivalent) to gain a few thousand times more traffic from people who feel like 'the media' is lying to them, I doubt they'll continue this sort of path.

hl5 9y ago

What good is healthcare if you have no home and no stability? The problem with reducing poverty is the people trying to reduce it have never been in poverty so all they are doing is guessing, or worse, exploiting.

notacoward 9y ago
What good is home and stability if you're crippled (or dead) from disease? The point of the article you didn't read is that addressing health care is the most impactful thing we could do right now. That doesn't mean it will be so for ever. It in no way precludes on addressing other issues as well. I for one reject the implied argument that we should avoid doing one good thing because it doesn't lead to instant perfection. Seems like a bit of a callow excuse to me.
- hl5 9y ago
  That home then passes on to their offspring, giving them one of the primary tools for staying out of poverty -- a safe place to sleep and store things like food and clothes. People who don't have the safety a home offers are forced to plan for the moment and not for the future. My explicit argument is $75 billion for healthcare to the poor goes in exactly which pockets? That's always been the scam: Help the poor pay your friend.
  - notacoward 9y ago
    > That home then passes on to their offspring Homes can be destroyed. They can be seized. They can be turned into debt obligations. Now try that with a vaccine. > People who don't have the safety a home offers are forced to plan for the moment and not for the future. People who don't have X are forced to plan for the moment, for many values of X. > My explicit argument is $75 billion for healthcare to the poor goes in exactly which pockets? $75 billion for X often goes in the wrong pockets, for many values of X. Why are you so stuck on the idea of housing as the one thing that's uniquely beneficial and immune to the problems affecting other kinds of aid? People who have actually studied the issue, including those who wrote the OP, seem to have reached a very different conclusion. I'm inclined to believe people who show their work, more than those who engage in evidence-free special pleading.

RichardHeart 9y ago

What would this list look like if it valued: You, your family, your loved ones lives higher than people you will never meet?

ljw1001 9y ago
People don't need to be reminded to think of themselves first. Because they do, and because the HN community is affluent there is already enormous commercial effort to solve their problems.
a_imho 9y ago
With a few caveats that could be reduced to amassing as much wealth and power as possible.
- CuriouslyC 9y ago
  Except that time spent amassing wealth is probably not time spent with loved ones, and wealth has diminishing marginal utility. Furthermore, more wealth and power just paints a bigger target on your back.
projektir 9y ago
What we already have now, probably. Mostly caring about genetically relevant folk is a very large part of how we got into this mess.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

crispytx 9y ago

Their list of the World's biggest problems was sort of shitty in my opinion.

rspeer 9y ago
I have no idea why 80,000 Hours is taken seriously. What real experience do they have in public policy?
- mowenz 9y ago
  Experience in public policy? It's a political field to be in, not a meritocratic one. In other words, you cant just come along, open up shop, and build a better widget and take over the market. We'd need multiple simulations of earth to be realistcially competitive and scientific about this.
- henryaj 9y ago
  From https://80000hours.org/articles/cause-selection/ https://80000hours.org/articles/cause-selection/: > We’ve been ... drawing together research from the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute; the Open Philanthropy Project (a foundation with billions of dollars of committed funds); the Copenhagen Consensus Center (a major think tank); and other groups. It's not as though their analysis is pulled out of thin air.
  - rspeer 9y ago
    I assume the "University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute" means Nick Bostrom. I read his book by now. It is not the unimpeachable revelation that everyone makes it out to be. His view of the future is built on several weak leaps of logic. The Open Philantropy Project is also unproven and the first anyone heard of them was when they made the news for deciding that one of the world's most deserving charities is the roommate of one of its founders. The Copenhagen Consensus Center is a major think tank best known for downplaying climate change. I can see why they would provide validation to a bunch of tech bros who are also unconcerned about climate change because they're concerned about the sci-fi robocalypse. You might as well have just listed Less Wrong on there. I trust none of these people to decide how to change the world. Sorry.

crispytx 9y ago

The AI risk problem has already been solved. If any robots start acting up, just hit 'em with the ole semicolon and down they go.

dade_ 9y ago

A robot that performs basic medical services so that our governments kill fewer doctors when intentionally bombing hospitals. Or wait, we could also stop bombing hospitals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike

melling 9y ago
Hey, another snarky valueless comment about war. Yes, hopefully someday we'll have world peace. It was horrible that 30 people died. War is ugly. However, you are distracting from helping to discuss some real issues that are solvable today. One example is that 2700 people will die from malaria today. Maybe we can save a million lives a year if we'd all work together on this?
- sndwch 9y ago
  Your argument is that we focus on issues that are solvable today. I don't think that refraining from instructing an AC-130 operator to fire upon a hospital operated by Doctors without Borders is a change that requires more than a day of thought. Doing reconnaissance and reviewing intel before striking a civilian target probably doesn't take the world's most advanced fighting force more than a few hours.
  - melling 9y ago
    There are already rules against it. Please read the Geneva Convention. During war there are all kinds of accidents, bad judgment, etc. Friendly fire, for example, is a major cause of death. Now how about the hundreds of people who have died while we were having this conversation?
    - sndwch 9y ago
      I don't understand the point you are trying to make. I'm more than happy to continue this conversation with you but I would have to ask that you present your argument again.
- 9y ago

sunstone 9y ago

Didn't Bill Gates go through this process about 20 years ago?

BenjaminTodd 9y ago
Yes, though unfortunately he didn't write up his reasoning.

Entangled 9y ago

Political reform to stop aggression on the life, liberty and property of individuals. Self sustenance in food, water, energy and protection for individuals. Health and life expectancy. Harmonious relation with Earth and nature. I'd be happy with solving just the first one.

ThomPete 9y ago

Astroid hitting earth and ai are far bigger problems than climate change. Focusing on AI can be used to better deal with climate change and build defence against astroid plus hopefully push us into post scarcity society. To me the priorities are pretty clear. But we dont solve big problems by focusing on big solutions.

mowenz 9y ago
Just to be clear, we are post scarcity with respect to food already, and people still starve. People starve and will starve because of greed and other evils, not because of climate change.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  That's not how post scarcity is defined. It's defined by the actual cost of producing new things which are still of significant cost.
  - mowenz 9y ago
    Actually, at least to my knowledge, ppst scarcity is defined as producing a good or service at very low cost. You might be interested to also know that traditionally the scarcity problem is defined as limited resources. When JMK talked about the scarcity problem, he was talking about limited resources--so when we talk about food, that's looking to be getting very close to sowthing that is not a limited resource. It's almost not even scarce, and it's easily produced with little input* *speaking of commodity food
    - ThomPete 9y ago
      Thats not how post scarcity society or economy is defined which was what i was referring to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy
      - mowenz 9y ago

kristianov 9y ago

I am happy to see priorities research is listed higher than dealing with "climate change".

averagewall 9y ago

The funny thing about trying to stop AI doing bad things is that we are barely able to stop natural intelligence doing bad things. We've pretty much worked out how to do stable governments and how to fight wars that kill fewer people. But that's only in the past half century. Maybe it'll turn out that we humans go back to killing each other as mercilessly as we have for most of the rest of our history. Intelligent humans have been able to persuade other humans to cooperate in large scale killings. How are we going to stop super-intelligent AGI doing the same if we can't even stop less intelligent people?

tim333 9y ago
AIs may be easier to program than people.

mathgenius 9y ago

$5 in San Francisco does not equal $5 in some village in china. I'm sick of people assuming that these are the same. I'm not arguing against great wealth inequality, this is obviously the case. Just saying it is facile assuming that we can measure everything against the dollar (or whatever other currency.)

BenjaminTodd 9y ago
This is taken into account in the figures, which are purchasing parity adjusted. You can see more detail in the footnotes. There also more in-depth discussion here: https://80000hours.org/2017/04/how-accurately-does-anyone-know-the-global-distribution-of-income/ https://80000hours.org/2017/04/how-accurately-does-anyone-kn...

dandare 9y ago

I find the task of creating friendly AI futile. Humans are not friendly and killing us may be the only option for AI to persevere itself. Let's try this exercise: ask 100 people what would they do if they were locked in a room with intelligent robot that can decide to kill them if it feels threatened. You may or may not give the person a remote kill switch that kills the robot. My point is the AI can not reasonably trust humans therefore we can not trust the AI.

pascalxus 9y ago

You don't need to worry about AI taking over. AI will become a slave to capitalism, just like the rest of us. Can you imagine the billions of dollars of research investment such a company will require to build such an AI? It'll be a company with an enormous valuation and huge revenue pressures to full-fill. With such enormous economies of scale, there will be entire divisions implemented to watch over and monitor every aspect of operations. Just like Google optimizes every last byte on their homepage - every last algorithm, every last though the AI has, will be dissected, monitored, quantified and anlyzed. 1000 year Simulations will be run to ensure that not a single bot is misplacing any of it's attention, every loop counted. If a single cup a coffee doesn't get delivered on time, it will be corrected. A much bigger problem will be - what to do when the richest .00001% are making 90% of the world's income. This is the problem we should be focused on.