What AI safety work should altruists do? For example, AI companies are self-interestedly working on RLHF, so there's no need for altruists to work on it. (And even stronger, working on RLHF is actively harmful because it advances capabilities.)

Tweet-thread promoting Rotblat Day on Aug. 31, to commemorate the spirit of questioning whether a dangerous project should be continued.

On Rotblat day, people post what signs they would look for to determine if their work was being counterproductive.

How about May 7, the day of the German surrender?

I found the opening paragraph a bit confusing. Suggested edits:

• Last week a young man named Onekalit turned up 
• The dry cough wore him down for over a month, but last week he finally managed to cough a bit of sputum
  • Why 'finally'? This makes it sound like the dry cough was preventing the collection of sputum.
• The incredible Gates-Foundation-funded GeneXpert test [add hyphens]

Side note: what's up with "model evals"? Seems like a jargony term that excludes outsiders.

An evaluation by the National Academy of Sciences estimates PEPFAR has saved millions of lives (PEPFAR itself claims 25 million).

The dominant conceptual apparatus economists use to evaluate social policies—comparative cost-effectiveness analysis, which focuses on a specific goal like saving lives, and ranks policies by lives saved per dollar—suggested America’s foreign aid budget could’ve been better spent on condoms and awareness campaigns, or even malaria and diarrheal diseases.

As already mentioned by others, these two claims are consistent.

Related:

The Think Tank Initiative was dedicated to strengthening the capacity of independent policy research institutions in the developing world. Launched in 2008 and managed by IDRC, TTI was a partnership between five donors. The program ended in 2019.

Great to see this moving forward!

Potential topic: state governments enforcing housing plans on municipalities.

Has anyone thought about the effects of air pollution on animal welfare?