WEBVTT - On Background: Effective Altruism Still Has Friends 0:00:15.316 --> 0:00:23.676 Pushkin back. In twenty twelve, when Sam Bankman Freed was 0:00:23.716 --> 0:00:27.156 an undergraduate in MIT, he learned about a movement called 0:00:27.196 --> 0:00:32.436 effective altruism or EA for short. The argument behind EA, 0:00:32.636 --> 0:00:36.676 very roughly is that philanthropy is broken. People shouldn't be 0:00:36.716 --> 0:00:39.396 giving away their money based on emotional attachments to certain 0:00:39.436 --> 0:00:43.436 causes or institutions. Rather, they should lean more on evidence 0:00:43.436 --> 0:00:45.116 and reason in order to do as much good as 0:00:45.156 --> 0:00:50.516 possible in the world. Sam Bankman Freed soon became one 0:00:50.516 --> 0:00:54.116 of the most famous proponents of EA. One of the 0:00:54.156 --> 0:00:56.076 things that interested me when I met him the first 0:00:56.076 --> 0:00:59.676 time was his interest in this. I found it curious. 0:00:59.756 --> 0:01:02.236 I had heard bits and pieces about EA, but I 0:01:02.276 --> 0:01:05.036 got the full throated version from him, And as I 0:01:05.036 --> 0:01:07.356 started to write about his world, I found his company 0:01:07.436 --> 0:01:12.876 FTX was filled with people who also considered themselves effective altruists. Then, 0:01:12.916 --> 0:01:17.796 of course, Sam's cryptocurrency exchanged dramatically collapse last year. He 0:01:17.916 --> 0:01:20.316 and FTX had been possibly the best thing ever to 0:01:20.356 --> 0:01:23.876 happen to the effective altruist movement, but the best thing 0:01:23.956 --> 0:01:32.836 quickly transformed into the worst. This is on background from 0:01:32.876 --> 0:01:45.996 Against the Rules, I'm Michael Lewis. Effective altruism is running 0:01:45.996 --> 0:01:50.356 through the background of my forthcoming book, Going Infinite. The 0:01:50.436 --> 0:01:54.236 movement started just a few years before Sam Bankmanfreed encountered it. 0:01:54.556 --> 0:01:57.436 I need to understand what effective altrus really believe and 0:01:57.676 --> 0:02:00.076 what it is about this movement the so appealing to 0:02:00.156 --> 0:02:03.876 smart young people, and also how these advocates are trying 0:02:03.876 --> 0:02:07.956 to pick up the pieces after ftx's collapse. So we 0:02:08.036 --> 0:02:10.996 found two college student who are leaders in effective altruism 0:02:11.116 --> 0:02:14.676 organizations to talk to me about this. Al Shin is 0:02:14.716 --> 0:02:18.956 a senior at Harvard studying statistics and Gabriel mccobe is 0:02:19.036 --> 0:02:23.236 a senior at Stanford studying computer science. I started off 0:02:23.276 --> 0:02:26.316 asking them how they'd explain effective altruism to someone who 0:02:26.356 --> 0:02:29.316 knows nothing about it. Gabe answers, first. 0:02:30.396 --> 0:02:32.596 We are like, at least I am like a person 0:02:32.596 --> 0:02:34.836 with a lot of privilege. I'm born in the US, 0:02:34.996 --> 0:02:38.396 I go to like a pretty good university. I'm a 0:02:38.436 --> 0:02:41.236 man who has grown up in a middle class family. 0:02:41.316 --> 0:02:43.356 Like I have a lot of privilege and resources to 0:02:44.076 --> 0:02:47.516 do change and impact in the world. And maybe you 0:02:47.596 --> 0:02:50.316 want to, like actually try to figure out what's the 0:02:50.316 --> 0:02:52.916 way you can have the best positive impact and to me, 0:02:52.996 --> 0:02:56.196 effective altriism is both like a framework for trying to 0:02:56.196 --> 0:02:59.356 think about how we might do a whole lot of 0:02:59.356 --> 0:03:01.076 good with our with our careers at our time, with 0:03:01.116 --> 0:03:03.556 our other resources, and then a community of people who 0:03:03.596 --> 0:03:06.596 are actually trying to put that into practice and actively 0:03:06.676 --> 0:03:10.156 like push their careers and the resources towards doing a 0:03:10.196 --> 0:03:10.556 lot of good. 0:03:11.556 --> 0:03:15.076 What kind of pushback do you get when you're talking 0:03:15.116 --> 0:03:18.676 to people your age about these ideas. 0:03:18.596 --> 0:03:24.996 H I think one possible avenue of pushback is this 0:03:25.516 --> 0:03:31.796 very cynical, almost nihilist view that you can't actually enact 0:03:31.956 --> 0:03:35.916 positive change. The actual level of suffering in the world 0:03:35.996 --> 0:03:38.556 is not going to be reduced. There's just not enough 0:03:38.596 --> 0:03:39.556 people working on this. 0:03:39.716 --> 0:03:42.636 Do you feel like what's under that objection is basic selfishness, 0:03:42.676 --> 0:03:45.756 that that I don't really want to have to think 0:03:45.756 --> 0:03:47.876 about the world this way. So if I can dismiss 0:03:47.916 --> 0:03:50.116 these arguments as saying as being preposterous, I can go 0:03:50.156 --> 0:03:51.196 about my selfish life. 0:03:52.236 --> 0:03:56.116 Certainly there's some people like that, and I would not 0:03:56.196 --> 0:03:58.756 say though, that everyone is like that. I think there 0:03:58.876 --> 0:04:03.836 is genuinely people who have some level of very cynical, 0:04:03.956 --> 0:04:08.996 nihilistic outlook as to what humanity can accomplish, and that 0:04:09.276 --> 0:04:13.316 bleeds into not taking people seriously when they tend to 0:04:13.356 --> 0:04:17.716 have a more hopeful, optimistic attitude. And even for people 0:04:17.756 --> 0:04:21.236 who are very involved in EA, at some point, these 0:04:21.276 --> 0:04:24.196 also just tend to be people who are philosophically inclined, 0:04:24.236 --> 0:04:27.156 and the philosophically inclined also tend toward nihilisa at some 0:04:27.156 --> 0:04:29.156 point in their lives. So maybe they'll come. 0:04:28.996 --> 0:04:29.956 Back around. 0:04:31.396 --> 0:04:33.356 And like about the point of like people being selfish, 0:04:33.396 --> 0:04:36.036 Like I don't know when I was like first, like 0:04:36.116 --> 0:04:38.876 thinking about the ideas, it can feel overwhelming. Sometimes they 0:04:38.876 --> 0:04:42.356 give about like oh wow, like maybe the default thing 0:04:42.556 --> 0:04:44.196 we're grown up with. As all said, is the world 0:04:44.236 --> 0:04:45.996 kind of beats into you that you're just a tiny 0:04:46.036 --> 0:04:48.276 little ant in this universe. You can't really do anything. 0:04:48.316 --> 0:04:50.476 They are all these big systems. It's pretty hopeless to 0:04:50.476 --> 0:04:52.276 actually do any change. And then EA is all like 0:04:52.356 --> 0:04:55.076 whoa people can have an impact, You can be like 0:04:55.116 --> 0:04:57.636 dispropersonally impactful, you can do all this stuff That feels 0:04:57.636 --> 0:05:00.836 like a lot of responsibility. It also feels like maybe 0:05:00.876 --> 0:05:02.596 a lot of pressure thinking about like, oh, do I 0:05:02.596 --> 0:05:05.276 actually want to change the trajectory of my career. I'm 0:05:05.276 --> 0:05:08.516 just like a young college student like I thought I 0:05:08.556 --> 0:05:10.876 was going to like do these other like fun interesting things, 0:05:10.916 --> 0:05:13.916 but maybe I actually want to like change totally what 0:05:13.916 --> 0:05:15.476 I would work on, and that can be kind of 0:05:15.516 --> 0:05:17.196 scary for me. I think I had some of that 0:05:17.636 --> 0:05:20.756 maybe cognitive dissonance when I was first getting involved and 0:05:20.796 --> 0:05:22.356 trying to think of like how much I wanted to 0:05:22.356 --> 0:05:25.676 trade off, like what I would otherwise do if I 0:05:25.716 --> 0:05:30.356 was like totally egoistic, versus what I wanted to prioritize 0:05:30.396 --> 0:05:33.796 in terms of altruism and helping others and all this. 0:05:34.076 --> 0:05:39.316 When I first heard the ideas, I had encountered them 0:05:39.356 --> 0:05:41.756 in a very casual way because people had told me 0:05:41.796 --> 0:05:44.396 about young people going to Wall Street to make money 0:05:44.436 --> 0:05:47.396 to give it away, and I thought that that was 0:05:47.476 --> 0:05:51.116 really interesting, what a curious subversion of Wall Street. But 0:05:52.196 --> 0:05:54.876 when I first got the full blast from the people 0:05:54.876 --> 0:05:59.476 at FTX, I remember thinking, this is so alien to 0:05:59.556 --> 0:06:03.716 anything I heard or felt, or any impulse I had 0:06:03.756 --> 0:06:06.276 when I was a college student, And I asked myself 0:06:06.396 --> 0:06:09.756 like why, And I think the answer that the honest 0:06:09.796 --> 0:06:13.356 answer was I didn't want to change the world. I 0:06:13.476 --> 0:06:15.916 liked the world just the way I found it. There 0:06:15.996 --> 0:06:21.316 was a kind of idiot happiness that I experienced when 0:06:21.316 --> 0:06:23.756 I was a college student that would have inoculated me 0:06:24.436 --> 0:06:28.836 against any kind of intellectual assault from an effective altruist. 0:06:29.396 --> 0:06:32.596 You probably don't really run across that as much. I bet. 0:06:32.796 --> 0:06:38.036 Also at Stanford there's like definitely a like people call 0:06:38.076 --> 0:06:40.116 it the Stanford bubble. It's easy to like feel like 0:06:40.156 --> 0:06:43.436 you're in this little utopia separated from the universe, and 0:06:43.436 --> 0:06:45.596 a lot of people just like, I don't know, life 0:06:45.636 --> 0:06:47.676 is good here and let's just go work in fintech 0:06:47.796 --> 0:06:51.076 or something. But also there are like quite a lot 0:06:51.076 --> 0:06:53.636 of people here who do recognize that the world has 0:06:53.716 --> 0:06:56.316 quite a lot of issues, and a lot of people here, 0:06:56.356 --> 0:06:58.356 I think do want to do things about that. Whether 0:06:58.396 --> 0:07:00.516 that's like I don't know, there's like a lot of 0:07:00.556 --> 0:07:02.996 people interested in climate change or social justice or things 0:07:03.036 --> 0:07:05.956 like this. I think it's very much the case that 0:07:06.036 --> 0:07:09.356 many young people now are at least very broadly in 0:07:09.436 --> 0:07:10.156 with helping others. 0:07:12.116 --> 0:07:14.076 After a short break, Gabe All and I get into 0:07:14.116 --> 0:07:19.076 what sets effective altruism apart from ordinary altruism on background, 0:07:19.156 --> 0:07:28.876 will be right back. I'm back with Harvard senior Al 0:07:28.956 --> 0:07:33.676 Shin and Stanford senior Gabriel Mukobe on background, I would 0:07:33.716 --> 0:07:36.876 love you both to explain to someone who's never heard 0:07:36.876 --> 0:07:41.316 of these ideas, like, what's the difference between effective altruism 0:07:41.316 --> 0:07:44.076 and just altruism ordinary philanthropy. 0:07:45.356 --> 0:07:50.276 Yeah. So, Peter Wldeford, who's one of the co founders 0:07:50.276 --> 0:07:52.036 of Rethink Priorities, has a recent. 0:07:51.796 --> 0:07:53.356 Post that I quite like. 0:07:53.636 --> 0:07:56.116 It's called eas three radical ideas I want to protect, 0:07:56.556 --> 0:08:00.916 and the three ideas are radical empathy, trying to think 0:08:00.956 --> 0:08:03.676 about the ways that society might be wrong in not 0:08:03.836 --> 0:08:07.436 extending moral consideration to others. The second is scope sensitivity. 0:08:07.836 --> 0:08:11.036 A lot of people are bad at actually estimating the 0:08:11.156 --> 0:08:13.436 amount of impact certain things will do. If you like 0:08:13.476 --> 0:08:15.796 survey people on like, hey, you could do this one 0:08:15.836 --> 0:08:19.316 intervention and it would like save a thousand chicken lives 0:08:19.396 --> 0:08:21.116 versus this other thing and it would save like one 0:08:21.156 --> 0:08:23.636 hundred thousand chicken lives. And you ask the people like, hey, 0:08:23.636 --> 0:08:25.436 how good is this thing compared to the other, and 0:08:25.436 --> 0:08:28.076 then they like, way to un upscale. The difference is like, oh, 0:08:28.116 --> 0:08:29.556 it's like goes from like a six to a seven. 0:08:29.796 --> 0:08:32.356 So like, emotionally, a lot of people have a hard time, 0:08:32.836 --> 0:08:38.076 like empirically or objectively evaluating the impact of things. 0:08:38.076 --> 0:08:41.236 Of the things they do right or the money they give. 0:08:41.636 --> 0:08:45.836 And EA is measuring this so that you have scope sensitivity. 0:08:45.516 --> 0:08:47.756 Measuring or like at least just trying to be aware 0:08:47.796 --> 0:08:51.836 of this effect and trying to actually do things that 0:08:52.036 --> 0:08:54.276 seem to have more of an impact on others rather 0:08:54.356 --> 0:08:56.756 than just like more impact on how we feel good 0:08:56.756 --> 0:08:59.796 inside of our heads about us doing things. And then 0:08:59.836 --> 0:09:02.196 the third thing is scout mindset. And this is the 0:09:02.236 --> 0:09:06.636 idea of like thinking of your arguments and the ways 0:09:06.636 --> 0:09:08.956 you approach the world, not as like soldiers. Like a 0:09:09.156 --> 0:09:11.836 lot of people argue with each other as soldiers. Their 0:09:11.916 --> 0:09:14.036 arguments are soldiers is the term, I guess where you 0:09:14.916 --> 0:09:16.956 are on the right side. You're like fighting for your 0:09:16.996 --> 0:09:19.556 kingdom or whatever, and you're going to say the things 0:09:19.556 --> 0:09:21.516 in order to win the battle. This is different from 0:09:21.516 --> 0:09:24.316 how scouts approach the world, where you don't know about 0:09:24.556 --> 0:09:27.756 the territory and a landscape and you're trying to maintain 0:09:27.836 --> 0:09:31.396 uncertainty over different possibilities and taking different evidence and try 0:09:31.436 --> 0:09:33.076 to figure out what the truth is. Maybe this is 0:09:33.116 --> 0:09:35.556 just a better way of approaching thinking about the world 0:09:35.636 --> 0:09:38.316 that can enable us to be closer to the truth, 0:09:38.556 --> 0:09:41.916 more honest and more objective and hopefully mess up less 0:09:41.956 --> 0:09:44.156 when we're trying to do a lot of impactful things. 0:09:44.916 --> 0:09:46.596 A can I ask you the same question, just like 0:09:46.676 --> 0:09:50.716 if you're just explaining the difference between general do goodism 0:09:51.276 --> 0:09:55.076 or philanthropy and effective altruism, how do you go about it? 0:09:55.756 --> 0:10:00.316 I think effective in effective altruism is not to contrast 0:10:00.316 --> 0:10:04.636 it with ineffective altruism, but to make it seem like 0:10:04.836 --> 0:10:08.316 this is altruism that is really focused on the effects 0:10:08.596 --> 0:10:12.876 of what we're doing, that isn't about how the do 0:10:12.996 --> 0:10:17.276 gooder necessarily feels about the actions that they're doing, but 0:10:17.916 --> 0:10:22.276 what amount of good do those actions put into the world. 0:10:22.556 --> 0:10:24.636 How big a part of your life is it? Is 0:10:24.636 --> 0:10:27.916 there anything you've done differently with your life because this 0:10:27.996 --> 0:10:29.396 movement exists? 0:10:31.156 --> 0:10:35.876 Hmm? I think it has altered the course of what 0:10:36.116 --> 0:10:39.516 I chose to study. I mean I basically change from 0:10:39.556 --> 0:10:43.956 some interest in computer science and machine learning and protein 0:10:43.996 --> 0:10:47.796 folding coming into college into getting a more broader statistical 0:10:47.836 --> 0:10:51.436 and probability base that could be generalized to more problems 0:10:51.516 --> 0:10:54.916 depending on what seemed more urgent at the time, which 0:10:55.636 --> 0:10:58.916 is forever changing. So I thought, like a more broad 0:10:59.436 --> 0:11:02.836 probability basis would be good for that. I think there 0:11:02.956 --> 0:11:09.036 is some reasonable limit you have to impose on your 0:11:09.196 --> 0:11:13.436 self before you find yourself over optimizing to doing the 0:11:13.476 --> 0:11:17.596 most good and ending up not necessarily operating like a 0:11:17.676 --> 0:11:20.196 human being, but just like a little ball of stress 0:11:20.516 --> 0:11:23.516 that is constantly tormented with the amount of suffering that 0:11:23.516 --> 0:11:27.316 you're putting into the world. This is something that the 0:11:27.356 --> 0:11:31.796 effective Altruism movement is trying to discourage among especially young 0:11:31.836 --> 0:11:35.836 people who get involved, because again the philosophically minded, in 0:11:35.836 --> 0:11:38.596 addition to going through a nihilist phase, also go through 0:11:38.636 --> 0:11:40.476 like several neurotic phases in their life. 0:11:40.516 --> 0:11:45.716 Probably what would be going too far with effective altruism 0:11:45.716 --> 0:11:46.276 in your mind? 0:11:48.476 --> 0:11:48.756 Hmm? 0:11:49.556 --> 0:11:52.476 What line when someone crosses it in the movement do 0:11:52.516 --> 0:11:54.476 you think I wouldn't do that? 0:11:54.956 --> 0:11:59.556 Something like if you're forcing yourself to do something that 0:11:59.676 --> 0:12:06.436 you hate, like absolutely despise, because of some abstract reasoning 0:12:06.516 --> 0:12:09.676 that this is the most good that you, in particular 0:12:09.756 --> 0:12:14.116 can do. I think sacrificing a lot of personal happiness 0:12:14.156 --> 0:12:17.596 for like very uncertain future outcomes when there are options 0:12:17.596 --> 0:12:19.956 that like you could do that you would be happy 0:12:19.996 --> 0:12:24.036 with that aren't bad. It's like not impossible that someone 0:12:24.356 --> 0:12:30.356 hears that, oh, this particular uh, like biosecurity or pandemic 0:12:30.356 --> 0:12:33.436 preparedness or bio risk is a really important cause area, 0:12:33.716 --> 0:12:35.916 and then they force themselves to go work in the 0:12:35.916 --> 0:12:38.316 wet lab even though they hate lab work. They absolutely 0:12:38.316 --> 0:12:41.196 despise it. They don't like the like PPA, they don't 0:12:41.196 --> 0:12:43.916 like the protocols, they don't like working with chemicals or organisms, 0:12:43.956 --> 0:12:47.276 et cetera. But for some reason they have decided based 0:12:47.276 --> 0:12:49.596 on their reasoning, and this is the most important thing 0:12:49.596 --> 0:12:52.356 that they can do. I would say that, like, this 0:12:52.476 --> 0:12:57.556 extreme sacrifice of personal happiness and ability to enjoy the 0:12:57.876 --> 0:13:01.476 work that you do is probably indicative that you like. 0:13:01.996 --> 0:13:04.956 This is not something that the movement wants to induce 0:13:05.076 --> 0:13:07.276 in people who are exposed to its ideas. 0:13:07.756 --> 0:13:10.196 Right, gave, let me ask you this same question, like 0:13:10.676 --> 0:13:13.516 how it's affected your life, your actual decisions you've made 0:13:13.596 --> 0:13:17.036 or things you've done that you would not otherwise have 0:13:17.116 --> 0:13:19.196 done if effective altruism didn't exist. 0:13:19.916 --> 0:13:22.836 Yeah, Like, now I'm for my career, I'm like primarily 0:13:22.876 --> 0:13:25.996 considering working in AI safety or policy or field building. 0:13:26.316 --> 0:13:31.036 I think, like most directly, probably it's like accelerated my 0:13:31.516 --> 0:13:36.996 like thinking of this and trying to critically analyze the 0:13:36.996 --> 0:13:39.396 trajectory I want to set my personal career on and 0:13:40.356 --> 0:13:43.076 what I should be doing to get there. So maybe 0:13:43.076 --> 0:13:44.836 it's more of like a speed up effect than like 0:13:44.876 --> 0:13:48.596 a drastic turn. I think it's been useful to have 0:13:48.636 --> 0:13:50.996 both like this framework, this intellectual thing and the community. 0:13:51.116 --> 0:13:53.076 And the community has been like really helpful and I've 0:13:53.076 --> 0:13:55.116 made a lot of friends, and I'm like very thankful 0:13:55.156 --> 0:13:56.756 to have a lot of people who are supporting me 0:13:56.796 --> 0:13:59.516 and can talk to to discuss these very hard questions. 0:14:00.436 --> 0:14:04.316 But this must come up in the community, Like where 0:14:04.316 --> 0:14:07.636 do you draw the line? Yeah, yeah, definitely, And I'm 0:14:07.676 --> 0:14:11.236 thinking not just like choice of career, but how about 0:14:11.236 --> 0:14:15.036 a question like do you have kids? Is it a 0:14:15.116 --> 0:14:20.316 selfish and ineffective pursuit having kids? I mean you hear 0:14:20.356 --> 0:14:21.156 people talk about that. 0:14:22.396 --> 0:14:25.436 Yeah, definitely. I hang out with people who are like 0:14:25.516 --> 0:14:28.236 mostly too young to be having kids right now. 0:14:29.196 --> 0:14:31.196 So what you're thinking about you But it's gonna come 0:14:31.276 --> 0:14:31.716 up someone. 0:14:31.836 --> 0:14:32.396 Yeah. 0:14:32.476 --> 0:14:35.156 Yeah, there's certainly, like a lot of people writing on 0:14:35.196 --> 0:14:38.196 the forum dot effective ulstulism dot org. There's one post 0:14:38.596 --> 0:14:40.796 they had decided not to have kids, and they're like, wow, 0:14:40.916 --> 0:14:42.716 this is this is just the rational thing to do, 0:14:43.636 --> 0:14:45.356 like it's it would be selfish for us to do 0:14:45.356 --> 0:14:47.996 as and they like committed to this, and they were miserable. 0:14:48.076 --> 0:14:50.196 Yeah, And the argument argument is, you have you'll have 0:14:50.276 --> 0:14:52.916 less of an impact on the problems that threaten humanity 0:14:52.956 --> 0:14:56.236 and less of an impact on totally human happiness if 0:14:56.516 --> 0:14:58.956 if you have to spend so many hours raising a child. 0:14:58.996 --> 0:15:01.476 That was the general idea, the or like at least 0:15:01.476 --> 0:15:04.956 the naive utilitarian idea perhaps, But it turns out they 0:15:04.956 --> 0:15:07.716 were miserable. They like really didn't like it. So they 0:15:07.836 --> 0:15:10.236 talked about it and decided like, yeah, it's actually, like 0:15:10.276 --> 0:15:12.156 IL said, this is something we actually care about a lot. 0:15:12.156 --> 0:15:14.636 That's like really integral to our personal happiness and to 0:15:14.676 --> 0:15:16.836 our life satisfaction. We do want to have kids, And 0:15:16.876 --> 0:15:18.556 they decided to have kids. And I think now they 0:15:18.556 --> 0:15:21.436 have kids and they're much happier. They're also like more productive, 0:15:21.476 --> 0:15:24.196 they said, and like this has actually been an increase 0:15:24.236 --> 0:15:27.596 to their productivity and they're like self reported ability to 0:15:28.076 --> 0:15:31.036 do a lot of good. So certainly, like people think 0:15:31.076 --> 0:15:32.716 about this a lot and try to talk about it, 0:15:32.796 --> 0:15:36.596 but it seems like there are no clear answers. Universally, 0:15:36.636 --> 0:15:38.556 a lot of this stuff just depends on the individual. 0:15:38.596 --> 0:15:41.516 Perhaps, how do you have anything to say about having kids? 0:15:42.356 --> 0:15:47.236 Yeah, I would say on the flip side of this problem, 0:15:47.436 --> 0:15:50.796 probably a lot of people have kids for the wrong 0:15:50.916 --> 0:15:56.956 reasons too, like social pressure, familial pressure, et cetera. And 0:15:57.596 --> 0:16:00.436 maybe being an effective altruism makes them more likely to 0:16:00.556 --> 0:16:03.836 identify like these pressures that are causing them to make 0:16:03.876 --> 0:16:06.596 a decision that wouldn't be good for them, either in 0:16:06.716 --> 0:16:08.916 terms of personal happiness or even in terms of their 0:16:09.236 --> 0:16:10.196 Do you solve the problem? 0:16:10.356 --> 0:16:13.076 Do you all have these discussions about kids? 0:16:13.116 --> 0:16:13.556 Not really? 0:16:13.996 --> 0:16:16.556 Not really? What about kidneys? What about giving a kidney? 0:16:19.636 --> 0:16:22.756 So the first my characters had big talks about kids 0:16:22.796 --> 0:16:24.596 and mostly came down on the side you're not supposed 0:16:24.596 --> 0:16:27.956 to have them. They were arguing, that's where they settled. Mostly. 0:16:28.316 --> 0:16:31.636 The kidney question was another one, like do you have 0:16:31.676 --> 0:16:34.836 an obligation to give away your kidney? Yeah? 0:16:34.956 --> 0:16:37.796 It seems like there's like a lot of discussion about 0:16:37.836 --> 0:16:40.676 this several years ago in the EA community, at least 0:16:40.676 --> 0:16:43.036 like what I've read online. I was not involved, Like 0:16:43.116 --> 0:16:43.676 back then. 0:16:44.156 --> 0:16:45.916 You were your post, you're a post. 0:16:45.876 --> 0:16:48.916 Post kidney yeah post. A lot of people were thinking 0:16:48.916 --> 0:16:51.476 about this and it seems like there is like quite 0:16:51.516 --> 0:16:53.836 a compelling case. Maybe like a lot of people just 0:16:53.956 --> 0:16:56.276 die from being on the kidney wait list, and like 0:16:56.316 --> 0:16:59.636 there aren't enough kidneys, and uh, seems like generally it's 0:16:59.796 --> 0:17:02.636 somewhat safe to survive on one kidney for a lot 0:17:02.676 --> 0:17:04.876 of people. Maybe this just like is a very direct 0:17:04.876 --> 0:17:07.876 way to mostly kind of factually save someone's life. So 0:17:07.916 --> 0:17:10.316 I think that's like, I don't know pretty any strong case. 0:17:10.556 --> 0:17:12.876 I've not thought about this a lot. I've not given 0:17:12.876 --> 0:17:15.276 a kidney. I don't know anyone else of like my 0:17:15.476 --> 0:17:18.916 ea friends who has. It seems like for for various reasons, 0:17:18.916 --> 0:17:21.316 this is like falling out of favor in the in 0:17:21.356 --> 0:17:24.036 the conversations. It's also just like a very extreme kind 0:17:24.036 --> 0:17:27.156 of commitment, Like it's it's a very bad recruiting strategy 0:17:27.196 --> 0:17:29.116 to be like, hey have you heard of effective autism? 0:17:29.356 --> 0:17:32.396 By the way, can we have your kidney? This is 0:17:32.436 --> 0:17:34.716 this is like I don't know, it's not the best 0:17:34.716 --> 0:17:38.436 way to like approach people, I think, And yeah, maybe it's. 0:17:38.316 --> 0:17:40.676 Really this it's kind of a second date conversation. 0:17:40.876 --> 0:17:44.036 Yeah, you got to give it a little time to do, perhaps, right. 0:17:44.196 --> 0:17:48.516 I've had some friends bring up the discussion of kidney's 0:17:48.836 --> 0:17:53.756 it still seems mostly like I throw away philosophical argument 0:17:53.796 --> 0:17:58.396 then necessarily a direct moral imperative. I don't think there's 0:17:58.396 --> 0:18:01.236 ever been a instance where someone who's like, I'm going 0:18:01.276 --> 0:18:03.356 to donate my kidney unless someone gives me a good 0:18:03.436 --> 0:18:04.276 argument to stop me. 0:18:04.556 --> 0:18:10.116 Right now, I'm curious, are there still debates with NEA 0:18:10.156 --> 0:18:17.476 about focusing on immediate suffering versus focusing on big, long 0:18:17.596 --> 0:18:21.156 term existential threats, current lives versus lives in the future. 0:18:21.756 --> 0:18:23.236 Oh yeah, definitely, definitely. 0:18:25.196 --> 0:18:28.516 Is it kind of still an urgent top of your conversation, Anya. 0:18:28.956 --> 0:18:33.276 I would say yes, but it's not stopping people from 0:18:33.476 --> 0:18:37.276 doing work in either of those areas. While the debate 0:18:37.356 --> 0:18:41.076 is not settled, certainly people are still pushing forward and 0:18:41.876 --> 0:18:47.316 no solving or alleviating tuberculosis burden versus working on these 0:18:47.356 --> 0:18:49.596 like accidential threats that might happen in the future. 0:18:50.316 --> 0:18:52.396 We're going to take a break here. When we return, 0:18:52.516 --> 0:18:55.396 Gave and Al talk about effective altruism and the idea 0:18:55.436 --> 0:19:05.836 of the bank Shop. It's interesting to me because after 0:19:05.956 --> 0:19:08.356 my main character in the book, after Sam Bankman freed, 0:19:09.396 --> 0:19:13.956 he does collide with THEA and in its very early incarnation, 0:19:14.556 --> 0:19:16.916 and in its early and its first incarnation, it really 0:19:16.956 --> 0:19:20.116 is about like taking some of your salary and giving 0:19:20.156 --> 0:19:24.756 it to an effective charity, that is, you know, saving 0:19:24.756 --> 0:19:29.636 the most lives in poor countries. And a year into it, 0:19:29.716 --> 0:19:33.116 there's a kind of intellectual revolution inside of the in 0:19:33.156 --> 0:19:36.236 the minds of the very people who who brought him EA, 0:19:36.996 --> 0:19:39.836 and they are starting to argue that actually the more 0:19:39.876 --> 0:19:43.636 impactful thing to do is try to prevent humanity from 0:19:43.636 --> 0:19:46.596 being wiped out by some pathogen or by you know, 0:19:46.716 --> 0:19:51.556 unaligned AI or or whatever it is. And I'm just 0:19:51.636 --> 0:19:54.636 kind of wondering how alive that debate still is, or 0:19:54.636 --> 0:19:57.836 if it's just kind of a dead letter, or if 0:19:57.876 --> 0:20:00.396 it's affecting the way you're thinking about what you're doing 0:20:00.436 --> 0:20:01.716 with your lives. 0:20:02.516 --> 0:20:05.956 Yeah, I think a big unsettled question here is being 0:20:05.956 --> 0:20:10.636 able to prioritize these very different moral responsibilities we have 0:20:10.876 --> 0:20:14.876 around harm. So I think this is something Elizabeth Ashford 0:20:14.916 --> 0:20:18.836 introduced a few years ago, this idea of like primary, secondary, 0:20:18.836 --> 0:20:22.796 and tertiary moral responsibilities. Primary is you personally don't do harm, 0:20:23.036 --> 0:20:26.556 Secondary is you prevent other people from doing harm to others, 0:20:26.756 --> 0:20:30.036 And third is if someone has experienced harm you work 0:20:30.116 --> 0:20:36.396 to alleviate that harm. So in terms of this, it's 0:20:36.476 --> 0:20:40.556 really a very difficult prioritization scheme when you have all 0:20:40.596 --> 0:20:44.996 these different responsibilities toward harm. And if one of these categories, 0:20:45.036 --> 0:20:48.596 which for example, would be like alleviating as I mentioned before, 0:20:48.636 --> 0:20:52.676 tuberculosis burden that affects millions of people, is still a 0:20:52.756 --> 0:20:57.596 leading infectious disease killer versus preventing a pandemic from being 0:20:57.676 --> 0:21:01.156 engineered that could kill everybody, it's very difficult to see 0:21:01.196 --> 0:21:05.836 where the moral prioritization lines up in terms of what 0:21:06.116 --> 0:21:09.676 you should personally work on. And it's also something that 0:21:09.876 --> 0:21:13.316 like might not necessarily be solvable with doing like a 0:21:13.316 --> 0:21:18.676 probability calculation, because like moral responsibility is not necessarily something 0:21:18.676 --> 0:21:20.436 that you can like boil down to numbers. 0:21:20.956 --> 0:21:24.436 It's also hard to make probability calculations about a lot 0:21:24.436 --> 0:21:25.676 of the existential threats. 0:21:26.596 --> 0:21:30.076 Yeah, it's like certainly it's probably like harder than you're 0:21:30.116 --> 0:21:32.116 like more likely to be wrong than like a randomized 0:21:32.156 --> 0:21:35.236 control trial of malaria interventions. Right at the same time, 0:21:35.276 --> 0:21:37.796 I think a lot of people can make pretty good 0:21:38.036 --> 0:21:40.796 educated guesses, perhaps based on the evidence we have and 0:21:40.836 --> 0:21:43.236 the reasoning we have about things like a lot of 0:21:43.276 --> 0:21:46.956 people in the EA movement perhaps predicted something like COVID 0:21:47.076 --> 0:21:48.556 before it happened. A lot of people are like raising 0:21:48.596 --> 0:21:50.636 the fire alarms of we should have much better pandemic 0:21:50.676 --> 0:21:55.796 preparedness and monitoring and rapid vaccine development programs, and then 0:21:55.996 --> 0:21:58.196 they like, for various reasons, messed up and weren't listened 0:21:58.196 --> 0:22:01.996 to and COVID happened. Anyway, Maybe like similar things are 0:22:01.996 --> 0:22:05.036 happening with with AI risk now too, where if you 0:22:05.076 --> 0:22:08.076 survey like leading machine learning experts who are like not 0:22:08.156 --> 0:22:10.836 focused on these risks and are just like people publishing 0:22:10.876 --> 0:22:13.756 top papers that some of the top machine learning conferences. 0:22:14.196 --> 0:22:17.636 The result from the most recent AI impact survey was, 0:22:17.676 --> 0:22:20.476 like the median respondent gives like a ten percent chance 0:22:20.556 --> 0:22:24.116 that the development of AI will like destroy everyone, like 0:22:24.156 --> 0:22:26.556 results in catastrophic outcomes, including human extinction. 0:22:26.796 --> 0:22:28.796 They're real things, They're possibly real. 0:22:28.876 --> 0:22:30.716