Notes on this page

• This page is a way I tried to conglomerate learnings I had from my trip to the UK last April 2022, where I attended the Centre for Effective Altruism’s Events Retreat, EA Global London, and co-worked at Trajan House (an office, for a couple days).
• These aren’t written cohesively and are mostly brain dumps, so I apologize if there’s not much context! I might not be so cohesive since I didn’t spend much time on this page.
• Some of these are learnings I had before the UK that were updated on and developed, and this is not exhaustive
• I’m amenable to updating my beliefs on what’s in this page
• This page is mostly aimed at those already involved with the effective altruism community

Main reasons I decided to go to the UK

1. I was about to graduate and have job leads/ideas I wanted to align/discuss with the best people
2. There are things I'm excited about that I wanted to learn more about
3. There are things I want to see happen that I want to see how I can contribute to them

Learnings specifically from going to EA Global

• Importance of deciphering your intention
  • Decide why you want to go to a conference and decipher if it’s the right time/place for you. It’s important to think about why you’re applying/going in order to make the most value out of it. (Don’t go for the sake of going or just bc others are going or just for fun or traveling). I also think to avoid bad feelings you have to take agency on your own application, decisions, and intentions.
• Conference value
  • Understanding the community more, learning the hot topics, making connections, being helpful to people
  • I think one of the most rewarding things for me was that I was helpful to people
• Making the conference valuable
  • If you think it’s the right time to go, try to maximise it. Don’t burn out, but try to find a way to make sure you find this conference valuable both for you (not treat it like just another conference) and also for those funding you. Realistically, despite the existence of grants/funds, it’s important to think of where money is directed (think of the counterfactual).
• On making 1-1s valuable: I had ~40 1-1s in the trip, and while most of them were valuable I also think some weren’t. I think it’s important to learn how to make them valuable. I think intention of the 1-1 is impt.
  • https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pKbTjdopzSEApSQfc/doing-1-on-1s-better-eag-tips-part-ii
  • https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wFP5KzcksFutS4Eew/what-i-learnt-from-twenty-1-1s-at-eagxoxford
• On biosecurity
  • Seems to have smaller risk than AI safety but is more neglected and is still important to work on.
  • Lots of people define biosecurity differently outside of EA. It’s broader than we think
  • Bigger impact than we think from the PH.
  • https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/N8jDNWZwrpyCocwYq/yet-another-biosecurity-reading-list
• Updates on AI safety
  • I didn’t realise more people think 5-10 years until misaligned (maybe prosaic) artificial general intelligence (AGI) (a few people I talked to)
  • I used to not be as knowledgeable about AI timelines before EA.
  • After the Precipice I was convinced about the stat: 10% chance unaligned AI may be the cause of an existential catastrophe in the next century.
  • A person I talked to (Kuhan) told me to look AI timelines more and I think the chance of misaligned AI is more urgent than before
  • Things also keep developing
  • I probably don’t know about 5-10 years, but I think the chance of AGI x-risk is more than 10% by 2100. This is just based on conversations, The Most Important Century, and a couple AI Alignment/Less Wrong stuff. I do need to read up on this more
  • To understand this more maybe look up “AI timelines”
  • I definitely need to read more
    • Ask me if you want to know what I’m reading
  • Here are some stats to think about (thought by some AI experts – and note that AI experts can disagree)
    • ~20% probability by 2036; ~50% probability by 2060; ~70% probability by 2100
  • I have some random thoughts in terms of tractability and where Filipinos can come in, but I think being aware of this is important in itself
  • Some resources
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz_Julxvs5g&list=PLwp9xeoX5p8PEGFyi6MGanWFKk-8Mr_HX&index=3
    • Here are some other updates
• On mental health
  • Happiness still matters
    • https://www.happierlivesinstitute.org/report/happiness-for-the-whole-family/
      • This is an update: the charity StrongMinds is estimated to be 9 times more cost-effective than the charity GiveDirectly (before the report said 12 times – still big)
• On animal welfare
  • I’m thinking more about how we can assess the animal welfare timeline in the West and how applicable it is to Asia, and learn from there e.g. how does policy start in UK? We can’t start with policy directly in the PH.
• On Global Health and Development
  • Dispensers for Safe Water Experiments
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zryscE0qGC0&list=PLwp9xeoX5p8PEGFyi6MGanWFKk-8Mr_HX&index=5
    • https://blog.givewell.org/2022/04/06/water-quality-overview/
    • four to eight times as cost-effective as UCTs depending on location
  • Lead Exposure Elimination Project
    • Very cost-effective, doing great work
    • Proud (I interned under them for a short while)
    • Will MacAskill shouted them out