rave against the dying of the light
Geneva
Joined June 2020
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konrad retweeted
If just a few lab staff took on verification work full-time, verifying a US-China pacing deal could get much more feasible within months.
Here are 8 specific things lab staff could start on today to help make international verification possible: 🧵
Yup - when Chiara and I were considering moving to the US, 2.5y ago, we concluded that we'd need at least 3x our income for the same quality of life as in Geneva (where we were pretty squarely in the median bracket).
Having lived in both the US and Europe, I can absolutely attest to this.
I think the mistake people make is comparing gross salaries rather than the cost of replicating the same quality of life.
The US unquestionably offers greater earnings potential, particularly in certain professions. But once you factor in housing, healthcare, childcare, transport and, importantly, the value of your time, the equation changes quite dramatically.
And it’s not as though London is particularly cheap either.
But the broader point resonates. Once you’ve experienced a lifestyle where more of your time is genuinely your own, you start to appreciate that not everything can be solved by earning another $100k.
At some point, the marginal utility of another dollar is worth considerably less than the marginal utility of another hour with your family.
konrad retweeted
Thanks for the response @ben_golub! Speaking for myself, I actually judge the output of the efforts mostly on if they engage with interesting and important questions, and engage with the magnitude of the change - which mostly means using assumptions which are not in the category "this is obviously not going to be true". As an added bonus, the questions can be decision relevant.
As @alexolegimas wrote in a different response, and I agree with, I want and I'm happy to argue we need models which are structurally innovative (this is what I tried to gesture at with AI not being exactly like capital or labour so far, and not being a normal technology).
Maybe it's easier to show using examples - here are some questions I currently think about
1. Should we speed up or slow down emergence of "automated bundles of capital and AI" (ie sovereign AI, AIs without principals)? What are the macro implications?
2. To what extent everything, including various good civilizational equilibria, works because of bounded rationality (where humans are within some not too wide range) and frictions?
3. What can we say about equilibria between agents with extremely different profiles of bounded rationality?
4. What are the elasticities and frictions around RSI?
5. How to protect the processes leading to formation of people's preferences?
I would love to read or skim an "AGI-pilled" paper every few days engaging with any of these. Who is working on that?
Also as a side-note - I don't want people to agree with me; actually don't know what agreeing with me on answers would mean - I don't know the answers, or have huge uncertainty about them. I would love people agreeing with me the questions are important and urgent.
As far your answer is close to "You don't understand: the field of econ is structurally not oriented toward answering the most important econ questions now. Most people work and will work on modest, backward-looking empirics, or make modest change assumptions" my response is "Perhaps the field can and should raise to the occasion? Perhaps more people can jump sub-disciplines and work on forward-looking policy-relevant quetions? Who else should orient the field toward what's important rather than people inside?".
Ultimately if almost all economists will stick to their sub-disciplines and "post-AGI as if nothing happens" assumptions justifiable to referees... who will answer the questions?
We're a distributed species, and intergenerationally so. Parents gain capabilities from kids as the kids do from them.
Trying to fix yourself is only worth it in context because you're serving a purpose in a super organism that is also serving you. God is this super organism.
konrad retweeted
Consider that the people who were right about AI-enabled cyberattacks might be right about AI-enabled bioweapons
Was moved to tears thrice today, hearing about women's empowerment in Nigeria, reducing nuclear weapons stockpiles, and improving broiler chicken welfare.
It's good not to be EA adjacent.
konrad retweeted
I'm only 2 minutes in and there have already been like 5 gems
Same for his Paretotopia piece!
Too few people have really engaged with this masterpiece. Drexler was too early! owainevans.github.io/pdfs/Re…
Yooo how the hell have I been sleeping on Wispr Flow
PSA if you're only talking to the agents and copy-pasting their output, you're not yappin enough
Keep getting asked this: why would I shill Geneva? Imho, how much you'll like Geneva will depend a lot on the life stage you're in.
I love Geneva because it's sizable yet I can bike everywhere, well governed, and extremely cosmopolitan and diverse (in relative terms, the average is similar to new York, obvs much smaller in absolute numbers). It's imho the single best city in Europe from the perspective of starting an international family (i.e. choosing a home base for the next 20+y). That is assuming you're going to have a few kids and money isn't your biggest worry. From a social, economical, political, and environmental perspective, it is as safe as it gets. Housing stock is great, with a few months of patience to find exactly what you like. You're everywhere relevant in Europe within 2-3h, roughly equi-distant between Asia and America, and loads of great people come through regularly. The countryside is super close and beautiful. The educational and cultural offering, as well as the food, are more than good enough.
It is a bad city if you're between 16 and 25yo or don't yet have something you're obsessed with or don't yet have someone you consider to be a life partner (because it's too small a dating pool). It is a bad city if you want to build something from nothing (because you need something to show for or connections). It is also a bad city if you live outside of the city center. It is bad if you move here not knowing anyone who's locally well connected on the matters of your interest.
konrad retweeted
We need more local microsociety experiments!
I talked to @chiaragerosa about the needs of the European AI talent landscape, the meaning of community-building, and local experimentation that is essential for growing the progress movement. I really enjoyed this conversation, and Chiara had so many good takes! Link below.
Sticker collection of @chiaragerosa who doesn't like sticking stickers (bc they age badly if you put them on your paraphernalia).
It's kind of astonishing how good a representation of her this is (@danallison's sticker is in her transparent phone case, unstuck).
A most ironic outcome: McKinsey as a beacon of hope. Successfully transfers wealth away from corrupt autocrats, occupies people who'd otherwise love to be army generals, and does the data analysis and info dissemination necessary to move to a pro nuclear energy future?
“if you want to take a bet on Europe, you have to take a bet on Europe”
> no one else is going to hyperstition the best future for Europe, if you don’t. So there’s a balance: faithful optimism, together with the ability to find the best solutions realistically and pragmatically.
Grandma appreciation poast - RIP ❤️
Socks by my Oma.
Carpet by @chiaragerosa 's nonna.
