The Value of Comparing Data on Problems

A full writeup of this episode, including references and a transcript, is available on our website: hearthisidea.com/episodes/mathieu

Edouard Mathieu is the Head of Data at Our World in Data (OWID), a scientific online publication that focuses on large global problems such as poverty, disease, hunger, climate change, war, existential risks, and inequality.

We discuss:

• What Ed learned from working with governments and the WHO
• A simple change the WHO could make to radically improve how countries share data for the next pandemic
• The idea of 'experimental longtermism'
• How Ed is thinking about collecting data on transformative artificial intelligence and other potential existential risks
• Figuring out the impact of making everyone slightly better-informed
• Lessons for starting a career in impact-oriented data science
• And finally... Ed's favourite OWID chart

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