#54 – Edouard Mathieu on Our World in Data

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Oct 15, 2022

Our World in Data’s head of data discusses what COVID exposed about pandemic reporting, why governments favor dashboards over open data, and how better data could help us prepare for AI and other global risks. The conversation also explores long-term thinking, transparent research, career paths in data science, and the charts that make a complex world easier to grasp.

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insights

INSIGHT

Making the World More Sane

Edouard Mathieu values making the world slightly more sane through data-driven insights.
While this is central to OWID's mission, its impact is difficult to quantify directly.

insights

INSIGHT

Communicating Probabilistic Forecasts

OWID wants to explore probabilistic measures like forecasts for existential risks.
However, explaining these concepts to a broad audience and establishing their credibility is challenging.

volunteer_activism

ADVICE

Comparing Climate Forecasts

Compare forecasts from different sources, such as Metaculus and the IPCC, to reveal divergences.
This can highlight areas where mainstream consensus might differ from expert predictions.

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Is There a Problem That You're Stuck On?

02:00 • 2min

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The Curse of Knowledge

04:07 • 2min

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What's the Pipeline Like for COVID?

06:32 • 5min

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Vaccines - Why Isn't It Standardized?

11:54 • 2min

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Did You Ever Get Insights of This?

14:20 • 2min

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Is There a Dynamic Incentive to Collect and Report Diseases?

16:03 • 2min

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Is the WHO Really Trying to Fix the WHO Pandemic?

17:48 • 2min

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Is There a Coordination of Reporting for Pandemics?

20:08 • 3min

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What Institutions Did Really Well in Collecting Data?

23:28 • 4min

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How Did Governments Deal With COVID?

27:29 • 3min

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The Role of Data Visualization in COVID

30:04 • 4min

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How Country Comparisons Made Vaccination Faster

33:51 • 3min

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Is There a Pandemic Like That?

37:12 • 2min

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The Intermediate Stage of Epidemiology

39:40 • 2min

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Do You Need a Dashboard?

42:00 • 2min

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Is There a Difference Between Government and Government?

What Do You Think We Can Learn From COVID?

49:12 • 3min

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Is There a Global Crisis Response Team That Can React Quickly?

52:37 • 2min

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Is the UN Calling the Shots?

Pandemic Preparedness

01:01:04 • 4min

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The Role of Data Collection and Data Standardization When It Comes to Existential Risks

01:05:26 • 3min

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Is COVID a Theory of Change?

01:08:28 • 4min

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Is There a Crisis Management Approach to Data Collection?

01:12:31 • 3min

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The Challenge of Maintaining a Good Website for World Data

01:15:31 • 2min

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Is There a Core Team of Maintainers?

01:17:43 • 2min

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Is There a Way to Do a Coordination Project?

01:20:11 • 2min

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Is There a Space for Data Collection?

01:22:38 • 5min

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The Value of Making the World a Little More Sane

01:27:46 • 3min

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Is the New York Times Making the World More Sane?

01:31:09 • 2min

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Is Everyone a Card Carrying EA?

01:33:34 • 2min

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The Value of Comparing Data on Problems

01:35:08 • 2min

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The Impact of Climate Change on the World

01:37:09 • 2min

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I Think It's a Good Idea to Have Good Charts About Education

How Do I Show a Line Chart Which Is Probabilistic?

01:43:57 • 2min

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Is There a Like Reasoning Transparency in Forecasting?

01:45:45 • 2min

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Climate Change Forecasts - Is the UN Estimation Right?

01:47:57 • 3min

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Is There a World Dashboard for Probabilistic Forecasting?

Is There a Benchmark for Image Net for Classifying Images?

01:58:57 • 2min

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Using Surveys to Track Attitudes to Various Big Issues

02:00:36 • 3min

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How Much of This Is Data Tracking?

02:03:41 • 2min

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How Do We Decouple GDP Growth and CO2 Emissions?

02:05:44 • 2min

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Climate Change and the Global Button of Disease Study

02:07:59 • 2min

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Are There Any Ideas for Data Visualizations?

How Log Scales Translate to Linear Scale

02:16:24 • 2min

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The Value of Transparency

02:18:15 • 5min

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Is There a Problem With COVID Estimates?

02:23:13 • 2min

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Is Open Source Software a Good Thing?

02:25:43 • 2min

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Code Is Much Better Than Code

02:27:50 • 4min

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Getting to the Point Where You Can Publish Reports in Jupiter Notebooks

02:32:16 • 2min

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How to Use Github to Improve Your Code

02:34:03 • 2min

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EA Specific Objections to Making Everything Transparent

02:36:15 • 2min

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Is There a Space for Data Journalism?

What Do You Think About Your Early Career?

02:43:22 • 4min

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Online Data Science Courses

02:47:50 • 3min

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What Makes for a Data Scientist?

02:50:56 • 4min

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What's Underrated in a Data Science Career?

02:54:47 • 2min

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When Should You Use an Area Chart Versus a Line Graph?

02:57:15 • 3min

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What's Your Favorite OHS Chart?

03:00:00 • 3min

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Is There Any Data Visualization That You Want to Flag or Highlight?

03:02:47 • 2min

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The Most Underrated Chart on the Hour of Data Website

03:04:26 • 2min

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Is There a Graph With Like Fish and Chicken Yeah Yeah Yeah

03:06:16 • 4min

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How to Use an Opportunity to Have Impact at OAID

03:09:49 • 3min

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Covid and the Data Team

03:12:42 • 3min

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What Are Your Top 3 Recommendations for a Data Scientist?

03:15:18 • 5min

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Philanthropy Giving Over Time

03:20:26 • 2min

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Philanthropy Scores - Where Can People Find You Online Most Twitter

03:22:32 • 3min

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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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