“Where I Am Donating in 2024” by MichaelDickens

Summary

It's been a while since I last put serious thought into where to donate. Well I'm putting thought into it this year and I'm changing my mind on some things.

I now put more priority on existential risk (especially AI risk), and less on animal welfare and global priorities research. I believe I previously gave too little consideration to x-risk for emotional reasons, and I've managed to reason myself out of those emotions.

Within x-risk:

• AI is the most important source of risk.
• There is a disturbingly high probability that alignment research won't solve alignment by the time superintelligent AI arrives. Policy work seems more promising.
• Specifically, I am most optimistic about policy advocacy for government regulation to pause/slow down AI development.

In the rest of this post, I will explain:

1. Why I prioritize x-risk over animal-focused [...]

---

Outline:

(00:04) Summary

(01:30) I dont like donating to x-risk

(03:56) Cause prioritization

(04:00) S-risk research and animal-focused longtermism

(05:52) X-risk vs. global priorities research

(07:01) Prioritization within x-risk

(08:08) AI safety technical research vs. policy

(11:36) Quantitative model on research vs. policy

(14:20) Man versus man conflicts within AI policy

(15:13) Parallel safety/capabilities vs. slowing AI

(22:56) Freedom vs. regulation

(24:24) Slow nuanced regulation vs. fast coarse regulation

(27:02) Working with vs. against AI companies

(32:49) Political diplomacy vs. advocacy

(33:38) Conflicts that arent man vs. man but nonetheless require an answer

(33:55) Pause vs. Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP)

(35:28) Policy research vs. policy advocacy

(36:42) Advocacy directed at policy-makers vs. the general public

(37:32) Organizations

(39:36) Important disclaimers

(40:56) AI Policy Institute

(42:03) AI Safety and Governance Fund

(43:29) AI Standards Lab

(43:59) Campaign for AI Safety

(44:30) Centre for Enabling EA Learning and Research (CEEALAR)

(45:13) Center for AI Policy

(47:27) Center for AI Safety

(49:06) Center for Human-Compatible AI

(49:32) Center for Long-Term Resilience

(55:52) Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET)

(57:33) Centre for Long-Term Policy

(58:12) Centre for the Governance of AI

(59:07) CivAI

(01:00:05) Control AI

(01:02:08) Existential Risk Observatory

(01:03:33) Future of Life Institute (FLI)

(01:03:50) Future Society

(01:06:27) Horizon Institute for Public Service

(01:09:36) Institute for AI Policy and Strategy

(01:11:00) Lightcone Infrastructure

(01:12:30) Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI)

(01:15:22) Manifund

(01:16:28) Model Evaluation and Threat Research (METR)

(01:17:45) Palisade Research

(01:19:10) PauseAI Global

(01:21:59) PauseAI US

(01:23:09) Sentinel rapid emergency response team

(01:24:52) Simon Institute for Longterm Governance

(01:25:44) Stop AI

(01:27:42) Where Im donating

(01:28:57) Prioritization within my top five

(01:32:17) Where Im donating (this is the section in which I actually say where Im donating)

The original text contained 58 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
November 19th, 2024

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jAfhxWSzsw4pLypRt/where-i-am-donating-in-2024

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---