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September 26, 2018

Origins

Origins by Dan Brown is yet another great book by this excellent writer. He knows how to keep you reading and I loved how this book touches upon some deep topics.

I will just make a short review for my own notes so please don’t read further if you haven’t read the book yet.

In the book there is an AI (Winston, from Winston Churchill) and it’s portrait as an AI system that I believe is only decades away. It knows how to find information, how to process requests (and understand our underlying questions) and even communicate with the outside world.

In the end one of the aspects of this is that he makes decisions that follow a consequentialist philosophical leaning (greatest good for the most people) and he makes sacrifices along the way. It’s something that we have to think about a lot nowadays. Self-driving cars will have to decide for us and someone has to program it what to do.

Can we decide on one moral framework? I don’t think so. But it will be very interesting to see what we can do.

Also he talks about AI as a new species and I like that analogy and I agree that it will probably be the dominant species in the not so distant future (especially looking on an evolutionary timescale). Let’s hope it has consciousness.

Also see Life 3.0 for more about that.

September 24, 2018

Effective Altruism Systems Map

On Wednesday 5th of September 2018, the EA Rotterdam group had their fifth reading & discussion group. This is a deeper dive into some of the EA topics.

The topic for this event was Making an Effective Altruism Systems Map

During the evening we discussed how the different concepts of Effective Altruism relate and how they influence each other. We looked at the different cause areas and possible interactions between them. Questions we discussed included: Will my giving towards ending factory farming also help reduce CO2 outputs? Does investing in rationality have a positive impact on all other causes?

 

We (the organisers of EA Rotterdam) thank Alex from V2_ (our venue for the night) for hosting us.

If you want to visit an EA Rotterdam event, visit our Meetup page.

 

Effective Altruism Systems Map

Effective Altruism (EA) wants to solve the world’s most pressing problem. And much of the work within the community goes towards solving these problems. But sometimes you have to take a step back and see how they interact and how they relate. Does working on one problem make things worse for another, or does it actually help solve other things you weren’t aiming for initially?

EA is quite a broad movement and views on ‘the most good’ differ among many of the followers of EA. In this follow-up article, I try and highlight what seems most important to each area and then I will highlight the back and forth interactions we discussed during the evening.

 

The Systems Maps

During the evening we produced two maps.

The first group made a distinction between the present and the (far) future. They linked many of the well-known concepts in EA and showed how the ‘Meta’ parts of EA influence them again.

The second group started with Animal Welfare and mapped with that as the basis. They were able to link most concepts but saw that AI and Far Future didn’t have many links (yet).

 

My Systems Map

Based on the information above, I started working on a systems map of my own. I don’t have it draw out (but feel free to make one based on this information). We will also use this information and the above maps to make a V2 (get it) of the maps in a few months time.

 

Animal Welfare

Animal Welfare is concerned with improving the well-being of nonhuman animals, especially farmed animals. A well-known organisation that compares different effective charities in this area is Animal Charity Evaluators.

Despite its importance, this focus area is highly neglected: animal charities receive only 3% of charitable donations, and 99% of that money is focused on pets, who make up less than 0.1% of all domesticated animals (Reese 2016).

The main effect: With a $1000 donation you can expect to spare the lives of 4056 animals (source).

The positive side-effects: If there are less factory-farmed animals, there will be fewer people who will be employed in these areas. The jobs in factory farms are not good (source). These are some of the lowest paying jobs, and may even result in people experiencing PTSD, depression and being more aggressive at home (source, 2, 3, 4). I would be curious to know how large this effect is (back of the envelope: 500k workers in USA, 50% injured, 70% respiratory problems – but what number is prevented per $ donated?).

If we eat fewer animals, then we can use land much more effectively. Grains that still have to go through an animal have a 9:1 ratio (source). We use 10x the amount of fossil fuels for making a calorie of meat than the average of an agricultural product (source).

If we eat fewer animals, then there is a change that we will be healthier. Factory farmed animals are full of hormones and many studies about red meat (and their negative effects) are about factory farmed animals (which is 99% of the meat we eat) that show negative health effects can be directly linked to how those animals are raised (source, 2, 3). Another indirect way this can happen is that we lower the chance of antibiotic resistance, 80% of antibiotics are given to factory farmed animals (source).

The negative side-effects: If we switch away from factory farms and towards cultured meat (see below) or more grains/legumes/etc, will this disrupt many farmers? Will they be able to switch?

Notes: One of the sub-areas of animal welfare is the development of clean meat (or cultured meat, meat without the animal). I believe that once we have a viable alternative to farmed meat that will be widely accepted (and I hope this is it) then I also think that we will become more compassionate to nonhuman animals. The previous arguments about the climate still also stand of course.

 

Poverty

Aa

 

Happiness

Aa

 

ABC HERE MY CONCEPTS AND LINKS

 

 

 

More Resources

Before we made our systems map we became aware of some other maps from others in the EA community, here are some of them:

 

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Want to join us for another evening? Feel free to come over and bring a friend! Please check out our Meetup Page.

Our next in-depth meetup is titled Poverty and Climate Change (please join us: Event Page)

September 18, 2018

The Omnivore’s Dilemma

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan takes a deep dive into our food system and won’t let you out without some scars, lots of corn, and a new understanding of how our food is made. Pollan is very neutral and this allows for you, the reader, to form your own opinions.

In the book, we get to take a journey of three different meals. The first is an industrial meal (think big corn fields, McDonald’s), the second is an organic meal (and we get to see two different visions of organic at play), and a meal gathered and hunted by Pollan.

The conclusions from the first meal will probably not surprise you. Animals locked in small cages, places that were not accessible and a subsidy system for corn of epic proportions. The animal suffering is something I can’t stand for and therefore I try and keep most of my meals plant-based (i.e. I’m vegetarian and try and consume a low number of other products that cause unnecessary suffering). The subsidising of the corn industry seems like something that is left over from the second world war and hopelessly outdated (and very expensive). There are massive grain silos and lots get thrown away each year (and farmers are in a bind in which they need to produce more and more). From an evolutionary perspective, it does seem that corn did pretty well though.

Big organic is a term I wasn’t yet that familiar with. After reading about how everything works and thinking back to Econ 101 classes, it does make sense. Organic started from a good place, fewer pesticides, more biodiversity. But both the terms (the meaning of organic) and the practice (larger and larger farms) have put a stain on the idea (at least for me). I also remember being quite sceptical of organic (especially for greens) since already a few years ago and this didn’t help.

What did help was to learn about the Salatin farm. The book follows Pollan for a week on a truly organic farm (in the way you now conceptualize it in your head). We learn that Salatin is a grass farmer (everything else starts with grass and also helps grass flourish). There is full transparency and buyers can come and see their chickens being killed right on the spot. What I also took away from this part of the book is that a piece of animal is not a standardized product. A piece of chicken from Salatin or an egg from them is a completely different product as one raised on corn with a million of its siblings.

One action I can take is to find out where I can buy food from local sources (or less local, but produced on a small scale with care) to eat better products. But I also think that the transaction costs for an action like this are higher and that I buy too little produce per week to have this be handy/economical at the moment.

Lastly, we follow Pollan on hunting and gathering trips. Here he feels more connected with nature and we see some animal instincts rise to the top. I liked that this part was included but it felt less compelling than his days at Salatin.

Ahh, the Omnivores Dilemma. Pollan states that we either look away from how our food is made, or we will not eat it anymore. In the book he tries and break that dilemma and show us how the cookie crumbles and he has done a great job here.

September 17, 2018

Life 3.0

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark takes you on a journey through a possible future we might inhabit with our intelligent friends. Those friends may not have flesh and blood, they may make the whole universe a computational machine, and if we will be around to enjoy it, who knows.

A few concepts and ideas stood out for me:

  • Life 1.0 can’t change its software or hardware (e.g. bacteria, changes via random mutations), Life 2.0 can change its software (e.g. animals), Life 3.0 can change both software and hardware.
    • I like how he classifies life in these ways and leaves room for AI to take the third spot, but also leaves a small door open for us humans (life 2.1) to maybe join life 3.0
  • Tegmark discusses a wide spectrum of scenarios in which AI takes over. Some are positive (from our standpoint) and others turn our universe into a paperclip machine.
    • Next to the fictional story I also enjoyed reading about the alignment problem (see Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom) and about his experiences with the growing field of AI safety research (which can also be seen through the Effective Altruism framework)
  • Intelligence is agnostic to form/matter. This means that it can be made of bits and bytes, or neurons and synapses.
  • We are becoming more and more powerful with our technology and can do both more good and bad at the same time (with fewer people needed for either).
    • Fingers crossed that we don’t have an extinction event in the next 100 years.
  • AI is quite narrow at the moment. If we see our jobs/things we do (and give us meaning) as a hilly landscape, it’s now in the very low parts. It’s automating away jobs with robotics. But it’s moving up the ladder. A surgeon is worse at interpreting the scans than an AI, but he is still better at telling this to the family. Many jobs will disappear and although he doesn’t discuss it much, we need to think hard about what to do with our society (he does argue that we can still do many things next to work that gives us meaning and I totally agree with that point and its one that isn’t made enough)

 

And some quotes etc:

  • Intelligence is simply the ability to solve complex tasks
  • https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34272565-life-3-0
August 1, 2018

The Selfish Gene

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins engrosses the reader on a journey through the latest in social biology. In this elaborate book, you are presented with both fundamental research, and broad general implications of the former. Dawkins does not hold back in this well-written book on genes. Although he remarks that a more proper title would be; The Immortal Gene, the current title is definitively an accurate description of our genes.

Genes are defined as the smallest survival unit that is fairly consistent over generations. It means that genes are most of the time DNA that has survived many millions of years. It is the molecular unit of heritability in a living organism. This living organism (for instance us) is a vehicle for the genes to survive in. The genes we possess make up our genotype, the way these are expressed (e.g. hair colour, height) is called the phenotype.

Dawkins builds on more than 100 years of research since Darwin and looks at the implications of the gene (research). He states that genes are trying to survive and have been successful in doing this since they have existed. Different mechanisms are employed and this has different implications for different species. Some species live around a lot of kin (who share 50% of your genes) and are very helpful amongst each other. But in other instances, it is smarter for a mother to invest in the strongest offspring and let the weaker die. It all comes down to gene survival.

Many examples fill the lengthy book and these are very helpful in understanding the quite biological principles behind gene selection. One of the more surprising (at first sight that is) analogies Dawkins uses is the prisoner dilemma. With this, he explains how an evolutionary stable selection paradigm can come to exist. Some of the findings in nature seem illogical at first, but soon make sense due to careful examination of Dawkins, and of course many, many other researchers.

Dawkins was the University of Oxford’s Professor for Public Understanding of Science. This is clearly noticeable in his writing which is, in one word, impeccable. His strong position on religion (he is an atheist) is present in The Selfish Gene, but to a much lesser extent than one would expect. The level of detail makes the book difficult to review in five paragraphs. What can be said is that this book is a perfect starting point for your interest in social biology, and could be the next book you read during the winter holidays!

 

The Book: The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins – ISBN-10: 0199291152 | ISBN-13: 978-0199291151

 

More on The Selfish Gene:

http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/selfishgene-dowkins.pdf – .pdf of The Selfish Gene

http://aeon.co/magazine/nature-and-cosmos/why-its-time-to-lay-the-selfish-gene-to-rest/ – A critical view on selfish genes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8C-ntwUpzM – Richard Dawkins on Altruism and Selfish Genes

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