The Nonlinear Library EA - EA Wins 2023 by Shakeel Hashim
Dec 31, 2023
06:06
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: EA Wins 2023, published by Shakeel Hashim on December 31, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Crossposted from Twitter.
As the year comes to an end, we want to highlight and celebrate some of the incredible achievements from in and around the effective altruism ecosystem this year.
1. A new malaria vaccine
The World Health Organization
recommended its second-ever malaria vaccine this year: R21/Matrix-M, designed to protect babies and young children from malaria. The drug's recently concluded
Phase III trial, which was co-funded by Open Philanthropy, found that the vaccine was between 68-75% effective at targeting the disease, which kills around 600,000 people (mainly children) each year.
The work didn't stop there, though. Following advocacy from many people - including
Zacharia Kafuko of 1 Day Sooner - the WHO quickly prequalified the vaccine, laying the groundwork for an expedited deployment and potentially saving hundreds of thousands of children's lives. 1 Day Sooner is
now working to raise money to expedite the deployment further.
2. The Supreme Court upholds an animal welfare law
In 2018, Californians voted for Proposition 12 - a bill that banned intensive cage confinement and the sale of animal products from animals in intensive confinement. The meat industry challenged the law for being unconstitutional - but in May of this year, the US Supreme Court
upheld Prop 12, a decision that will improve the lives of millions of animals who would otherwise be kept in cruel and inhumane conditions.
Organizations such as The Humane League - one of Animal Charity Evaluators'
top charities - are a major part of this victory; their tireless campaigning is part of what made Prop 12 happen.
Watch a panel discussion featuring The Humane League at EAG London 2023
here.
3. AI safety goes mainstream
2023 was the year AI safety went mainstream. After years of work from people in and around effective altruism, this year saw hundreds of high-profile AI experts - including two Turing Award winners
say that "mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority".
That was followed by a flurry of activity from policymakers, including a
US Executive Order, an international
AI Safety Summit, the establishment of the UK
Frontier AI Taskforce, and a deal on the
EU AI Act - which, thanks to the efforts of campaigners, is now going to regulate foundation models that pose a systemic risk to society.
Important progress was made in technical AI safety, too, including work on
adversarial robustness,
mechanistic interpretability, and
lie detection.
Watch a talk from EAG Boston 2023 on technical AI safety
here.
4. Results from the world's largest UBI study
Since 2018, GiveDirectly - an organization that distributes direct cash transfers to those in need - has been running the world's largest
universal basic income experiment in rural Kenya.
In September, researchers led by MIT economist Taveneet Suri and Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, published their
latest analysis of the data - finding that giving people money as a lump sum leads to better results than dispersing it via monthly payments. Long-term UBI was also found to be highly effective and didn't discourage work. The results could have significant implications for how governments disburse cash aid.
Watch GiveDirectly's
talk at EAGx Nordics 2023.
5. Cultivated meat approved for sale in US
After years of work from organizations like the Good Food Institute, in June 2023 the USDA finally
approved cultivated meat for sale in the US.
The watershed moment made the US the second country (after Singapore) to legalize the product, which could have significant impacts on animal welfare by reducing the number of animals that need to be raised and killed for meat.
Watch the Good Food Institute's Bruce Friedrich talk about alternative ...
Crossposted from Twitter.
As the year comes to an end, we want to highlight and celebrate some of the incredible achievements from in and around the effective altruism ecosystem this year.
1. A new malaria vaccine
The World Health Organization
recommended its second-ever malaria vaccine this year: R21/Matrix-M, designed to protect babies and young children from malaria. The drug's recently concluded
Phase III trial, which was co-funded by Open Philanthropy, found that the vaccine was between 68-75% effective at targeting the disease, which kills around 600,000 people (mainly children) each year.
The work didn't stop there, though. Following advocacy from many people - including
Zacharia Kafuko of 1 Day Sooner - the WHO quickly prequalified the vaccine, laying the groundwork for an expedited deployment and potentially saving hundreds of thousands of children's lives. 1 Day Sooner is
now working to raise money to expedite the deployment further.
2. The Supreme Court upholds an animal welfare law
In 2018, Californians voted for Proposition 12 - a bill that banned intensive cage confinement and the sale of animal products from animals in intensive confinement. The meat industry challenged the law for being unconstitutional - but in May of this year, the US Supreme Court
upheld Prop 12, a decision that will improve the lives of millions of animals who would otherwise be kept in cruel and inhumane conditions.
Organizations such as The Humane League - one of Animal Charity Evaluators'
top charities - are a major part of this victory; their tireless campaigning is part of what made Prop 12 happen.
Watch a panel discussion featuring The Humane League at EAG London 2023
here.
3. AI safety goes mainstream
2023 was the year AI safety went mainstream. After years of work from people in and around effective altruism, this year saw hundreds of high-profile AI experts - including two Turing Award winners
say that "mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority".
That was followed by a flurry of activity from policymakers, including a
US Executive Order, an international
AI Safety Summit, the establishment of the UK
Frontier AI Taskforce, and a deal on the
EU AI Act - which, thanks to the efforts of campaigners, is now going to regulate foundation models that pose a systemic risk to society.
Important progress was made in technical AI safety, too, including work on
adversarial robustness,
mechanistic interpretability, and
lie detection.
Watch a talk from EAG Boston 2023 on technical AI safety
here.
4. Results from the world's largest UBI study
Since 2018, GiveDirectly - an organization that distributes direct cash transfers to those in need - has been running the world's largest
universal basic income experiment in rural Kenya.
In September, researchers led by MIT economist Taveneet Suri and Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, published their
latest analysis of the data - finding that giving people money as a lump sum leads to better results than dispersing it via monthly payments. Long-term UBI was also found to be highly effective and didn't discourage work. The results could have significant implications for how governments disburse cash aid.
Watch GiveDirectly's
talk at EAGx Nordics 2023.
5. Cultivated meat approved for sale in US
After years of work from organizations like the Good Food Institute, in June 2023 the USDA finally
approved cultivated meat for sale in the US.
The watershed moment made the US the second country (after Singapore) to legalize the product, which could have significant impacts on animal welfare by reducing the number of animals that need to be raised and killed for meat.
Watch the Good Food Institute's Bruce Friedrich talk about alternative ...