Open Thread 251
This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. ACX has an unofficial subreddit, Discord, and bulletin board, and in-person meetups around the world. 95% of content is free, but for the remaining 5% you can subscribe here. In other news:
1: Thanks to everyone who responded to the request last week to get in touch about helping charities that lost FTX funding. I’ve done the coordination I’m going to do, but if you’re still interested you can check here and here.
2: Comment of the week is Phil Getz on why researchers sometimes try to get their human drugs approved for veterinary uses first, and why it usually doesn’t work.
3: In my Highlights On The Comments For Rhythms Of The Brain post, I meant to include this Qualia Computing blog post, but forgot; sorry.
4: The ACX Tokyo meetup group will be hosting Bryan Caplan on December 4, including a discussion of our long-running debate on mental illness (eg here, here). I won’t be able to make it but I trust our Japanese contingent to keep him honest. See here for details.
5: Prof. Daniel Kang is looking for PhD/masters students to work with him on practical AI safety at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign CS program. Projects include fighting deepfakes with cryptographic techniques, democratizing AI for non-experts, and developing AI-based analytics methods with accuracy guarantees for eg scientific studies and mission-critical workflows. Some potential longer-term implications. See here for more information.