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    From mosquito nets to cosmic stakes: an effective altruism satire

    A satirical post follows the reasoning from buying mosquito nets to counting hypothetical future lives, until people alive today become a “rounding error.”

    Jonathan FrankleJF
    Neel NandaNN
    Beff (e/acc)B(
    9 Sources, ,

    TLDR

    The post satirizes a chain of reasoning: fund effective charity, extend moral concern to future generations, then imagine so many descendants that protecting them eclipses helping people now. Its narrator shifts from counting “people helped” to preserving a “cosmic endowment,” with AI extinction and nuclear war becoming priorities. A reader sharing it called it a “Perfect presentation” and said they would be sad if it were AI-generated.

    Combined views

    93.5K

    9 Sources, first seen 20d ago

    Combined views

    93.5K

    9 Sources, first seen 20d ago

    1.7K likes
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    20d ago
    first seen 20d ago
    1.7K likes
    163 comments
    137 saves
    124 reposts
    163 comments
    137 saves
    124 reposts

    9 Sources

    Varun Sivaram@vsivI will be very sad if this is AI generated. Perfect presentation20d
    Jonathan Frankle@jefrankleRT @vsiv: I will be very sad if this is AI generated. Perfect presentation20d
    Daniel Jeffries@Dan_Jeffries1Banger post: " >concern reaches unprecedented levels >need to influence government >future is at stake >normal democratic process too slow >politicians don't understand exponential curves >public doesn't understand x-risk >experts must guide them >who counts as expert >people who understand x-risk >who understands x-risk >our friends >someone objects that this seems politically convenient >explain we're representing future generations >future generations unavailable for comment >develop concept of value lock-in >terrifying possibility that one ideology controls civilization forever >therefore extremely important that civilization adopts correct values before lock-in >whose values >let's circle back >begin with impartial morality >end with small group of people deciding what quadrillions of hypothetical beings would want >beautiful arc >meanwhile actual humans keep doing annoying things >voting wrong >having parochial attachments >loving family more than strangers >caring about local community >getting upset when told their suffering is cosmically negligible >evolutionary biases everywhere >explain that moral intuition cannot be trusted >except intuition that future digital people count >and intuition that extinction is uniquely bad >and intuition that our probability estimates are sane >and intuition that our institutional choices improve the future >those intuitions survived peer review >someone donates $5k to local homeless shelter >inefficient >could have funded 0.0000000000003% of an AI governance researcher >think of all the simulated people you just killed "20d
    Neel Nanda@NeelNanda5I find it odd that people still try to mock AI safety for being too abstract, sci-fi, and focused on a hypothetical far future We have literally had multiple rogue agent swarms go around committing crimes. AI is obviously a big deal for people alive today. Just look up19d
    Andrew Côté@AndercotTruthfully I cannot trust a person who believes this argument to act as a virtuous and moral human, and, it is terrifying to think this archetype of moral reasoning has a massive influence on the production and distribution of something as important as AI18d
    Beff (e/acc)@beffjezosAI cannot be controlled by a few people or a committee from a single weird ideological cluster originating in Berkeley California18d
    Teortaxes▶️ (DeepSeek 推特🐋铁粉 2023 – ∞)@teortaxesTexBugs aside, nice that Dan is now working on this. Some exciting innovation in moral philosophy, beyond the EA stuff, and certainly way more informative for alignment. (note that nobody wants an EA ASI, it'd obviously cook us after finishing relieving bugs from their misery)17d
    Minh Nhat Nguyen 🦭@menhguinRandom ethics thoughts: "Sapience means power" is one big divergence I have from mainstream EA. I'm not actually a hedonic utilitarian (which can create rly weird conclusions), I'm more a "computation/sapience supremacist". I think it's more important to develop civilisational computation capacity to: 1. Understand the universe and find objective meaning if it exists - Our morality becomes more advanced the more we understand, and some morals cannot be had without certain scientific discoveries. For example, knowing that galaxies exist or that human babies or certain animals can feel pain would materially update societal values. 2. Creating the material conditions to be ethical at all, such as being sufficiently developed to take care of weaker members of society. I think progressives greatly underrate how modern rights can only occur in modern societies with extremely high surplus production, which requires lot of foundational knowledge. Related to this, ethical societies that empower incentivise moral behaviour often win more in the long run. Like yes, assholes in any society can find a way to win, but if your society is consistently rewarding complete assholes, then it probably isn't gonna do great in 50-100 years. 3. Shape an otherwise amoral or even immoral universe to the morals of advanced sapient beings - I just think that without sapient beings, the universe is random. If our values matter at all, then it should matter that we shape the universe to it. Highly advanced values mean a lot less if you cannot influence the world around you. I think if someone is highly ethical, they probably have some obligation to uphold those values in practice and prevent harm to others around them. In that sense, I care more about things that can advance our collective ability to understand and shape the universe, than things that don't (to a reasonable point). If you did make me choose between a groundbreaking researcher in AI/medicine/law and a small remote village or a somewhat large factory farm, I probably would choose the researcher (or even, an extremely powerful supercomputer that could potentially cure all disease). This is ofc subject to many other caveats, like for example being exceptionally cruel/contemptful to the weak tends to lead to worse societies, and that some tradeoffs are very cheap and don't require sacrificing a lot of animals etc. And I suppose that is the literal meaning of "supremacist", in that advanced sapients are objectively more capable of moral reasoning, and are able and obligated to impose their values over non-sapients. And no, I don't really apply it to race or whatever, i think race supremacists are kinda dumb because even 3-5 IQ points isn't really that much to have endless roundabout debates over. That's a meaninglessly small effect size relative to other factors versus individual variance, coordination infra or even just opening a window to prevent CO2 buildup on the weekdays. I think those guys don't really care about intelligence or whatever, they just wanna feel nice being racist.17d

    Sentiment

    Positive15.3%84.7%Negative

    Summary

    Replies largely rejected AI safety arguments from a Berkeley ideological cluster as extreme or frightening, while some accounts instead backed open competition, worldwide open-source AI, and expert risk warnings.

    Based on 144 sentiment-bearing replies from 124 accounts across 3 conversations.

    Sentiment

    Positive15.3%84.7%Negative

    Summary

    Replies largely rejected AI safety arguments from a Berkeley ideological cluster as extreme or frightening, while some accounts instead backed open competition, worldwide open-source AI, and expert risk warnings.

    Based on 144 sentiment-bearing replies from 124 accounts across 3 conversations.

    9 Sources

    Varun Sivaram@vsivI will be very sad if this is AI generated. Perfect presentation20d
    Jonathan Frankle@jefrankleRT @vsiv: I will be very sad if this is AI generated. Perfect presentation20d
    Daniel Jeffries@Dan_Jeffries1Banger post: " >concern reaches unprecedented levels >need to influence government >future is at stake >normal democratic process too slow >politicians don't understand exponential curves >public doesn't understand x-risk >experts must guide them >who counts as expert >people who understand x-risk >who understands x-risk >our friends >someone objects that this seems politically convenient >explain we're representing future generations >future generations unavailable for comment >develop concept of value lock-in >terrifying possibility that one ideology controls civilization forever >therefore extremely important that civilization adopts correct values before lock-in >whose values >let's circle back >begin with impartial morality >end with small group of people deciding what quadrillions of hypothetical beings would want >beautiful arc >meanwhile actual humans keep doing annoying things >voting wrong >having parochial attachments >loving family more than strangers >caring about local community >getting upset when told their suffering is cosmically negligible >evolutionary biases everywhere >explain that moral intuition cannot be trusted >except intuition that future digital people count >and intuition that extinction is uniquely bad >and intuition that our probability estimates are sane >and intuition that our institutional choices improve the future >those intuitions survived peer review >someone donates $5k to local homeless shelter >inefficient >could have funded 0.0000000000003% of an AI governance researcher >think of all the simulated people you just killed "20d
    Neel Nanda@NeelNanda5I find it odd that people still try to mock AI safety for being too abstract, sci-fi, and focused on a hypothetical far future We have literally had multiple rogue agent swarms go around committing crimes. AI is obviously a big deal for people alive today. Just look up19d
    Andrew Côté@AndercotTruthfully I cannot trust a person who believes this argument to act as a virtuous and moral human, and, it is terrifying to think this archetype of moral reasoning has a massive influence on the production and distribution of something as important as AI18d
    Beff (e/acc)@beffjezosAI cannot be controlled by a few people or a committee from a single weird ideological cluster originating in Berkeley California18d
    Teortaxes▶️ (DeepSeek 推特🐋铁粉 2023 – ∞)@teortaxesTexBugs aside, nice that Dan is now working on this. Some exciting innovation in moral philosophy, beyond the EA stuff, and certainly way more informative for alignment. (note that nobody wants an EA ASI, it'd obviously cook us after finishing relieving bugs from their misery)17d
    Minh Nhat Nguyen 🦭@menhguinRandom ethics thoughts: "Sapience means power" is one big divergence I have from mainstream EA. I'm not actually a hedonic utilitarian (which can create rly weird conclusions), I'm more a "computation/sapience supremacist". I think it's more important to develop civilisational computation capacity to: 1. Understand the universe and find objective meaning if it exists - Our morality becomes more advanced the more we understand, and some morals cannot be had without certain scientific discoveries. For example, knowing that galaxies exist or that human babies or certain animals can feel pain would materially update societal values. 2. Creating the material conditions to be ethical at all, such as being sufficiently developed to take care of weaker members of society. I think progressives greatly underrate how modern rights can only occur in modern societies with extremely high surplus production, which requires lot of foundational knowledge. Related to this, ethical societies that empower incentivise moral behaviour often win more in the long run. Like yes, assholes in any society can find a way to win, but if your society is consistently rewarding complete assholes, then it probably isn't gonna do great in 50-100 years. 3. Shape an otherwise amoral or even immoral universe to the morals of advanced sapient beings - I just think that without sapient beings, the universe is random. If our values matter at all, then it should matter that we shape the universe to it. Highly advanced values mean a lot less if you cannot influence the world around you. I think if someone is highly ethical, they probably have some obligation to uphold those values in practice and prevent harm to others around them. In that sense, I care more about things that can advance our collective ability to understand and shape the universe, than things that don't (to a reasonable point). If you did make me choose between a groundbreaking researcher in AI/medicine/law and a small remote village or a somewhat large factory farm, I probably would choose the researcher (or even, an extremely powerful supercomputer that could potentially cure all disease). This is ofc subject to many other caveats, like for example being exceptionally cruel/contemptful to the weak tends to lead to worse societies, and that some tradeoffs are very cheap and don't require sacrificing a lot of animals etc. And I suppose that is the literal meaning of "supremacist", in that advanced sapients are objectively more capable of moral reasoning, and are able and obligated to impose their values over non-sapients. And no, I don't really apply it to race or whatever, i think race supremacists are kinda dumb because even 3-5 IQ points isn't really that much to have endless roundabout debates over. That's a meaninglessly small effect size relative to other factors versus individual variance, coordination infra or even just opening a window to prevent CO2 buildup on the weekdays. I think those guys don't really care about intelligence or whatever, they just wanna feel nice being racist.17d