Category: Ideas
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How Educational Courses Help Build Fields: Lessons from AI Safety Fundamentals
In this post, I share important lessons I learned whilst co-founding BlueDot Impact about the impact of creating educational materials and spaces. Introduction / TL;DR So many important problems have too few people with the right skills engaging with them. Sometimes that’s because nobody has heard of your problem, and advocacy is necessary to change…
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Is riding the tube as bad as smoking a cigarette? We don’t know.
I recently investigated the urban legend that taking a tube ride is as bad for your health as smoking a cigarette. Initially dismissed as ridiculous, new ‘evidence’ has brought the claim back into question. Read more for a cautionary tale of outdated scientific assumptions, Goodhart’s law and a case for epistemic humility. Introduction Over the…
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Judge ideas by their parts
As an evaluator of project ideas, you should try to spot the steps along the way. Since nearer-term ideas are easier for you to evaluate and predict the outcome of, you’ll likely do a much better job of being encouraging and maybe imparting some actual useful advice about how to succeed.
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A rational approach to the Growth Mindset
Is our potential fixed at birth, or unlimited? The jury is still out. Regardless of the answer, when it comes to Mindset it’s best to ignore the uncertainty and believe you can do anything.
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COVID Variant Suppression as a Global Public Good
A global public good is something that’s good for everyone, and doesn’t stop other people having more of it. If you classify suppression of COVID variants as a global public good, there’s reason to believe the its value could be systematically undervalued. This post is inspired by a discussion of existential risk reduction as a…
Jamie Bernardi 