#111 - OpenAI Drama, Pandemic Modeling Opportunities, and Thanksgiving History
🎉 It’s the 111th edition of our newsletter! Make a wish! 🎉
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Impact Update
Applications for The Impact Fellowship will close soon! Apply by November 30th, and send the application to anyone you know who you think may be a good fit!
In the News
You’ll be hearing a lot about Section 702 and the US government’s surveillance policies. Here’s the best briefing of it we’ve found.
Following the OpenAI Sam Altman drama? So are we! ICYMI.
This new electrocaloric heat pump could make air conditioning much more efficient and less pollutive.
Scientists have developed this (admittedly creepy-looking) 3D printed hand mimics human bones and tendons to be more effective.
Opportunities
BlueDot protects people around the world from infectious diseases using human and artificial intelligence. Their AI-powered platform combines human expertise with advanced data analytics to track, contextualize, and mitigate infectious disease risks. Their global disease surveillance engine delivers critical early warning and insights on emerging and existing infectious diseases risks. They are currently looking for software engineers to join their team.
A division within Imperial College London is looking for a web developer who can help model the costs of public health policies. They are creating a web application that will allow them to model pandemic preparedness levels of over 150 countries. These research groups develop models and tools to support policymakers understand the best way to invest in prevention of infectious diseases. The EPPI uses pioneering integrated economic-epidemiological modeling to provide critical data and analysis to inform public health decisions related to pandemic preparedness and disease outbreaks around the world. We at Impact Labs think this could be one of those opportunities that has far-reaching impacts down the line, and we seriously consider all of our UK-based community members to consider applying.
Braintrust is cutting-edge AI company that helps other ML engineers and researchers refine and evaluate their models. Safety is core to everything they deploy, and they’re currently looking for a software engineer to join their systems division.
This is a role that isn’t for the faint of heart, but if you’re up for a challenge, Palisade Research is looking for a founding engineer to help them grow and develop their understanding (and mitigation) of the ways that novel AI systems can be used to cause harm by aiding malevolent actors like cybercriminals.
What We’re Watching
We read a report that came out last month about the merits of globalization. People often hear about how globalization has increased inequality as a the gains from increased productivity have amassed to only the elite few. The data show otherwise.
US entrepreneurs and investors continually miss the mark when dealing with startups in other nations.
New techniques (along with renewed luster brought about by the LK99 fiasco) have led some folks speculating on a golden age in superconductivity.
Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday predicated on celebration and gratitude for one another, but its origin stories and its intersection with Native Americans is a lot more complicated than commonly told. We highly recommend reading An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. This video we saw recently speaks to the deliberate annihilation of native peoples’ way of life at the hands of European settlers and their descendants, reminding us that this story is not over.
Quotes We Love
“I am no longer accepting things I cannot change. I'm changing the things I cannot accept.”
-Angela Davis
That’s all for now! See you in your inbox in another 2 weeks!