#133 - More Diseases Eliminated, AI Safety Opportunities, and The Library of Alexandria
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In the News
🦠 India and Pakistan eliminated trachoma, and Timor Leste and Brazil eliminated elephantiasis. Simply incredible.
📉 The obesity crisis in America may have plateaued, with new data suggesting that the obesity rate has fallen by 2% since 2020.
💉 Pharma giant Gilead is working on a deal to manufacture generic versions of its life-saving HIV drug lenacapavir in 120 limited-resource countries.
💧 New desalination tech just dropped.
🧬 The world’s first gene therapy performed with donor cells was a success.
Opportunities
Lots of AI and X-risk openings this week!
Applications for the Impact Fellowship are open! Have you applied yet? Have you sent the link to someone who would be a great fit yet? Have you flossed yet? Don’t delay! www.impactlabs.io/fellowship
Sleepawake is an incredible organization that helps young adults find their purpose, their aliveness, and their deepest selves. Their upcoming event in San Francisco on November 10th is all about creative expression. We couldn’t recommend this more highly. Subscribe to their other events here.
Applications are open for the Global Challenges Project 3-day intensive workshop. “Explore the foundational arguments around risks from advanced AI and biotechnology. Our workshops are for students who want to learn more about what they can do to have a large social impact with their careers.”
A bit dramatically named for our taste, but CAIS is developing what they call “Humanity’s Last Exam” as a benchmark for frontier AI systems. They’re awarding $5k to the top 50 questions submitted that can stump GPT. Good luck!
The Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (BERI) is hiring a deputy director. “Our primary focus is collaborating with university research groups working to reduce existential risk (“x-risk”), by providing them with services and support. Our goal is to make operations faster and more flexible for these groups by unblocking tasks and projects and allowing them to accomplish things that are difficult or impossible through existing university administration channels.” They also have the best url we’ve ever seen: existence.org. How can you beat that?
All Tech Is Human is hosting an event in NYC this November 14th. “Do you care about tackling thorny tech & society issues? Do you want to meet others that deeply care about co-creating a better tech future? If so, you'll want to participate in All Tech Is Human's popular Responsible Tech Mixer + Author Series! For our upcoming gathering on November 14th we will have a fireside chat with Greg Epstein, author of the upcoming Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World's Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation.”
What We’re Watching
AI + satelite imagery = reduced wildfires. New models can detect fires as small as 5 square meters nearly in real-time.
Move over Greenwich Mean Time, we now have Moon Time.
We know it’s a nerd flex to get all wistful when thinking about the Library of Alexandria, but it’s a bit misunderstood.
Quotes We Love
“Though we do not wholly believe it yet, the interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world.”
- James Baldwin
That’s all for now! See you in your inbox in another two weeks! ❤️