How should strong AI alter philanthropy?
That is the theme of my latest Bloomberg column, and here is one bit:
One big change is that AI will enable individuals, or very small groups, to run large projects. By directing AIs, they will be able to create entire think tanks, research centers or businesses. The productivity of small groups of people who are very good at directing AIs will go up by an order of magnitude.
Philanthropists ought to consider giving more support to such people. Of course that is difficult, because right now there are no simple or obvious ways to measure those skills. But that is precisely why philanthropy might play a useful role. More commercially oriented businesses may shy away from making such investments, both because of risk and because the returns are uncertain. Philanthropists do not have such financial requirements.
And this oft-neglected point:
Strong AI capabilities also mean that the world might be much better over some very long time horizon, say 40 years hence. Perhaps there will be amazing new medicines that otherwise would not have come to pass, and as a result people might live 10 years longer. That increases the return - today - to fixing childhood maladies that are hard to reverse. One example would be lead poisoning in children, which can lead to permanent intellectual deficits. Another would be malnutrition. Addressing those problems was already a very good investment, but the brighter the world’s future looks, and the better the prospects for our health, the higher those returns.
The flip side is that reversible problems should probably decline in importance. If we can fix a particular problem today for $10 billion, maybe in 10 years’ time - due to AI - we will be able to fix it for a mere $5 billion. So it will become more important to figure out which problems are truly irreversible. Philanthropists ought to be focused on long time horizons anyway, so they need not be too concerned about how long it will take AI to make our world a fundamentally different place.
Recommended, interesting throughout.
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