Learned, quasilinguistic neural representations (QNRs) that upgrade words to embeddings and syntax to graphs can provide a semantic medium that is both more expressive and more computationally tractable than natural language, a medium able to support formal and informal reasoning, human and inter-agent communication, and the development of scalable quasilinguistic corpora with characteristics of both literatures and associative memory. […]

This paper by Toby Ord explores the fundamental causal limits on how much of the universe we can observe or affect. It distinguishes four principal regions: the affectable universe, the observable universe, the eventually observable universe, and the ultimately observable universe. It then shows how these (and other) causal limits set physical bounds on what […]

Very often we are uncertain about what we ought, morally, to do. How should we make decisions in the face of such uncertainty? Moral Uncertainty, a new book by William MacAskill, Toby Ord & Krister Bykvist, tackles this question. Decision-making in the face of fundamental moral uncertainty is underexplored terrain: William MacAskill, Krister Bykvist, and [...]

Toby Ord and CSER‘s Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh have released a joint statement on the UK’s newly-released National AI Strategy: We are pleased to see the UK Government set out its National AI Strategy.  AI is a transformative technology, with the potential to bring significant benefits to the UK. It is encouraging to see issues such […]

New paper from Robin Hanson, Daniel Martin, Calvin McCarter, & Jonathan Paulson. Forthcoming in Astrophysics Journal, preprint on arXiv. Abstract: If life on Earth had to achieve n “hard steps” to reach humanity’s level, then the chance of this event rose as time to the n-th power. Integrating this over habitable star formation and planet […]

The UK government must act now to ensure the UK is prepared for future extreme risks even greater than Covid-19, a new report finds. Disease warfare, leaks of dangerous pathogens from high-security labs, and misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) systems are identified as key threats to the UK and the wider world. The report, Future […]