Author of Suffering-Focused Ethics + Reasoned Politics Co-founder of the Center for Reducing Suffering Working to reduce extreme suffering for all beings
Copenhagen, Denmark
Joined July 2013
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NEW BOOK!
Suffering-Focused Ethics: Defense and Implications
"This could be the most important book you will ever read."
—@jmayerfeld
magnusvinding.com/2020/05/31…
amazon.com/dp/B089CSQX73/
New post: What might we infer about optimized futures?
"My aim in this post is to explore what we might be able to infer about optimized futures. Most of all, my aim is to advance this as an important question that is worth exploring further."
magnusvinding.com/2023/11/18…
The following is a draft chapter from my forthcoming book. The chapter is titled “Facing the Endeavor to Reduce Extreme Suffering in Healthy Ways”.
I hope it can be helpful for those seeking to reduce suffering.
docs.google.com/document/d/1…
Informative estimates: 'Shrimp: The animals most commonly used and killed for food production'
by Daniela R. Waldhorn and Elisa Autric
forum.effectivealtruism.org/…
New post: Controlling for a thinker’s big idea
This post is an attempt to write up what I consider a useful lesson about intellectual discourse: proponents of a big idea often overstate the plausibility or significance of their big idea.
magnusvinding.com/2023/09/04…
New essay by Simon Knutsson (@shknutsson): 'My moral view'
I think this essay brings many new perspectives and arguments to the discourse on suffering-focused ethics. It also helps to exemplify the wide variety of suffering-focused views one can hold.
simonknutsson.com/my-moral-v…
Magnus Vinding retweeted
For the first time, I have written about my moral view as a whole. It has been almost 18 years since I started studying ethics at university, and longer since I started reading moral philosophy. It feels nice to finally summarise my thinking on the topic. simonknutsson.com/my-moral-v…
New post: 'Can we confidently dismiss the existence of near aliens? Probabilities and implications'
I argue that 'info gain' could be a plausible motive for (mostly) quiet near aliens, and explore the potential implications of hypothetical such aliens.
magnusvinding.com/2023/07/24…
New essay by Teo Ajantaival: Minimalist views of wellbeing
Introduces a wide variety of minimalist views and argues that there are many reasonable alternatives to 'good minus bad' views.
forum.effectivealtruism.org/…
New post: A convergence of moral motivations
"My aim in this post is to outline a variety of motivations that all point me in broadly the same direction: toward helping others in general and prioritizing the reduction of suffering in particular."
magnusvinding.com/2023/06/15…
Magnus Vinding retweeted
Necessary counterpoint.
Not really about AI optimism vs. pessimism, but the following is a collection of resources arguing that FOOM (i.e. a fast localized takeoff) is unlikely:
magnusvinding.com/2017/12/16…
Some have claimed that UFO reports are too compelling to be dismissed as mistakes. Extremely skeptical of this claim, I tried to look for such reports.
This post is a collection of the best UFO evidence I could find. I admit, it's better than I expected.
magnusvinding.com/2023/06/11…
Free audio version of 'Avoiding the Worst: How to Prevent a Moral Catastrophe' by Tobias Baumann (narrated by @metaRising):
youtube.com/watch?v=ZuMFTv-M…
Goodreads page:
goodreads.com/book/show/6310…
"We can try to hold tightly to our secrets while outside innovation dilutes their value, or we can try to learn from each other."
'We Have No Moat' is further evidence against the FOOM (local takeoff) picture that @robinhanson has been arguing against.
semianalysis.com/p/google-we…
That is, AI innovation is not — and is unlikely to be — centralized, but is instead massively distributed.
This of course isn't to say that there aren't serious risks (there obviously are), but it is a reason not to have risk analyses focus narrowly on single AI FOOM scenarios.
Same case argued in Reflections on Intelligence:
smashwords.com/books/view/65…
And by many others who've argued that FOOM is unlikely:
magnusvinding.com/2017/12/16…
A brief note on minimalist versions of objective list theories of wellbeing
"minimalist versions of objective list theories understand wellbeing as consisting in the absence of objective bads, [not] in the presence of objective goods"
magnusvinding.com/2023/04/10…
Short appendix on growth rates in the compute of AI models over the last decade. In short, growth rates in the compute of the largest AI models have declined considerably since 2018, suggesting that we're past peak growth rates.
forum.effectivealtruism.org/…
The post also presents a case against @robinhanson's (and others') belief that induction based on the past overall gives us reason to expect a future growth explosion. It seems more likely that peak growth rates were in the past:
forum.effectivealtruism.org/…
New paper by @MattiHayry: Exit Duty Generator
"This article presents a revised version of negative utilitarianism. ... a need-based theory of value is introduced."
cambridge.org/core/journals/…
New Book: Essays on Suffering-Focused Ethics
A collection of 33 essays that explore various questions related to the reduction of suffering.
magnusvinding.com/2023/01/09…
