CRS researcher and co-founder Tobias Baumann recently appeared as a guest on the Sentience Institute Podcast. The podcast, hosted by researcher Jamie Harris, typically focuses on moral circle expansion and animal welfare. Tobias was featured in two episodes.
The first episode covers moral circle expansion, cause prioritization, and s-risks. In particular, Tobias explains what moral circle expansion is and presents arguments for and against prioritizing it. He then gives his take on longtermism, transformative AI, and whether we’re currently living at the hinge of history. Jamie and Tobias also consider the implications of accepting both longtermism and a focus on moral circle expansion, including what beings to advocate for and how to do it most effectively. Finally, Tobias argues that we should focus on reducing risks of astronomical suffering known as s-risks.
In the second episode, they dive deeper into the details of s-risk research and global priorities. Specifically, Tobias lays out more of what it means in practice to work on reducing s-risks. The podcast goes over CRS’s research plans and theory of change, the current bottlenecks in s-risk research, potential downsides to s-risk work, and whether we should prioritize reducing risk factors for s-risks rather than trying to directly influence specific scenarios. Tobias also gives suggestions for using your career to reduce s-risks, such as by conducting research, going into politics, or using indirect strategies like earning to give and patient philanthropy. And to make things more concrete, he presents specific projects that one could work on, including longtermist advocacy for animals or artificial sentience.
You can listen to both episodes, along with the rest of the Sentience Institute Podcast, on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Buzzsprout, or the Sentience Institute website.