The rate of violent deaths is one of the key measures of long-run quality of life, and strong claims are made on both sides. https://www.cold-takes.com/unraveling-the-evidence-about-violence-among-very-early-humans/
Part of the "Has Life Gotten Better?" series. https://www.cold-takes.com/was-life-better-in-hunter-gatherer-times/
"Hunter-gatherers"/"foragers" are sometimes said to have strong gender equality. But as far as I can tell, they don't. Part of the "Has Life Gotten Better?" series. https://www.cold-takes.com/pre-agriculture-gender-relations-seem-bad/
Why I think life has gotten better over the last couple hundred years. https://www.cold-takes.com/has-life-gotten-better-the-post-industrial-era/
Trends in quality of life over all of human history (not just the last few hundred years). https://www.cold-takes.com/has-life-gotten-better/
Listing the big events for empowerment and well-being, leaving out all the wars that didn't clearly affect these things. https://www.cold-takes.com/summary-of-history-empowerment-and-well-being-lens/
Why would we program AI that wants to harm us? Because we might not know how to do otherwise. https://www.cold-takes.com/why-ai-alignment-could-be-hard-with-modern-deep-learning/
Given all our uncertainties about the most important century, I'm issuing a "call to vigilance" instead of "call to action": look out for opportunities to help the most important century go as well as possible. https://www.cold-takes.com/call-to-vigilance/
We, the people living in this century, have the chance to have a huge impact on huge numbers of people to come - if we can make sense of the situation enough to find helpful actions. https://www.cold-takes.com/making-the-best-of-the-most-important-century/
What the best available forecasting methods say about when we can expect transformative AI - and why there's no "expert field" for this topic. https://www.cold-takes.com/where-ai-forecasting-stands-today/
My preferred method of forecasting transformative AI, with pros and cons. https://www.cold-takes.com/forecasting-transformative-ai-the-biological-anchors-method-in-a-nutshell/
AI progress may not trend in the ways we intuitively expect. https://www.cold-takes.com/are-we-trending-toward-transformative-ai-how-would-we-know/
This is the second of 4 posts summarizing hundreds of pages of technical reports focused almost entirely on forecasting one number: the year by which transformative AI will be developed. https://www.cold-takes.com/forecasting-transformative-ai-whats-the-burden-of-proof/
PASTA: Process for Automating Scientific and Technological Advancement https://www.cold-takes.com/transformative-ai-timelines-part-1-of-4-what-kind-of-ai/
https://www.cold-takes.com/this-cant-go-on/ The long view of economic history says we're in the midst of a huge, unsustainable acceleration. What happens next?
Final section of the "Digital People Would Be An Even Bigger Deal" readthrough. https://www.cold-takes.com/how-digital-people-could-change-the-world/
FAQ about the "digital people" idea. https://www.cold-takes.com/digital-people-faq
Audio for the first part of "Digital People Would Be An Even Bigger Deal." https://www.cold-takes.com/how-digital-people-could-change-the-world/
If people could be insta-copied, economic growth would explode. https://www.cold-takes.com/the-duplicator/
If you think humans will eventually spread out across the galaxy (even if it takes 100,000 years), then you think we are among the earliest living beings, with remarkable opportunities to shape the future. https://www.cold-takes.com/all-possible-views-about-humanitys-future-are-wild/
