I'm a Partner at Ashoka Germany. Ashoka is the world's largest network of social entrepreneurs. I develop strategies for systemic changes in society with social entrepreneurs; publish articles, reports, and tools about systemic impact; and help foundations, politicians, and administrations become more savvy when it comes to systemic impact.
Before Ashoka, I was a consultant at McKinsey and co-founded two social ventures.
I love to co-initiate projects and to then hand things over. I'm looking for opportunities to do that within the EA community.
Thanks so much for taking a deeper look at one of the articles! I think you're right: a somewhat lower rating seems more appropriate in this case.
I believe that two things are true for the algorithm behind Actually Relevant: 1) almost all posts are more important for humanity than 90% of news articles by other outlets. In that sense, it's already useful. 2) Many relevance analyses are still off by at least one grade on the rating scale, meaning that some posts get a "major" or "critical" tag that should not get it. The idea is to use community and expert feedback to finetune the prompts to get even better results in the future. I also want to involve a human editor who could double check and adjust dubious cases.
In the post you referenced, the AI says: "The eviction has affected over 70,000 people and risks cultural extinction for the Maasai people. It also highlights the need for a reevaluation of international legal norms and systems around land rights. In certain scenarios, this situation could lead to a broader movement for indigenous land rights in Tanzania and beyond, making it an issue that is far more relevant for humanity than the number of directly affected people would suggest." I think it's a good sign that the algorithm realized that the extinction of an entire culture and developments around indiginous land rights should lead to a higher rating than the number of directly affected people would suggest. It might still be off in this case, but I'm optimistic that additional finetuning can get us there.
EA-aligned news curation service - prototype online
Actually Relevant is a news curation service that evaluates stories based on how relevant they are for humanity and its long-term future. The website is a first prototype. I hope that Actually Relevant will promote EA causes and perspectives to more people, and that it will free EA-aligned readers from the headaches of irrelevant news.
I'm looking for
I just started a project along similar lines called Actually Relevant. You can see a first prototype at https://actuallyrelevant.news/. Would love to be in touch with both you and @finm to discuss it! Please send a PM if you're interested.
Looking for partners in crime to explore a "scope sensitive news provider"
I would like to find out if there is a market for a news provider that selects stories based on how much they matter to sentient life in the universe.[1] Specifically, I would like to run a few experiments following the Lean Startup approach, like pretending that the service already exists to see how many people would subscribe.
Please reach out
I took this idea more seriously when I read the post "What happens on the average day". rosehadshar mention "scope sensitivity" as their first criterion for an ideal news provider and define it as "a serious, good faith attempt to tell the stories that matter most to the most sentient life."
Completely agree with your comments on a good news provider. Instead of starting a new publication, we could create an app that lets users rate existing news articles on the criteria you mentioned. Speed is not so important for the kinds of articles we care about, so it would be OK if it takes a few days before enough ratings are collected to recommend an article to the whole community.
Dear team at FTX Foundation,
A few weeks ago, I submitted an application for a regranting partnership in the area of innovative ideas in education with Ashoka and Leap. Are you considering that application or was I too late?
Best,
Odin