It's the first official day of the AI Safety Action Summit, and thus it's also the day that the Seoul Commitments (made by sixteen companies last year to adopt an RSP/safety framework) have come due.

I've made a tracker/report card for each of these policies at www.seoul-tracker.org.

I'll plan to keep this updated for the foreseeable future as policies get released/modified. Don't take the grades too seriously — think of it as one opinionated take on the quality of the commitments as written, and in cases where there is evidence, implemented. Do feel free to share feedback if anything you see surprises you, or if you think the report card misses something important.

My personal takeaway is that both compliance and quality for these policies are much worse than I would have hoped. I believe many peoples' theories of change for these policies gesture at something about a race to the top, where companies are eager to outcompete each other on safety to win talent and public trust, but I don't sense much urgency or rigor here. Another theory of change is that this is a sort of laboratory for future regulation, where companies can experiment now with safety practices and the best ones could be codified. But most of the diversity between policies here is in how vague they can be while claiming to manage risks :/

I'm really hoping this changes as AGI gets closer and companies feel they need to do more to prove to govts/public that they can be trusted. Part of my hope is that this report card makes clear to outsiders that not all voluntary safety frameworks are equally credible.

I recently created a simple workflow to allow people to write to the Attorneys General of California and Delaware to share thoughts + encourage scrutiny of the upcoming OpenAI nonprofit conversion attempt.

I think this might be a high-leverage opportunity for outreach. Both AG offices have already begun investigations, and AGs are elected officials who are primarily tasked with protecting the public interest, so they should care what the public thinks and prioritizes. Unlike e.g. congresspeople, I don't AGs often receive grassroots outreach (I found ~0 examples of this in the past), and an influx of polite and thoughtful letters may have some influence — especially from CA and DE residents, although I think anyone impacted by their decision should feel comfortable contacting them.

Personally I don't expect the conversion to be blocked, but I do think the value and nature of the eventual deal might be significantly influenced by the degree of scrutiny on the transaction.

Please consider writing a short letter — even a few sentences is fine. Our partner handles the actual delivery, so all you need to do is submit the form. If you want to write one on your own and can't find contact info, feel free to dm me.

I did indeed. Thanks for noticing, fixed!

Ooh interesting. Thanks for pointing this out, I'm revising my ballot now.

(Edited at 19:35 UTC-5 as I misunderstood how the voting system works)

My top 10 right now look something like:

1. The Midas Project
2. EA Animal Welfare Fund
3. Rethink Priorities
4. MATS Research
5. Shrimp Welfare Project
6. Apart Research
7. Legal Impact for Chickens
8. PauseAI
9. Wild Animal Initiative
10. High Impact Professionals

I ranked my organization, The Midas Project, first on my ballot. I don't think we have a stronger track record than many of the organizations in this election (and I expect the winners will be a few familiar top contenders like Rethink Priorities, who certainly deserve to be there), but I do think the election will undervalue our project due to general information asymmetries and most of our value being speculative/heavy-tailed. This seems in line with the tactical voting suggestion, but it does feel a bit icky/full of hubris.

Also, in making this list, I realized that I favored large orgs whose work I'm familiar with, and most skipped over small orgs who I know little about (including ones that made posts for marginal funding week that I just haven't read). This was a funny feeling because (as mentioned) I run a small org that I expect many people don't know about and will skip over. 

One way people can counteract this would be, in making your selection, choose 1-2 orgs you've never heard of at random, do a deep dive on them, and place them somewhere in your rankings (even at the bottom if you aren't excited about them). With enough people doing this, there should be enough coverage of small orgs for the results of the election to be a bit more informative, at least in terms of how smaller orgs compare to each other.

But the EATS act would basically nullify the value in any popular incrimentalist state laws, no? That's what has me worried I think. Otherwise I'd be excited about seeing Prop 12-like citizens' initiatives across the country.

Good point — in retrospect that was hyperbole on my part, and I should have just said "signals."

I suppose I see banning any industry, especially for politicians who tend to favor free markets, as essentially trading off GDP for whatever cultural/electoral benefits are gained by the ban. But you're right that the cost to the local economy is virtually zero, at least right now. I suppose that will change if cultivated meat can one day be produced affordably at scale.

This is interesting and exactly the sort of consideration I was worried my anecdote-based feelings could miss. A bit of googling suggests to me that there is some evidence in favor of increased spending correlating with significant changes in ballot measure outcomes (I've heard it's more uncertain with electoral politics). 

If it's true that the ballot initiative failures were just a funding issue rather that a broader reflection of the electorate's willingness to support, I think that'd be a big deal, and maybe an argument in favor of investing more in this work.

Also, side note — I'm really surprised that there was such weak opposition to Prop 12, especially given the costs to industry and the fight it's put up since then. It makes me wonder of Ballotopedia missed anything here.

Agreed! I tried to mention this in the last paragraph but probably should have emphasized it elsewhere. Thanks for pointing it out.

Thank you for writing this! Was really interesting to read. I'd love to see more posts of this nature. And it seems like you've done a lot for the world — thank you.

I have a couple questions, if you don't mind:

You write

I still generally suspect corporate campaigns are no longer particularly effective, especially those run by the largest groups (e.g. Mercy For Animals or The Humane League), and don’t think these meet the bar for being an EA giving area anymore, and haven’t in the US since around 2017, and outside the US since around 2021.

I would love to hear your reasoning (pessimism about fulfillment? WAW looking better?) and what sort of evidence has convinced you. I think this is really important, and I haven't seen an argument for this publicly anywhere. Ditto about your skepticism of the organizations leading this work.

We can make meaningful progress on abolishing factory farming or improving farmed animal welfare by 2050

Did you mean to change one of the years in the two statements of this form?

Most people interested in EA should earn to give

I'd love to hear more about this. How much value do you think e.g. the median EA doing direct work is creating? Or, put another way, how significant an annual donation would exceed the value of a talented EA doing direct work instead?