Giving free AI safety books for potentially high-impact individuals

EA community

Aidar Toktargazin

ActiveGrant

$761raised

$4,012funding goal

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Project summary

Step 1:

For the minimum funding, physical copies of these books will be purchased:

9 copies of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. (30 dollars each, 270 dollars in total)

2 copies of The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI, 2019-2025 by Dwarkesh Patel and Gavin Leech (35 dollars each, 70 dollars in total)

2 copies of The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by Brian Christian (20 dollars each, 40 dollars in total)

Total esitmated cost of the books including taxes and shipping: 500.35 USD

If the funding goals are totally covered, physical copies of these books will be purchased:

50 copies of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. (30 dollars each, 1500 dollars in total)

10 copies of The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI, 2019-2025 by Dwarkesh Patel and Gavin Leech (35 dollars each, 350 dollars in total)

15 copies of The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by Brian Christian (20 dollars each, 300 dollars in total)

10 copies of Introduction to AI Safety, Ethics, and Society by Dan Hendrycks (110 dollars each, 1100 dollars in total)

Total estimated cost of the books including taxes and shipping: 4012.96 USD

Step 2:
Books will be given for free to the heads of research labs, professors, and researchers in Astana, Kazakhstan. The receivers include: highly motivated Masters and PhD students, and professors of the Nazarbayev University (NU). Books also will be given to the teams of the NU Internet of Things lab, the Applications of Signal Processing lab, and the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence. I can share the names and achievements of the receivers if you agree to keep this information confidential from the general public.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

Goal: convince people to pursue high-impact research on preventing x-risks.

How will this funding be used?

Funds will be used to purchase books, to pay the shipment fees, and to pay the import taxes.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

Only me, no track record.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

Main potential cause of failure:

Book receivers are not going to read them or to pursue AI risk reduction after reading them.

Outcome in case of a failure: Money gets wasted.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

0 dollars.

Mikhail Samin

2 days ago

Hey-

We have 53 olympiad winners who live in Kazakhstan and have received copies of HPMOR in Russian (+ often copies of The Precipice and Human Compatible, also in Russian) from us;
We would love for them to have copies of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies as well.
We have a lot more copies of HPMOR and hundreds of copies of Human Compatible and The Precipice, and can send those to you if you want to give them to high-potential people.

So:

How well can you handle logistics in Kazakhstan?
Is the cost of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies <$30 per copy, including delivery to Kazakhstan? Where do you order the books from?
How well does the target audience speak English vs. Russian? The rights to If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies in Russian are bought by Corpus, and it's likely to be published in Russian next year. The price per copy will probably be ~3-5x cheaper (and we'll buy 2k+ copies and will likely have a discount). IDK how expensive it would be to move copies from Russia to Kazakhstan, but likely under $20 per copy, so it might make sense to wait for the Russian version.
What's a good way to get in touch/coordinate?

Mikhail Samin

2 days ago

(also:

Do you have reasons to expect The Scaling Era or The Alignment Problem to move people much?)

Aidar Toktargazin

1 day ago

@ms

Hello, thanks for reaching out!

- We have a lot more copies of HPMOR and hundreds of copies of Human Compatible and The Precipice, and can send those to you if you want to give them to high-potential people.

That's great! I have contacts of people who organize science/math olympiads in Kazakhstan. I can share them or collaborate in book giveaways if you want.

- How well can you handle logistics in Kazakhstan?

It should be pretty easy, parcel delivery within Kazakhstan is quite cheap.

- Is the cost of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies <$30 per copy, including delivery to Kazakhstan? Where do you order the books from?

It is 33 USD per copy including delivery. I order books from amazon and use third-party services to deliver them from USA to Kazakhstan.

- How well does the target audience speak English vs. Russian? The rights to If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies in Russian are bought by Corpus, and it's likely to be published in Russian next year. The price per copy will probably be ~3-5x cheaper (and we'll buy 2k+ copies and will likely have a discount). IDK how expensive it would be to move copies from Russia to Kazakhstan, but likely under $20 per copy, so it might make sense to wait for the Russian version.

Most profs for whom the books were intended don't speak Russian. Nonetheless, university students here generally speak both Russian and English. IMO saving the 761 USD until the Russian translation is released is not worth the cost of delay. I think waiting for the Russian book release makes sense only for large scale book giveaways.

- What's a good way to get in touch/coordinate?

We can get in touch in linkedin, we have connected in there.

- Do you have reasons to expect The Scaling Era or The Alignment Problem to move people much?

I have read through "The Alignment Problem". It is quite good but it does not focus on short timelines. Given that Dwarkesh is a good communicator and believe in the possiblity of a superintelligence coming within 5 years, I think "The Scaling Era" should be good too.

Aidar Toktargazin

12 days ago

Progress update

What progress have you made since your last update?

I have managed to buy these books using some nice discounts:

13 copies of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. (27.9 dollars each, 362.7 dollars in total)

4 copies of The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI, 2019-2025 by Dwarkesh Patel and Gavin Leech (30.9 dollars each, 123.69 dollars in total)

4 copies of The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by Brian Christian (17.67 dollars each, 70.68 dollars in total)

1 copy of Introduction to AI Safety, Ethics, and Society by Dan Hendrycks (81.97 dollars)

Total book purchase cost: 638.95 US dollars.

The shipping to Kazakhstan is estimated to cost around 116 US dollars.

I expect to spend around 754.95 USD in total.

What are your next steps?

Wait until books arrive, pay the import fees, give the books to professors, MS/PhD students, and heads of labs

Is there anything others could help you with?

donated $250

Romain Deléglise

about 2 months ago

Worth trying 👍

Austin Chen

about 2 months ago

Approving this grant as a low-cost cheap intervention to spread high-quality writing on AI safety. Thanks to Aidar for proposing this and Neel for funding!