Jordan Mattox

I got this from a Cowen link. The post is about people in the Effective Altruism community. The author is encouraging them to pick something specific and boring–you might add obscure as well–to become and expert in order to understand points of leverage. Here’s the explanation:

I sometimes get a vibe that many people trying to ambitiously do good in the world (including EAs) are misguided about what doing successful policy/governance work looks like. An exaggerated caricature would be activities like: dreaming up novel UN structures, spending time in abstract game theory and ‘strategy spirals^[1]’, and sweeping analysis of historical case studies.

Instead, people that want to make the world safer with policy/governance should become experts on very specific and boring topics. One of the most successful people I’ve met in biosecurity got their start by getting really good at analyzing obscure government budgets.

Here are some crowdsourced example areas I would love to see more people become experts in:

• Legal liability – obviously relevant to biosecurity and AI safety, and I’m especially interested in how liability law would handle spreading infohazards (e.g. if a bio lab publishes a virus sequence that is then used for bioterrorism, or if an LLM is used maliciously in a similar way).
• Privacy / data protection laws – could be an important lever for regulating dangerous technologies. 
• Executive powers for regulation – what can and can’t the executive actually do to get AI labs to adhere to voluntary security standards, or get DNA synthesis appropriately monitored? 
• Large, regularly reauthorized bills (e.g., NDAA, PAHPA, IAA) and ways in which they could be bolstered for biosecurity and AI safety (both in terms of content and process).
• How companies validate customers, e.g., for export control or FSAP reasons (know-your-customer), and the statutes and technologies around this.
• How are legal restrictions on possessing or creating certain materials justified/implemented e.g. Chemical Weapons Convention, narcotics, Toxic Substances Control Act? 
• The efficacy of tamper-proof and tamper-evident technology (e.g. in voting machines, anti-counterfeiting printers)
• Biochemical supply chains – which countries make which reagents, and how are they affected by export controls and other trade policies?
• Consumer protection laws and their application to emerging tech risks (e.g. how do product recalls work? Could they apply to benchtop DNA synthesizers or LLMs?)
• Patent law – can companies patent dangerous technology in order to prevent others from developing or misusing it?
• How do regulations on 3d-printed firearms work?
• The specifics of congressional appropriations, federal funding, and procurement: what sorts of things does the government purchase, how does this relate to biotech or AI (software)? Related to this, becoming an expert on the Strategic National Stockpile and understanding the mechanisms of how a vendor managed inventory could work.

In thinking about something boring and specific I am interested in understanding better would be water legislation and water markets in California. I recorded a podcast with the WET Center at Fresno State and we discussed the influence water traders and water markets. The world is a complex, boring, specific, and perfectly relevant to me as a resident of the Central Valley!