Thanks to everyone who’s read this far. Since this is my first Manifund proposal, I’d love to hear some honest feedback. What feels unclear? What seems too risky? What would you need to see to consider supporting? The silence is the hardest part, so any clarification or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I believe Petr will put together a well thought out project and I trust his abilities. I wish I could give more.

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[retracted]

[retracted]

@drewspartz Not personally, but we're working with a team of contractors who have experience.

Do you have any background in content/media creation?

[retracted]

Ongoing progress in the Philippines with legislation pending.

@Veterinarians-For-Animal-Welfare Hi Sadiq, please don't self-promote your projects on other people's unrelated Manifund projects, in this way.

Hi Marcus, kindly support my projects on Manifund: 1) Improving Welfare Standards of Chickens in Live Bird Markets, Nigeria. 2) Low-Cost Cat Care Days, Bauchi. Your donation means a lot!

Hi, kindly support my projects: 1) Improving Welfare Standards of Chickens in Live Bird Markets, Nigeria. 2) Low-Cost Cat Care Days, Bauchi. Your donation means a lot!

Can't wait to see your film on Netflix and beyond! Here is a small suggestion: If you put the names of everyone who donates on this page at the end of your film, it would be lovely to see so many people have donated.

The global population must be made aware of the pros and cons, so that everyone can make informed decisions.

Thanks to everyone who have donated so far!

Quick update on the first two weeks of this project (Aug 10-Aug 23):
- We've reached 2.6M views: on track for the "best case" scenario outlined above of 500k views / week
- We went from 2k to 14.4 followers: getting really close to the 15k followers target

Highlighted videos:
- Tristan Harris on a country of geniuses in a datacenter, AIs lying and scheming, and the process of building increasingly powerful systems being "insane" (109k views)
- Eric Schmidt talking about what's going to happen in AI in 1-2 years, including AI automation, AI agents and recursive self-improvement (1.2M views)
- Eliezer Yudkowsky saying "If anyone builds it everyone dies, you're not going to solve the alignment problem in the next couple years" (68k views)

The project is very cost-effective, and impactful.

✨ “With just $10, you can change the life of a cat in Bauchi State — protecting it from disease, preventing suffering, and giving it a chance at a healthier future. The Low-Cost Cat Care Days project is more than animal care; it is about safeguarding communities, reducing rabies risks, and building compassion across generations. Every contribution brings us closer to a Bauchi where cats are not neglected, but valued. Together, we can make this vision real.” ✨

@MarcusAbramovitch After studying the base rates on content creation a lot, I would argue that it IS highly skilled. It normally takes years to get any sort of meaningful traction on Youtube because it is extremely competitive. I think Michael's traction there would put him in the top ~2% of channels.

I've talked to maybe 100 EAs interested/working in content creation/media, and Michael is easily top 5 in terms of knowledge and how good his takes are. So I would be more confident that he's much more well positioned to tackle this than the average EA. Content is also very power law distributed, where a video that is 10% better than the competition might not receive 10% more views, but 10 times as many views.

Wouldn't be surprised if this project is getting 10m views per month within a few months.

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?

How many minutes of content do you expect to create for 15k? I heard budgets of some other youtubers and they are often surprisingly high.

It's hard to describe the state of free speech in the UK as anything short of shocking. ~10000 people per year are arrested for non-violent speech "crimes" and so this isn't merely accidental or happenstance. Police forces across the country have teams that monitor social media posts. Private messages are being intruded upon. Simply expressing support for groups is leading to arrests.

It's hard to know what is good to do to set humanity on a good longterm trajectory but I think free speech norms are of particular importance for figuring out good values and allowing humanity to come to good values. The UK has historically been an important country for shaping precedent and still has an outsized influence

Sam and Co are running a fairly lean operation and working hard on something that seems time sensitive and tractable and are working to make free speech issues non-partisan. I spoke to Sam for ~2 hours on this and he far surpassed many of my informal "tests". He seems reasonable, committed, honest and principled. I have furthermore read some of his writings and they are good. I further support not working on forecasting research and doing something tractable and tangible instead.

Thanks to everyone who’s read this far. Since this is my first Manifund proposal, I’d love to hear some honest feedback. What feels unclear? What seems too risky? What would you need to see to consider supporting? The silence is the hardest part, so any clarification or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I believe Petr will put together a well thought out project and I trust his abilities. I wish I could give more.

[retracted]

[retracted]

[retracted]

@drewspartz Not personally, but we're working with a team of contractors who have experience.

Do you have any background in content/media creation?

[retracted]

Ongoing progress in the Philippines with legislation pending.

@Veterinarians-For-Animal-Welfare Hi Sadiq, please don't self-promote your projects on other people's unrelated Manifund projects, in this way.

Hi Marcus, kindly support my projects on Manifund: 1) Improving Welfare Standards of Chickens in Live Bird Markets, Nigeria. 2) Low-Cost Cat Care Days, Bauchi. Your donation means a lot!

Hi, kindly support my projects: 1) Improving Welfare Standards of Chickens in Live Bird Markets, Nigeria. 2) Low-Cost Cat Care Days, Bauchi. Your donation means a lot!

Can't wait to see your film on Netflix and beyond! Here is a small suggestion: If you put the names of everyone who donates on this page at the end of your film, it would be lovely to see so many people have donated.

The global population must be made aware of the pros and cons, so that everyone can make informed decisions.

Thanks to everyone who have donated so far!

Quick update on the first two weeks of this project (Aug 10-Aug 23):
- We've reached 2.6M views: on track for the "best case" scenario outlined above of 500k views / week
- We went from 2k to 14.4 followers: getting really close to the 15k followers target

Highlighted videos:
- Tristan Harris on a country of geniuses in a datacenter, AIs lying and scheming, and the process of building increasingly powerful systems being "insane" (109k views)
- Eric Schmidt talking about what's going to happen in AI in 1-2 years, including AI automation, AI agents and recursive self-improvement (1.2M views)
- Eliezer Yudkowsky saying "If anyone builds it everyone dies, you're not going to solve the alignment problem in the next couple years" (68k views)

The project is very cost-effective, and impactful.

✨ “With just $10, you can change the life of a cat in Bauchi State — protecting it from disease, preventing suffering, and giving it a chance at a healthier future. The Low-Cost Cat Care Days project is more than animal care; it is about safeguarding communities, reducing rabies risks, and building compassion across generations. Every contribution brings us closer to a Bauchi where cats are not neglected, but valued. Together, we can make this vision real.” ✨

@MarcusAbramovitch After studying the base rates on content creation a lot, I would argue that it IS highly skilled. It normally takes years to get any sort of meaningful traction on Youtube because it is extremely competitive. I think Michael's traction there would put him in the top ~2% of channels.

I've talked to maybe 100 EAs interested/working in content creation/media, and Michael is easily top 5 in terms of knowledge and how good his takes are. So I would be more confident that he's much more well positioned to tackle this than the average EA. Content is also very power law distributed, where a video that is 10% better than the competition might not receive 10% more views, but 10 times as many views.

Wouldn't be surprised if this project is getting 10m views per month within a few months.

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?

How many minutes of content do you expect to create for 15k? I heard budgets of some other youtubers and they are often surprisingly high.

It's hard to describe the state of free speech in the UK as anything short of shocking. ~10000 people per year are arrested for non-violent speech "crimes" and so this isn't merely accidental or happenstance. Police forces across the country have teams that monitor social media posts. Private messages are being intruded upon. Simply expressing support for groups is leading to arrests.

It's hard to know what is good to do to set humanity on a good longterm trajectory but I think free speech norms are of particular importance for figuring out good values and allowing humanity to come to good values. The UK has historically been an important country for shaping precedent and still has an outsized influence

Sam and Co are running a fairly lean operation and working hard on something that seems time sensitive and tractable and are working to make free speech issues non-partisan. I spoke to Sam for ~2 hours on this and he far surpassed many of my informal "tests". He seems reasonable, committed, honest and principled. I have furthermore read some of his writings and they are good. I further support not working on forecasting research and doing something tractable and tangible instead.