13th Oxford Workshop on Global Priorities Research

4-5 December 2023, Oxford

Topic

Global priorities research investigates the question, ‘What should we do with our limited resources, if our goal is to do the most good?’ This question has close connections with central issues in philosophy and economics, among other fields.

This event will focus on the following two areas of global priorities research:

The longtermism paradigm. Longtermism claims that, because of the potential vastness of the future of sentient life, agents aiming to do the most good should focus on improving the very long-run future, rather than on more immediate considerations. We are interested in articulating, considering arguments for and against, and exploring the implications of this longtermist thesis.
General issues in cause prioritisation. We will also host talks on various cause prioritisation issues not specific to longtermism - for instance, issues in decision theory, epistemology, game theory and optimal timing/optimal stopping theory.

These two categories of topics are elaborated in more detail in Sections 1 and 2 (respectively) of GPI’s research agenda.

Agenda

Day 1, morning Day 1, afternoon (economics) Day 1, afternoon (philosophy) Day 2, morning Day 2, afternoon (economics) Day 2, afternoon (philosophy)

Day 1, morning

Time	Session
9:00	Registration, coffee and snacks
09:45	Introduction
10:00	Jeff Russell (Talk): Infinite Futility
11:00	Drazen Prelec (Talk): Truthfulness and truth when verification is lacking
12:00	Julian Jamison (Discussion): Whence Normative Policy Parameters?
12:30	Lunch

Day 1, afternoon (economics)

Time	Session
13:15	Antony Millner (Talk): The structure of long-run value: A tale of two tails
14:00	Ania Jaroszewicz (Discussion): Leveraging the Psychology of Help-Seeking
14:30	Pauline Vorjohann (Discussion): Eliciting social welfare-relevant preferences
15:00	Break
15:30	Thomas Houlden (Talk): Making and Influencing Irreversible Policy Decisions under Preference Heterogeneity
16:00	Ben Grodeck (Discussion): Banking on the Future: Promoting and Sustaining Cooperation in Public Goods Games
16:30	Johanna Salu (Discussion): Effectiveness mindset as a trait: Implications for prosocial behavior and global impact

Day 1, afternoon (philosophy)

Time	Session
13:15	Petra Kosonen (Talk): The Optimistic Meta-Induction
13:45	Toby Ord (Talk): Longterm trajectories of value and risk
14:15	Break
15:30	Rio Popper (Talk): Constraints on rational decision making under moral uncertainty (talk also with Kaarel Hanni)
15:30	Thomas Houlden (Talk): Making and Influencing Irreversible Policy Decisions under Preference Heterogeneity
16:00	Emma Curran (Talk): Leaving the Present Behind
16:30	Kangyu Wang (Talk): In the long run we are all dumb: uncertainty, unawareness, and a case for neartermism

Day 2, morning

Time	Session
9:00	Refreshments
9:45	Nicolas Treich (Talk): The Animal Welfare Levy
10:45	Hayley Clatterbuck (Talk): Difference-making risk aversion
11:45	Break
12:00	Kevin Kuruc (Talk): Population Flows and the Speed of History
13:00	Lunch

Day 2, afternoon (economics)

Time	Session
14:00	Marcus Pivato (Talk): Social aggregation of conditional beliefs
14:45	Noam Yuchtman (Talk): Exporting the Surveillance State via Trade in AI
15:30	Basil Halperin (Discussion): Transformative AI, existential risk and asset pricing
16:00	Break
16:30	Rubi Hudson (Talk): Avoiding Incentives for Performative Prediction in AI
17:00	Caleb Maresca (Discussion): The Future is Now: How Collective Beliefs Shape Economic Transitions in the Age of AI

Day 2, afternoon (philosophy)

Time	Session
14:00	Nikhil Venkatesh (Talk): Capitalism and the Very Long Term
14:30	Elliott Thornley (Talk): The Shutdown Problem: Incomplete Preferences as Solution
15:30	Brad Saad (Discussion): Dancing Qualia Revisited
16:00	Break
16:30	Andreas Mogensen (Talk): Is consciousness substrate independent? Doubts about the Fading Qualia Argument
17:00	Heather Browning (Discussion): The problems with making intra-individual welfare comparisons