Derek Shiller
Derek is a Senior Researcher at Rethink Priorities. He has a PhD in philosophy and has written on topics in metaethics, consciousness, and the philosophy of probability. Before joining Rethink Priorities, Derek worked as the lead web developer for The Humane League.
Research Articles
Rethink Priorities’ Moral Parliament Tool
This post is the sixth installment in the Worldview Investigation Team’s Charitable Resource Allocation Frameworks and Tools (CRAFT) Sequence. Here, the team introduces the Moral Parliament Tool, which models ways an agent can make decisions about how to allocate goods in light of normative uncertainty.
Rethink Priorities’ Portfolio Builder Tool
This post is the second installment in the Worldview Investigation Team’s Charitable Resource Allocation Frameworks and Tools (CRAFT) Sequence. Here, the team introduces the Portfolio Builder—an interactive tool designed to help donors optimize their philanthropic giving portfolios by evaluating the cost-effectiveness of different cause areas.
Bargaining among worldviews
Executive Summary In this post, we explore why final spending allocations might depart from proportionality over worldviews, even if we assume traditional forms of worldview diversification. We discuss why it…
An Introduction to the CRAFT Sequence
This post is the first installment in the Worldview Investigation Team’s Charitable Resource Allocation Frameworks and Tools (CRAFT) Sequence. Through this project, the Team developed two tools to help donors work through uncertainties: a giving portfolio builder and a moral parliament simulation.
Valuing Impacts Across Species: A Research Agenda
Rethink Priorities’ Worldview Investigations Team is sharing research agendas that provide overviews of some key research areas as well as projects in those areas that we would be keen to…
The Welfare of Digital Minds
The research agenda explores critical philosophical and empirical questions about the potential welfare and moral status of digital minds, focusing on understanding when and how artificial intelligence systems might deserve ethical consideration.
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Resource Allocation: A Research Agenda
Rethink Priorities’ Worldview Investigations Team is sharing research agendas that provide overviews of some key research areas as well as projects in those areas that we would be keen to pursue. This is the last of three such agendas posted in November 2024. While we have flagged specific projects we’d like to work on, these are not exhaustive. We would recommend that prospective donors reach out directly to discuss what might make the most sense for us to focus on.
Resource Allocation: A Research Agenda
Rethink Priorities’ Worldview Investigations Team is sharing research agendas that provide overviews of some key research areas as well as projects in those areas that we would be keen to pursue. This is the last of three such agendas posted in November 2024. While we have flagged specific projects we’d like to work on, these are not exhaustive. We would recommend that prospective donors reach out directly to discuss what might make the most sense for us to focus on.
Strategic Directions for a Digital Consciousness Model
The Worldview Investigations Team is in the process of building a model to estimate the probabilities of consciousness in near-future AIs.