Explain how you used ChatGPT or other AI tool(s) to help for this HW’s update to your project, or note if it wasn’t used.Answer:

Answer:
For this assignment I used Chat GPT to find information sources for my writing which are included in the references.

Continue to develop the project, as we build it step by step over the semester so that it will be manageable rather than a crunch at the end, as follows. Write up another 350 words or more (per person if a group project) of new content if your project is a paper that must be written from scratch (for example if it is about yourself). If you are using an automatic text generator to help write it it would probably be quite a bit more than that amount of words. If the progress was code development or website creation, give the new code. If slides, paste the new text from the new slides into your blog and describe any images or graphics. If something else, explain specifically what you did, being sure to give examples if that makes sense. Label this HW consistently as in this example. IMPORTANT: No credit on this HW if you copy-paste material from an earlier HW. List any sources you used, such as websites or pages, ChatGPT or other tools, books, or whatever it might be. This takes some effort and it counts as part of your work. If your project is not a paper, explain what you did on your blog. For team projects, focus on your own activities although you can also discuss the overall effort to provide some context. Explain and give evidence (for example, if a web site, you could provide a link to it; if software, give the code; if a skit, give some of the script or list rehearsal or meeting times; if artwork, provide an image showing its status, etc.). If you’re not sure what to do, see me or send me an email and I will try to suggest something.

Answer:

Main Ideas

As mentioned earlier, effective altruism states that we should utilize reason to figure out how to do the most good with the resources we have. A contrary attitude many people share is to donate resources to causes they feel passionate about regardless of how much good it may do objectively. This approach can lead to a lot of missed opportunity to do good. An example from the philosopher Peter Singer may help to illustrate this point. Suppose we are concerned about helping people afflicted with blindness. One possible way is with seeing eye dogs. These cost approximately $40,000 to train. However, there is a disease called trachoma which blinds people most often in developing countries. This disease can be prevented with a simple surgery that costs between$20-$50. If we just assume these are the only ways to help people with blindness then we have the choice between helping one person for $40,000 or helping between 800-2000 people for the same amount of money. Effective altruists would argue that we should focus more on helping people with trachoma since this leads to more people being helped.

This concept of prioritization is the most important, but others are worth enumerating. Effective altruists care about all people equally, not just those in their own country or culture. This is the main reason why they so often focus on the developing world. They are also open to any cause which has the potential to be benefit, for instance they are often concerned with AI safety which will be discussed later. Finally, while effective altruism is frequently concerned with charitable donations it is open to examining other kinds of assistance such as volunteering time.

In order to measure the effectiveness of charitable interventions, effective altruism advocates the use of various quantitative measures such as:

· Cost effectiveness estimates: These cover how efficient certain interventions are given a certain amount of money. In the previous example, this would be how many cases of blindness from trachoma could be prevented for each dollar invested.

· Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs): This measures the burden of disease on health. One DALY represents a year of life lost to illness or disability.

· Quality adjusted life years (QALYs): This measures the value of each year of healthy life. One QALY represents one year in perfect health.

These measures can be used in conjunction with another tool called decision theory. Decision theory evaluates different choices by examined expected utility which is the utility of an outcome multiplied by the probability of that outcome. In this case, utility might be measured in DALYs or QALYs. We then simply make the choice with the highest expected utility. One interesting consequence of this approach is that it provides a way to make the utilitarian perspective in ethics mathematical, at least in theory. There are still difficulties with this approach such as how to measure utility, how to aggregate utility across individuals, or how to deal with ignorance and bias.

References:

· https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_singer_the_why_and_how_of_effective_altruism/transcript?language=en

· https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability-adjusted_life_year#:~:text=The%20disability%2Dadjusted%20life%20year,life%20expectancy%20of%20different%20countries.

· https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year

· https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationality-normative-utility/

· https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_utility_hypothesis