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We have our sensors out in the wild in SF / Copenhagen and has shown tremendous improvements in efficiencies of up to 60% compared to under optimized pickups. Garbage is definitely something we need to be better at for a sustainable world in a global scale.
Artificial Intelligence safety is considered by some to be the biggest, and potentially most dangerous challenge in the coming decades. I've recently found a post on the Effective Altruism forum encouraging people to consider starting a computer security career to help mitigate the AI risk: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZJiCfwTy5dC4CoxqA/...
By others it is considered not much of a practical challenge at all. However, automation is.
These are a couple of high level problems... A large global problem is still starvation, millions of people dying every year. Work on helping countries feed themselves. Majority of the world does not have access to internet, decentralised peer to peer networks could help here.
True. Starvation is a big problem. I don't know if software can even help here, but do you know of companies taking such an approach to solving this? Thanks for the pointer about the internet. I will check out Project Loon and Internet.org.
Goodluck, hope you find something!
The company I am working for, https://nordsense.com is hiring. We are a start-up working on trash management and pickup optimization for cities and facilities around the world. We have our sensors out in the wild in SF / Copenhagen and has shown tremendous improvements in efficiencies of up to 60% compared to under optimized pickups. Garbage is definitely something we need to be better at for a sustainable world in a…
Hi talking_panda! I found myself in a very similar position four years ago, quitting my career at the time (the electric/autonomous vehicle industry) to find more fulfilling, meaningful, and ultimately tangibly impactful work. Along the way, I found a lot of answers to my questions from Effective Altruism — using evidence and reason to do the most good. I like their framework of looking for cause areas that are large…
Looks like a good place to try to make a quick buck off of desperate people while wrapping yourself in a piety burrito
Not that I have anything against profiting from misery
There's (some) work in conservation (meaning ecological habitats and stuff) if you care about biodiversity, but it mostly requires GIS skills.
A lot of "global problems" (like cancer) are also local problems (like different environmental exposures or individual genetic profiles). It's hard even while working at a global problem to have a solution with global impact. This cannot be understated.
There are some decently big problems in mining (where mining certain compounds has become exponentially harder) and the industry does not typically have a lot of software talent already. However, it can be quite difficult to get into depending on your geographical location.
Have you considered working for the government?
We have several projects tackling large global problems launching shortly with interesting backing. These include fighting poverty with intelligent smartphones, fighting commodity volatility and fighting online hate and extremism. All have a AI + human angle and interesting backing. Mail me on semantic at gmail.com if of interest