Deena Mousa
@deenamousa.com
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Global health & development at Open Philanthropy
https://newsletter.deenamousa.com/
In 1925, hybrid corn came online in the US. It yielded ~20% more/acre, but by 1933 it was on just 0.1% of US corn acreage. It took another drought in 1936 to move Iowa farmers, Europe didn't follow until the 50s, and global adoption is still patchy. Could AI look the same?
27 days ago
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I recently got the chance to speak with radiology residents
@umasschan.bsky.social
about AI's impact on their field This slide particularly resonated: a familiar pattern they've seen with AI assistive tools is having to nudge MDs to trust them *less*
about 1 month ago
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Looking at workers in industrial jobs exposed to automation, those who worked with robots directly were more likely to believe both that (a) their job was automatable and (b) robots would create new job opportunities for them.
about 2 months ago
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College students would need to be paid $59 (on average) to deactivate TikTok for a month, but would *pay* $28 for it to be deactivated for them and their social circles for the same amount of time.
about 2 months ago
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AI is often framed as Africaās next leapfrog. In Ep2 of our
@voxdev.bsky.social
series, Rose Mutiso argues this is the wrong frame: AI isnāt end-user tech like mobile phones, but an upstream, infrastructure-heavy system that concentrates value where power, compute, and data already exist.
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AI in Africa: Barriers, opportunities and policy
Can AI take off in Africa? Rose Mutiso joins us to discuss the need for an energy and digital infrastructure revolution on the continent, and how to make it happen.
https://voxdev.org/topic/technology-innovation/ai-africa-barriers-opportunities-and-policy
about 2 months ago
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People invoke the Industrial Revolution as reassurance about AI. But living through it meant decades of wage stagnation, job loss & unrest. Ep1 of a new
@voxdev.bsky.social
series, we talk to economic historian Bruno Caprettini about what that analogy gets right/wrong
t.co/AyuTVMKcEY
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AI and the industrial revolution: Similarities, differences and lessons
How did society change during the industrial revolution? Are there lessons we can learn for the AI revolution?
https://voxdev.org/topic/technology-innovation/ai-and-industrial-revolution-similarities-differences-and-lessons
about 2 months ago
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The āAI bubbleā may be less catastrophic than it sounds. Even if it pops, itās leaving behind real infrastructure, much like past bubbles did. My take for
@TheMorningNews.org
2025 year-in-review post:
3 months ago
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reposted by
Deena Mousa
Tim Hirschel-Burns
3 months ago
And I thought this was pretty interesting from
@deenamousa.com
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New post: ML trained on phone usage data can help identify households in need during crises. Not yet finalized your end of year giving? I've teamed up with GiveDirectly along with a few other Substackers, and Iāll be matching the first $500 in donations through the link in post.
4 months ago
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Just out in
@technologyreview.com
: I look at the companies using AI to measure how much pain patients are in based on everything from involuntary facial movements, to heart rate, to peripheral temperature changes. Will this oust the classic self-reported 1-10 scale?
6 months ago
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A new paper in the Lancet finds that doctors got *worse* at finding precancerous growths during colonoscopies on their own if they had just spent three months using an AI assistive tool Worrisome sign that deskilling may happen a lot faster than we'd expect.
6 months ago
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We also don't fully understand why many people experience phantom limb pain, and many others don't
x.com/deenamousa/...
6 months ago
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New post: When can more automation mean more human workers? One argument I made in my recent
@worksinprogress.bsky.social
piece is that if automation made reading scans quicker and cheaper, this might result in *more* jobs for radiologists, rather than fewer. How does this apply to other jobs? š§µ
6 months ago
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In 2016 Geoffrey Hinton said āwe should stop training radiologists now" since AI would soon be better at their jobs. He was right: models have outperformed radiologists on benchmarks for ~a decade. Yet radiology jobs are at record highs, with an average salary of $520k. Why?
6 months ago
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I really enjoy Adam Mastroianni's Experimental History āĀ I expect I'll like following some of the winners of his blog competition just as much! A few of my favorites in thread:
7 months ago
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My contribution to the AI job destruction discourse: Why are radiologists still around?
7 months ago
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I was recently surprised to learn how little we know about pain. For example, Americans have been experiencing more chronic pain over time, and we're not entirely sure why 1/
7 months ago
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I heard we're talking about air conditioning again... my thoughts on the subject one year ago in
@worksinprogress.bsky.social
www.worksinprogress.news/p/heat-waves
9 months ago
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AI art residencies are popping up. In
@theverge.com
, I write about these programs and the artists in them. And, in my newsletter, I write about how interacting with tech in culture can shape perspectives before laws are written. š§µ
bsky.app/profile/the...
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The Verge (@theverge.com)
AI residencies are trying to change the conversation around artificial art https://buff.ly/tx7V4fs
https://bsky.app/profile/theverge.com/post/3lrxmhocso52s
10 months ago
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We treat QALYs as a uniform unit of measure, but every QALY may not be the same. We may care more about QALYs when we're sickest. This makes sense, given how we think about income increases, but isn't how we evaluate health. I write about why in a new post, linked below.
10 months ago
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reposted by
Deena Mousa
Saloni
10 months ago
Great post by
@deenamousa.com
on the tricky concept of putting a price on life. How much do people say they'd value an extra year in perfect health or without disease? And why does this vary between people, or different framings of the question?
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How much do you value a year of life?
Part 1: What people say
https://newsletter.deenamousa.com/p/how-much-do-you-value-a-year-of-life
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How much is a year of your life worth? In Denmark, the average answer is $24,000. In Japan, itās about $67,000. New post up on what we say when asked to put a price on life. š§µ
10 months ago
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Could we catch the next outbreak before anyone gets sick? I wrote for
@asimovpress.bsky.social
about airborne biosensors that can detect viruses in real time and why, despite their promise, weāre not using them yet.
11 months ago
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As a resident of NYC, I am no stranger to noise. Often, we try to let traffic or construction fade into the background and consider it a nuisance. But could it be driving serious health issues?
11 months ago
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Snakebite kills tens of thousands of people a year and disables hundreds of thousands more. Anti-venom research has barely progressed in decades. This study, using antibodies from a man who deliberately let snakes bite him 200 times, suggests a path to a universal anti-venom. š§µ
11 months ago
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New post about a few "big if true" health interventions that might be much more important than we think. Theyāre strange, theyāre striking - and they need more research.
12 months ago
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New post! Ghibli filters, dopamine apps, frictionless AI ā weāre getting better at giving ourselves exactly what we want. What does progress look like when reality itself can be remade to match our desires? š§µ
about 1 year ago
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reposted by
Deena Mousa
Archie Hall
about 1 year ago
š New Substack post š How do the politics and economics of 'Abundance' work in Britain, compared to America?
notes.archie-hall.com/p/can-the-br...
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Can the Brits have Abundance too?
š¬š§ Transposing the the Abundance agenda to Britain š¬š§
https://notes.archie-hall.com/p/can-the-brits-have-abundance-too
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reposted by
Deena Mousa
Knowable Magazine
about 1 year ago
š The case for strange & seemingly impractical research š¬ āGovernment-funded scientific research may appear strange or impractical, but it has repeatedly yielded scientific breakthroughs ā & continues to pay for itself many times over.ā āļø
@deenamousa.com
&
@lgilbert.co
@asteriskmag.bsky.social
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A Defense of Weird ResearchāAsterisk
Government-funded scientific research may appear strange or impractical, but it has repeatedly yielded scientific breakthroughs ā and continues to pay for itself many times over.
https://knowmag.org/3DTzAgm
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Great to be at the Abundance book launch with
@ezrakleinbot.bsky.social
&
@dkthomp.bsky.social
in NYC last night. A core, striking idea from the book: The U.S. isnāt failing to solve housing, healthcare, and energy shortages because it canāt. Itās failing because it wonāt. š§µ
about 1 year ago
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Working paper out this week looks at the effect of congestion pricing on travel using Google Maps data and finds a 15% speed increase within the central business district
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 year ago
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Excited that Open Philanthropy is expanding our work on economic growth and scientific progress. The case for the Abundance & Growth Fund is simple: Economic growth isnāt just about GDPāitās one of the most powerful forces for improving human lives. š§µ
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 year ago
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Every year, we waste enough food to feed the worldās hungryāseveral times over. Globally, 30-40% of food producedā1.3 billion tonsāis never eaten. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions still starve. How did we end up here? š§µ
about 1 year ago
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New York City just launched the first congestion pricing program in the U.S. Drivers entering Manhattan south of 60th Street now pay up to $15 per trip. Itās controversial, but cities that have tried it have seen less traffic, better air quality, and more funding for transit. š§µ
about 1 year ago
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Deeply important research: The two-stair rule for mid-sized apartments once made sense, but today it blocks housing with no clear benefit. š§µ
x.com/Sustainable...
about 1 year ago
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One of the dangers of rising polarization and mistrust is that people start rejecting even the most well-documented factsālike that smoking is catastrophically bad for you. There's no hidden agenda here; and the government has plenty of self-serving reasons to care too š§µ
x.com/sarahcstock...
about 1 year ago
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New post! We celebrate breakthroughsāthe internet, life-saving drugs, major peace treatiesābut behind them are decades of overlooked investments. Now, those investments are on the chopping block. š§µ
about 1 year ago
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Climate change gets $1.3 trillion in annual funding. But only 7% of thatā$63Bāgoes to helping people adapt to rising temperatures, floods, and extreme weather. Why does adaptation funding lag so far behind mitigation? š§µ
about 1 year ago
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reposted by
Deena Mousa
Lauren Gilbert
about 1 year ago
also
@deenamousa.com
and I made the front page of hacker news defending studying frog skin, the sex lives of flies and other "weird" research
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Interesting new NBER working paper: Most people worry about outdoor air pollution, but, in many homes, indoor air is worse. A field experiment in London tested whether showing people their indoor pollution levels in real time might change behavior and finds a 17% reduction. š§µ
about 1 year ago
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I spent a few weeks in Hong Kong this winter and noticed color and visual design everywhere in the architecture. I learned these design choices werenāt just aesthetic: they were built to accommodate historically high rates of illiteracy. š§µ
about 1 year ago
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Skepticism of government-funded scientific research is making the rounds again. In
@asteriskmag.bsky.social
,
@lgilbert.co
⬠and I write about why āweirdā research pays off, and how the government is particularly well-positionedā better than the private sectorāto fund it. š§µ
x.com/deenamousa/...
about 1 year ago
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New Substack post is out! I've been thinking about how much systems shape whatās possibleāwhether in nature or policy. From rove beetles mimicking ants to the chaos of foreign aid stop-orders, hereās what I learned this month š§µ
about 1 year ago
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In some more lighthearted work, I wrote this piece ("Captive Audience") for the
@nytimes.com
Metropolitan Diary section. I hope it captures some of the chaos and joy of NYC š½šļø
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āEvery Few Pages Reflected Each Personās Take on Their Experience ā
What āLaw & Orderā background actors think, a special summer and more reader tales of New York City in this weekās Metropolitan Diary.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/24/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html
over 1 year ago
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reposted by
Deena Mousa
Lauren Gilbert
over 1 year ago
My first piece for The Economist is out, on the economics of the Eras tour:
www.economist.com/graphic-deta...
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Taylor Swift, imperfect capitalist?
The pop star could have made even more money from her $2bn tour
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2024/12/06/taylor-swift-imperfect-capitalist
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Just found out about Bored Cow - which makes a product similar to cow's milk, but without the cows. They use microflora to produce the whey protein instead. Extremely similar process to how we make medical insulin today!
tryboredcow.com
over 1 year ago
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Collected my merch & formal certificate of membership in NYC's Rat Pack ā part of the DoH's recent focus on sanitation interventions and reducing the rat population in the city. Link below if you're interested in the program!
over 1 year ago
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Itās giving season! š„³ This post full of recommendations for individual donors from
@openphil.bsky.social
staff is now out. Sharing a thread of a few of my favorite orgs on this list š§µ
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Suggestions for Individual Donors from Open Philanthropy Staff ā 2024 | Open Philanthropy
As we enter the holiday giving season, weāre continuing our tradition of sharing a list of giving opportunities suggested by Open Philanthropy program staff. Notes on these suggestions: They fall with...
https://www.openphilanthropy.org/research/suggestions-for-individual-donors-from-open-philanthropy-staff-2024/#id-1-global-health-and-development
over 1 year ago
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I went on
@economist.com
's podcast, The Intelligence, to talk about the quiet re-emergence of iodine deficiency. Luckily, we know how to solve it! A few highlights: š§µ
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Legally bombed: Trump cases dropped | The Intelligence from The Economist
https://shows.acast.com/theintelligencepodcast/episodes/legally-bombed-trump-cases-dropped?seek=482
over 1 year ago
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