Michael Vassar is working on an idea he calls the "Persistent Problems Group" or PPG. The idea is to assemble a blue-ribbon panel of recognizable experts to make sense of the academic literature on very applicable, popular, but poorly understood topics such as diet/nutrition. This would have obvious benefits for helping people understand what the literature has and hasn't established on important topics; it would also be a demonstration that there is such a thing as "skill at making sense of the world."

I am a little surprised about the existence of the Persistent Problems Group; it doesn't sound like it has a lot to do with SIAI's core mission (mitigating existential risk, as I understand it). I'd be interested in hearing more about that group and the logic behind the project.

Overall the transcript made me less hopeful about SIAI.