Andy Masley
I’m an independent writer and researcher. I write essays on AI, data centers, animal welfare, political liberalism, and more, all linked here, and a lot of it published on my Substack. My work is funded by I am not employed by Coefficient Giving and my views don’t represent theirs. The grant does not obligate me to write from any specific perspective. The full text description of the grant’s purpose reads:To support one year of writing and communications work made publicly available on topics related to AI, public policy, and other topics.I do not receive any other funding for my writing besides individual paid Substack subscribers, and one-off payments for writing in other publications. from Coefficient Giving to explore topics in AI and other areas. I write from a broadly I’m excited to promote EA thinking on major issues, though not everything I write will be from an EA perspective or agreed with by most EAs. My favorite resource for someone who wants to learn more about EA is the 80,000 Hours series on how they approach problems, and their intro article on EA specifically. My writing style has been influenced a lot by 80,000 Hours problem profiles like this one. The Precipice is excellent for EA thinking on x-risk. The blog series Cold Takes is a great overview of how EAs think about the incredibly weird history and future of technology. perspective. I was recently named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in AI for my writing on data centers and the environment.
Email me at [email protected] if you’d like to chat! You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can leave me anonymous feedback here.
(It’s pronounced May-zlee)
More about me
Before this I was the director of the effective altruism city group in Washington DC, and before that I taught high school physics for 7 years. I made animated video lectures for each day of my 2 year IB physics course which I host on my YouTube channel. In college I double majored in philosophy and physics at Clark University in Worcester MA. I’ve lived in DC for 10 years and grew up in Webster MA.
I discovered EA ideas through Peter Singer in 2009 and EA itself through Derek Parfit in 2013. It’s one philosophical view among many. I’m also very into political liberalism, philosophical naturalism (especially Peirce, Quine, and Dennett), and (from afar) continental philosophy of technology.
I tweet a lot. For fun I mostly spend time with friends, exercise, try to consume a lot of music, movies, and books, and explore DC’s amazing vegan-friendly restaurants.
AI and the environment
- Toward liberal environmentalism
- What a data center is
- A simple trick to fix the data center debate
- Data centers and low social trust
- Why I think panic about local impacts of data centers is just a panic
- The AI water issue is fake
- Data center land use issues are fake
- Empire of AI is wildly misleading about AI water use
- Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment - a cheat sheet
- An overview of my writing on AI and the environment
Subscribe to my Substack below or on the site itself
Elsewhere: Substack · Twitter · Bluesky · LinkedIn · EA Forum · YouTube · Goodreads · Letterboxd · RSS