suffering layer

Extreme poverty

suffering_poverty

Extreme material deprivation --- consumption below the $2.15/day 2017-PPP line. ~700M people remaining, heavily concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa; the trajectory has been falling from ~44% (1981) to ~8.5% (early 2020s) but progress has stalled. Scores an intervention on expected reduction in the remaining stock.

Interventions scored against this layer

Scale funding for interpretability and alignment research. 0.10
Accelerate alternative-protein development (precision fermentation, cultivated meat, plant-based) with AI-driven strain engineering, scaffolding optimization, and supply-chain cost-down, targeting displacement of factory-farm protein at scale. 0.10
Expand frontier-lab compute capacity (chips, datacenters, networking). 0.20
Deploy frontier AI (structure prediction, candidate screening, trial simulation) inside drug discovery and therapeutic development pipelines targeting neglected infectious disease, antimicrobial resistance, and LMIC-priority therapeutics. 0.30
Accelerate grid and generation buildout (permitting reform, interconnection, new generation). 0.20
Invest in AI workforce training and retraining programs. 0.30
Scale AI-assisted mental health triage, initial-line support, and care-navigation tooling targeted at the ~70% of global mental-health burden currently untreated, with integration into public health systems and evaluation against clinical outcomes. 0.20