Infrared spectroscopy, HPLC, Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, and reverse genomics are examples. Figuring out the purity of one's foods/drugs (which is not done enough) can be a Pareto-efficient improvement on the attention economy of "pivotal actors", and can be done by environmental health specialists (whose skills are orthogonal to "pivotal actors" and are not appreciated enough - they were involved in the construction of the new Harvard SEAS building). Enhanced testing could be the first step towards improving the purity of one's food/water and help  "cleaner thinking" (which alone has a lot of alignment potential).

Why is this important? B/c people are not mindful enough of the potential toxins/contaminants in their food (we are only beginning to learn the effects of microplastic accumulation in the body/brain), and given that some toxins bioaccumulate in the brain, the effects compound. AI gives rapid improvements to bioweapons near-term (which Kevin Esvelt is very concerned with), which makes contamination of the food/water supply by foreign agents particularly concerning.

Russia will continue to troll the world, and who knows what foreign agents that Russians may introduce to the food supply of "pivotal actors".

Mithridates, the Poison King, had deep knowledge of botany and employed many people to taste his food for him. An excellent biography (referenced by Peter Fedichev) is here: https://www.amazon.com/Poison-King-Legend-Mithradates-Deadliest/dp/0691150265

So one of the most important questions is.. what are some low-effort food spectrometers one can get? Given that short timeline/AI will deflate prices of some machines and occupational specialists, the cost should not be an issue,  especially for those in high-value corporations that agents will try to infiltrate or poison (such as OpenAI).

Some links:

infrared spectroscopy: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8997473/

https://www.rapamycin.news/t/are-chromatography-mass-spec-assays-the-ideal-methods-for-determining-compound-purity-eg-for-rapamycin-or-semaglutide/12290