EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

[Linkpost] “Going Bigger: How We’re Scaling Effective Giving & Careers in 2026” by Melanie Basnak🔸, Kearney Capuano 🔸

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 21:15:20 GMT

This is a link post.

Overview

The mission of the Effective Giving & Careers fund at Coefficient Giving is to support people to have a greater positive impact through their donations and careers.

We launched the program in 2022. Since then, we’ve made over 60 grants totaling >$30m across four main areas:

Effective Giving: Raising funds for highly cost-effective global health and development programs
Talent: Helping people transition into impactful careers
Incubation: Launching new high-impact nonprofits
Research: Improving how we evaluate impact in giving and careers

Our early results have been encouraging. In the effective giving area alone, organizations we support have collectively moved hundreds of millions of dollars to cost-effective charities.

Over the past year, we’ve updated toward a broader view of impact. In addition to direct ROI, we’ve seen how this ecosystem can contribute to larger wins by influencing major funders, strengthening policy relationships, incubating organizations that later secure large-scale funding, and building a talent pipeline for high-impact work.

These wins have made us more ambitious about what this program could become.

2025 highlights

We grew our Effective Giving portfolio by running our first Request for Proposals (RFP) for Effective Giving organizations. Following that process, we funded [...]

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Outline:

(00:16) Overview

(01:37) 2025. highlights

(04:21) Our strategy for 2026

(04:51) 1. Scale up existing high-performing grantees

(05:40) 2. Run 2-4 focused RFPs

(06:32) 3. Seed new efforts

(06:52) Effective Giving

(07:40) Effective Careers

(08:31) 4. Support the ecosystem in additional ways

(08:49) Effective Giving Ecosystem

(09:11) Effective Careers Ecosystem

(10:58) A note on incubation and research

(12:24) Key uncertainties

(13:30) What success could look like in 3-5 years

(15:25) We want your feedback

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First published:
March 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/i3iXBWfvRoGAHBrmD/going-bigger-how-we-re-scaling-effective-giving-and-careers

Linkpost URL:
https://coefficientgiving.org/research/going-bigger-how-were-scaling-effective-giving-careers-in-2026/

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Criticisms of What We Owe The Future” by James Brobin

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 20:30:20 GMT

This is a crosspost from my blog post.

In this post, I’m going to offer a series of criticisms of William MacAskill's What We Owe The Future (or WWOTF for short.) It has been almost four years since the book was released, but I still think it's worth criticizing since it remains a foundational text for longtermism. (For those who don’t know, longtermism is the view that working to positively shape the far future is a key moral priority of our time.)

In the first section of this post, I will offer criticisms of WWOTF as a justification for a worldview. In the second section, I will offer criticisms of WWOTF as a piece of persuasion for a general audience. Then, in the final section, I will offer some additional thoughts.

(As an aside, since it has been so long since WWOTF was released, MacAskill and many of his fellow researchers have changed some of their views on longtermism. If I know of something MacAskill has written or said since the release of the book that differs, I will point it out.)

Criticisms of WWOTF As a Justification For a Worldview

General Criticisms

We may not be able [...]

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Outline:

(01:12) Criticisms of WWOTF As a Justification For a Worldview

(01:18) General Criticisms

(05:38) Chapter Specific Criticisms

(12:32) Criticizing WWOTF As A Piece of Persuasion For A General Audience

(13:39) Additional Notes

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First published:
March 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mvfhYfQgrFwdNDuLN/criticisms-of-what-we-owe-the-future

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Brain Farming is No Longer Hypothetical” by Novel Minds Project

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:00:42 GMT

Background

On March 10th, 2026, DayOne announced that it will build biological data centers in Singapore and Melbourne. "Biological" here means that the computational infrastructure will involve live human neurons grown on silicon chips, maintained by life support systems that keep the cells alive through nutrient delivery and waste removal. Human brain cells are efficient information processors, and it is not surprising that commercial interests have begun to take notice. Cortical Labs, the "Wetware-as-a-Service" company discussed in prior posts (here and here), is the company supplying the CL1 biocomputers. DayOne's Singapore facility has the potential to scale up over time to house 1,000 units of CL1, representing a deal that could grow to be worth tens of millions of dollars.[1]

DayOne is one of the fastest-growing data center operators in the world, with plans to raise a $5 billion IPO in the United States later this year at a targeted $20 billion valuation. By shifting workloads from pure silicon to increasingly sophisticated configurations of human brain matter, companies like DayOne may be able to offer cloud computing services in a more energy-efficient manner. They can frame these operations as sustainability initiatives, given that, as they state in their official [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) Background

(02:41) The Problem

(03:32) Proposal

(03:43) Next Steps

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First published:
March 15th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/j5DoCeiedvNgYmgM2/brain-farming-is-no-longer-hypothetical

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“GHD discussion here is slowly dying” by NickLaing

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 19:00:37 GMT

Epistemic status: A bit sad (I know that's not an epistemic status)

The best development Forum on the internet?

3 years ago a headline “FTX SBF blah blah blah” triggered my memory “oh that's right, that effective altruism thing”.

A few years earlier I had read “Doing Good Better” in our Northern Ugandan hut, and was excited by how the ideas matched my experience of seeing the BINGOs [1] on the ground here doing not-much-good at all. Soon after my wife dragged me to Cambridge for a year and I joined an EA group. I was drawn in to a beautiful crew of good, ernest people trying to do the best they could with their lives -[2] something I’d only seen before among a few people at church. I was most impressed by their veganism, practising what they preached.

But after going back to Uganda I forgot about the whole EA thing. But 3 years later the FTX headlines and a google search led me to the EA forum, which to my delight turned out to be the best place on the internet to discuss global health and development. My first foray was a not-very-good post [...]

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Outline:

(00:16) The best development Forum on the internet?

(01:29) A steady decline

(02:59) Why?

(04:34) Is this fine?

(05:02) Is this less fine?

(06:29) How to Boost GHD discourse?

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First published:
March 15th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4jbbjTTJ87baMrkY4/ghd-discussion-here-is-slowly-dying

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“You need user buy-in to scale your impact” by Jamie_Harris

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 16:45:37 GMT

Core premise: for many impact-focused programs, it's not enough to have a plausible theory of change; you also need buy-in from your users. All products/interventions have users, even if they’re not your intended beneficiaries. Successfully meeting real user needs is usually a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for scaling a cost-effective program; users who are bought-in are more likely to follow through with the recommended high-impact actions, and programs with strong demand can scale more easily.

A useful way to think about this is that you want to seek “product-market-impact fit”. This means building programs that users genuinely want to engage with and that create cost-effective impact. The phrase is stolen from Peter McIntyre, based on the startup concept of product-market fit. It's a process I’ve been learning, implementing, and refining through my ~7 year career in impact-focused talent search and community building, as co-founder of Animal Advocacy Careers → Managing Director at Leaf → Courses Project Lead at the Centre for Effective Altruism.[1]

But it's not just important for community building. For example, some researchers produce rigorous work that nobody acts on, because they never asked decision-makers what they needed. Others orient their research around the needs of [...]

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Outline:

(02:24) Why: You have users too

(05:32) How: Find user needs, then work out how to address them through pilots/MVPs

(05:40) In theory

(07:58) In practice

(11:42) FAQs

(17:39) Try it out

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First published:
March 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/DyncXLQ2ysb9K9dfR/you-need-user-buy-in-to-scale-your-impact

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Electrical stunning does not yet ensure prolonged insensibility in several European finfish species” by Rethink Priorities, samaramendez, Sagar K Shah

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 14:15:25 GMT

This post is a summary of our literature review of seabream, seabass, and small rainbow trout electrical stunning studies, which you can find on RP's website. It was cross-posted from our Substack.

Rainbow trout, gilthead seabream, and European seabass are the top three most farmed fish species in Europe, by number of individual fish. We estimate that ~400 million gilthead seabream, ~200 million European seabass, and ~200 million small rainbow trout were slaughtered for European consumption in 2021. Current standard slaughter methods for these Mediterranean species, mainly asphyxia in air or ice slurry, are widely considered inhumane due to the prolonged suffering they induce.

Major retailers and producers (1, 2) have made commitments to transition to electrical stunning methods by 2027–2028. Additionally, leading aquaculture certification bodies are updating their standards to mandate these practices, encouraging industry-wide adoption within the next few years.

The problem

While electrical stunning has gained rapid policy and commercial acceptance with reported operational benefits, the scientific evidence for whether it actually achieves humane outcomes for these species is surprisingly sparse.

Humane stunning means rendering fish immediately insensible and keeping them that way until death. In practice, achieving this standard - and confirming that achievement [...]

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Outline:

(01:20) The problem

(02:53) What we did

(03:38) Our results

(05:10) Finding 1: Electrical stunning remains unproven for seabream and seabass

(05:57) Finding 2: Electric stunning may be more promising for rainbow trout

(06:56) Finding 3: Thin evidence means our findings are more speculative than we would like

(08:21) Implications of our findings

(08:25) Electrical stunners could improve rainbow trout welfare

(09:27) More research is needed on stunner performance in commercial settings

(10:24) Our recommendations on how to advance fish welfare at the time of slaughter

(12:48) Acknowledgements

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First published:
March 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Y2pEQKcWmDisXtxfs/electrical-stunning-does-not-yet-ensure-prolonged

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Incoming money, integrity, and collective action problems” by ElliotTep

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 09:15:24 GMT

EA has been an unusually high-trust community. This has pros and cons. That trust comes with a lot of what makes EA great: people are unusually likely to help each other if they think it will be good overall, reports can discuss with managers whether they should leave for another job, and grantees can be unusually frank with grantmakers.

As discussions grow on the forum about Anthropic employees potentially donating large amounts of equity to EA charities, I want to discuss below a few risks I worry about:

A collective action problem of everyone pitching Anthropic staff directly.
Engaging in dishonest or disingenuous behaviour to better fundraise.

Avoiding both these issues matters for two reasons. First, Anthropic staff deserve to be treated with honesty and respect. Second, I think it's good for impact for several reasons, including the value of trust and transparency in maintaining donations over many years.

Collective Action Problem 1. Pitching directly

Individual orgs and fundraisers each have rational incentives to pitch Anthropic employees directly. From any single org's perspective, reaching out once seems fine. But when there are hundreds of orgs potentially worthy of donations, if pitching a donor directly gets you an edge [...]

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Outline:

(01:10) Collective Action Problem 1. Pitching directly

(02:29) Collective Action Problem 2. Dishonesty

(04:43) My recommendations for high-integrity fundraising:

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First published:
March 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Gmf5qaW3wKtuPbjCS/incoming-money-integrity-and-collective-action-problems

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Make Cruelty Unprofitable Again” by LewisBollard

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 08:45:25 GMT

Note: This post was crossposted from the Coefficient Giving Farm Animal Welfare Research Newsletter by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.

Subtitle: How to crack the cruelty collective action problem

Last month, eight large UK fast food chains — including KFC, Nando's, and Burger King — scrapped their pledges to adopt higher-welfare chicken standards under the Better Chicken Commitment. They blamed supply shortages, demand shocks, even the climate impact of the promised reforms.

But suppose the reforms had been profitable. Does anyone really think these chains would have found those obstacles insurmountable? The reasons were rationalizations, not motivations.

Most cruelty to farm animals today persists for one simple reason: it is profitable. That logic explains far more than the press releases do. The familiar arguments about why cages are “necessary,” mutilations are “for the animals’ benefit,” and slower-growing breeds are “impractical” speak more to the creativity of PR firms than the realities of reform.

It wasn’t always this way — and it need not always be. The agricultural industrial revolution trapped farming in a cruelty collective action problem. How can we solve it?

When cruelty didn’t [...]

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First published:
March 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2fZwHSua53d2LekNy/make-cruelty-unprofitable-again

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Your outreach is written for people who already agree with you” by Anna Pitner

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:15:25 GMT

A few months ago I was talking to a software engineer at Google. On paper, a dream job. But she was frustrated. She felt like she wasn't contributing enough to the world and was seriously considering putting her engineering career aside to go study psychology. A whole decade-long academic track, starting from scratch.

I told her there are actually many ways to create a massive impact with exactly the technical background she already has. So I sent her to read about it on the EA websites.

She landed on a page about longtermism and existential risk reduction. She couldn't understand why any of it was relevant to her. Here was someone with the exact profile EA says it wants to reach: technically skilled, motivated by impact, ready to act. And we opened with the most abstract, most philosophically demanding version of the pitch before she'd even encountered the basic idea that some career paths do far more good than others.

She wasn't wrong to bounce. The content wasn't written for her. It was written for someone who'd already bought the premise.

I think this is EA's core growth problem. Not the ideas. The ideas are exceptional. The problem is [...]

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Outline:

(01:59) The bridge problem

(03:45) The sequencing problem

(05:32) What a better bridge looks like

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First published:
March 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Sipns4oezBLzKagCj/your-outreach-is-written-for-people-who-already-agree-with

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“GiveWell’s 2025 Grantmaking: Record Grants, Expanded Reach, Crisis Response” by GiveWell

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:00:25 GMT

This post was originally published on the GiveWell blog. You can view the original version here.

In our 2025 grantmaking year, GiveWell approved $418 million in grants to highly cost-effective programs in order to save and improve lives as much as we can. Through years of deliberate groundwork, we’ve been growing our research capacity and scope in order to direct substantially more funding to the most impactful opportunities we can find. Last year's grantmaking reflects this growth, and we will be continuing an intensive effort this year to scale our ability to partner with donors to help people in need.

Between February 1, 2025, and January 31, 2026, GiveWell approved 131 grants to 69 organizations—the most grants we’ve made in a year so far. This post provides an overview of the kinds of grants we made and the impact we had last year. This was only possible thanks to the generosity of our donors. We’re incredibly grateful for the trust you place in our research and for your partnership in trying to do the most good we can together.

Increased Grantmaking

In 2025, we launched more than 200 formal grant investigations, after reviewing many additional promising opportunities. Tens of [...]

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Outline:

(01:21) Increased Grantmaking

(02:02) Double Our Cost-Effectiveness Threshold

(02:44) Expanded Cause Areas and Reach

(04:19) Urgent Response to Aid Cuts

(05:33) Continuing Our Growth in 2026 and Beyond

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First published:
March 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sruWKjiNrypj4brnL/givewell-s-2025-grantmaking-record-grants-expanded-reach-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“We do not live by course alone” by Joe Rogero

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 06:00:25 GMT

In my occasional advising calls with aspiring AI Safety folks, one of the most common questions I get is “What courses should I take next?” I often find myself replying: “None; go do stuff instead.”

Fabricando fit faber. By making, one becomes a maker.

There are a lot of courses in AI safety and governance. I’ve helped teach a few. Some are quite good! But after the tenth or twentieth person tells me “I’ve read If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies and taken BlueDot's AGI Strategy and the CAIS AI Safety course, I’m not sure whether I should do ARENA or apply to MATS…” I start to notice a pattern. I want to take them by the shoulders and say “THOSE ARE NOT YOUR ONLY CHOICES.”

Look. MATS is pretty cool. Many of their graduates do good work. It's also, AFAIK, swamped with promising applicants and eager young ML engineers.

If you think MATS sounds like a good fit for you, sure, you should probably apply. And then, while your keyboard is still cooling from the red-hot fire of your earnest expression of interest, you should turn that incandescent determination towards something you can do [...]

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First published:
March 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AWzcocxYTRBtxWA8b/we-do-not-live-by-course-alone

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“What I didn’t expect about being a funder” by JamesÖz 🔸

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 19:15:25 GMT

Crossposted from my blog

I am very fortunate to have my job in many ways – I get to talk to, learn from, and give money to amazing people and nonprofits all around the world. I get to allocate a modest amount of resources to incredible organisations that I think are doing some of the best work to improve the world. I don’t have to fundraise for my or my team's salaries anymore. However, there are some things I’ve learned since becoming a philanthropic grantmaker that were either surprising or affected me more strongly than I expected.

I will outline some of these below. These are not meant to invoke feelings of “oh poor grantmakers who have access to money and influence” but rather “oh, I never considered things from that perspective”. Hopefully, they will also lead to more productive working relationships between funders and advocacy groups.

Here, I discuss:

How challenging the trade-offs are that funders face
The extremely poor feedback mechanisms that nonprofits have
How people treat you differently once you have access to funding, and how that changes you
The weight of saying no to good groups
Some things that make me feel cynical

Trade-offs [...]

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Outline:

(01:18) Trade-offs are hard and money is scarce

(06:35) Nonprofits have bad feedback mechanisms

(13:00) How people treat you differently (and how that changes you)

(14:52) Its hard to say no to people

(16:08) Its easy to become cynical

(19:38) Wrapping up

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First published:
March 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/umicYzuRsm6okFRKA/what-i-didn-t-expect-about-being-a-funder

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“New Video: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” by ChanaMessinger

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 07:15:26 GMT

If you just want a link to the video, watch it here!

What's AI in Context?

AI in Context is 80,000 Hours’ Video Program's YouTube channel, hosted by Aric Floyd. We’re trying to do high production documentary storytelling about transformative AI and its risks. You can see our retrospective on our first two videos here.

Why this topic?

We loved making our first two videos. We’re Not Ready for Superintelligence recently crossed 10M views, and our video about MechaHitler crossed 3M.

But when we reflected, we felt like we’d been circling around the central message we wanted to share. The specific AI 2027 scenario is really interesting, and the MechaHitler story is illuminating, but we wanted to make sure that at least once, we’d gone through the whole argument, or at least one whole argument, for being concerned about existential risk via loss of control over AI.

Honestly, that made it really convenient that Nate Soares and Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

Nate and Eliezer have thought about this issue for a long time – especially Eliezer, who was debating the Singularity via mailing list around when Aric was [...]

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Outline:

(00:26) Whats AI in Context?

(00:47) Why this topic?

(01:30) If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

(02:59) Heres what were going for:

(04:43) Subscribing and sharing

(05:08) Team Update and Logistics

(05:50) Thanks so much!

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First published:
March 10th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/iGBTzbZFseNtDEd3n/new-video-if-anyone-builds-it-everyone-dies

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“The joys of cash benchmarking” by ozymandias

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 13:45:25 GMT

Imagine you run a charity which gives cows to people in the developing world. Your new boyfriend is a statistician and you want to impress him, so you’ve decided to look into this Monitoring and Evaluation thing he keeps going on about. So you give a bunch of people cows and then follow up a year later, and sure enough the people you gave the cows to are richer, healthier, and happier. You proudly tell this to your boyfriend and expect to reap rewards in the form of admiration, cuddles, and a ‘yes’ to your marriage proposal.

Your boyfriend, however, isn’t impressed. What if everyone in the country is getting richer, because the country is industrializing? What if the poor people you gave cows to were having an unusually hard time, and then they got back on their feet, and your cows had nothing to do with it? Apparently, in order to get a sample that really says anything about the world, you need to randomly give cows to half the people, and then check whether the people you gave cows to are doing better than the people you didn’t give cows to (a “randomized controlled trial”).

This [...]

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First published:
March 10th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QsvFCcDR2TfSj32aM/the-joys-of-cash-benchmarking

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The case for AI safety capacity-building work” by abergal

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 10:15:25 GMT

I work on the capacity-building team on the Global Catastrophic Risks-half of Coefficient Giving (formerly known as Open Philanthropy). Our remit is, roughly, to increase the amount of talent aiming to prevent unprecedented, globally catastrophic events. These days, we’re mostly focused on AI, and we’ve funded a number of projects and grantees that readers of this post might be familiar with– including MATS, BlueDot Impact, Constellation, 80,000 Hours, CEA, the Curve, FAR.AI's events, university groups, and many other workshops and projects.

The post aims to make the case that broadly, capacity-building work (including on AI risk) has been and continues to be extremely impactful, and to encourage people to consider pursuing relevant projects and careers.

This post is written from my personal perspective; that said, my sense is that a number of CG staff and others in the AI safety space share my views. I include some quotes from them at the end of this post.

I’m writing this post partly out of a desire to correct what I perceive as an asymmetry in terms of how excited I and others at Coefficient Giving are about this kind of work vs. how much people in the EA and AI [...]

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Outline:

(02:15) The case for capacity-building work

(04:11) Surveys

(06:49) Testimonials

(08:21) Neel Nanda (Senior Research Scientist at Google DeepMind)

(11:15) Max Nadeau (Associate Program Officer (Technical AI Safety) at Coefficient Giving)

(12:51) Rachel Weinberg (founder and former head of The Curve, currently at AI Futures Project)

(14:30) Marius Hobbhann (CEO and founder of Apollo Research)

(16:38) Adam Kaufman (member of technical staff at Redwood Research)

(18:10) Gabriel Wu (member of technical staff (alignment) at OpenAI)

(19:37) Catherine Brewer (Senior Program Associate (AI Governance) at Coefficient Giving)

(21:12) Aric Floyd (video host for AI in Context)

(23:12) Ryan Kidd (Director of MATS)

(25:43) What tends to work?

(28:34) Whats good to do now?

(29:31) Who should be doing this work?

(31:02) What would doing this work look like?

(31:13) Working at an organization doing good work in the space

(31:46) Constellation - CEO

(32:46) Kairos - various early generalist positions

(33:42) Starting or running your own capacity-building project or organization

(34:07) Working on a capacity-building project part-time

(34:30) Subscribing to Multiplier, a Substack with thoughts from our team (and other AI grantmaking staff at CG)

(34:39) Letting our team know

(35:03) Social proof

(35:25) Julian Hazell, AI governance and policy at Coefficient Giving

(36:19) Trevor Levin, AI governance and policy at Coefficient Giving

(36:51) Ryan Greenblatt, Chief Scientist at Redwood Research:

(37:21) Buck Shlegeris, CEO of Redwood Research

(39:52) Appendix

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First published:
March 10th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rAqKSSXankvys2Fzu/the-case-for-ai-safety-capacity-building-work

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Recreation of EA-Pioneer Igor Kiriluk” by turchin

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 03:15:25 GMT

On 3 September 2022, Igor Kiriluk suddenly died (see EA Forum obituary). He was a great communicator and organized the first Moscow EA meetup. He had been active in the transhumanist scene since 2003 and even attracted the founders of KrioRus to transhumanism. He worked as community glue and visited every meetup.

On 5 January 2026, his closest friend Veter (Sergey Kamenev) had a dream that Igor's sideload (a mind-model based on an LLM) was created and that Igor calls him and suggests they celebrate his birthday. This was a signal I had been waiting for –I had wanted for some time to create a mind model of a dead person. I immediately started working.

We got an archive of his private communications, 2,000 pages, and 1,300 pages of scientific publications. His mother decided to collaborate and provided a lot of memories, recordings, and photos. Only two long videos exist. Altogether it is a 4,000-page mindfile = 3M tokens.

I decided on a new approach – instead of building a passive chatbot, to program an agent. After some experiments, I ended up giving Claude Code an instruction: roleplay this person as an agent – along with a lot of [...]

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Outline:

(04:22) Post by Igors sideload

(08:07) System Overview by Claude Code

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First published:
March 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JLHxnWxXk4zYwFcHs/recreation-of-ea-pioneer-igor-kiriluk

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“High Impact Defense - a request for strategic takes” by The Sailor 🔸

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 23:15:26 GMT

Introduction

A few years ago, John Fogle initiated an effort to support and coordinate people from a military background seeking career transitions with an impact focus - High Impact Defense (HI-DEF). The majority of this effort looked a bit like the career-advice services provided by 80000 Hours and others. There's a lot of context implicitly shared between military people, and I'm sure those involved appreciated John's time in trying to understand their specific circumstances.

Owing to changes in his spare capacity, John has been unable to continue this project and graciously offered me the keys for HI-DEF. After some deliberation, I have accepted the offer, as I think I'm in a particularly good position to lead this effort:

I have been around the EA community for a while.
My transition to civilian life has led me to a job in the AI Security community. Military experience is precisely what enables me to add value to our team, so my advocacy on behalf of those with similar experience has credibility.
Transferring to the Reserves, I will retain my rank and remain current in my professional niche. These come with significant networking benefits.
I have the time and inclination to [...]

---

Outline:

(00:10) Introduction

(01:47) Military experience through the EA lens

(04:20) #1 General advising

(05:47) #2 Targeted advising/outreach

(08:07) #3 Research x Military

(10:16) #4 Community engagement

(11:22) Networking

(11:52) Concluding remarks

---

First published:
March 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SBswbiTgsPT6bmihg/high-impact-defense-a-request-for-strategic-takes

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Effective Altruism Will Be Great Again” by Mjreard

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 18:00:25 GMT

This is a link post.

Forum note: this post embodies the spirit of a new project I—Matt Reardon—am starting to reinvigorate in-person EA communities. I'm hiring a co-founder and I'm interested in meeting others who want to collaborate on this vision. My DMs are open.

Sequence thinkers will be forgiven and rejoice

In some fleeting moments lately, I catch glimpses of 2022—the year Effective Altruism's ascent seemed unstoppable. Universally positive (if limited) press, big groups at top universities across the world, a young EA entrepreneur was the darling of the financial industry, the first EA running for Congress calling in enormous financial and personnel resources for his campaign. More than those public-facing facts though, was a feeling on the ground that if you had a good grip on things and a plausible idea, you would get funding, go to the Bay, and make it happen.

I actually regret how slow I was to see it at the time. You could just do things, and yes, that's always been true, but at that time, you didn’t even have excuses. In my first year as an advisor at 80,000 Hours, I allowed people a lot of excuses. I think this came from [...]

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Outline:

(02:37) The Retreat

(07:03) What Greatness Demands

(10:59) Effective Altruism is Good and Right

---

First published:
March 7th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uHhcqagBBkhFTTGpq/effective-altruism-will-be-great-again

Linkpost URL:
https://open.substack.com/pub/frommatter/p/effective-altruism-will-be-great

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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“Feelings about the end of the world” by Michelle_Hutchinson

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 15:30:25 GMT

Many of us in this community are in the shocking position of thinking there's a real chance of humanity being wiped out over the next decade or two. Most of the time, we discuss that in rational terms. We talk about probabilities, and threat models, and interventions. We don’t talk as much about the emotions we have about how radically our world might change and about the possibility of it ending entirely.

There are lots of reasons for not talking about those feelings. For starters, it's often hard to know how we even do feel about it. There isn’t a straightforward societal script for how to feel about such radical world changes. People each have to figure it out for themselves, and feel very different ways. No one wants to sound extreme or crazy by talking about feeling very strongly about it. But they don’t want to sound callous either. And opening up about your feelings and being met without understanding and similarity feels alienating, particularly when it's about something so important. But the biggest reason I don’t talk about it is horror. I don’t want to think about it, and I don’t want to upset others.

[...]

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Outline:

(01:58) A range of feelings

(04:18) How I feel

(06:46) Different people are different

---

First published:
March 7th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZDKkhoJoS7qgq2wqA/feelings-about-the-end-of-the-world

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Mox is the largest AI Safety community space in San Francisco. We’re fundraising!” by Rachel Shu

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 01:45:25 GMT

Overview

Who we are

Mox is SF's largest AI safety coworking space, and also its primary Effective Altruism community space. We opened just over a year ago, and over the last year, we’ve served high-impact work in and around AI safety by hosting conferences, fellowships, events, and incubating new organizations.

Our theory of change is to provide good infrastructure (offices, event space) and a high density of collegial interactions to people and projects we admire. We're not focusing on a single specific thesis on AI safety. Instead, we aim to support many sorts of people and organizations who:

agree that transformative AI is on the horizon,
have a strong thesis about what it means for the world to go well,
are working on a project that we think credibly advances their thesis.

This includes many projects that are directly AI Safety, such as Seldon Lab, the broader Effective Altruist sphere such as Sentient Futures, and even more broadly non-EA projects by EAs or from EA and rationalist-friendly corners of the SF tech scene, such as Arbor Trading Bootcamp (pictured below). Many more examples of such work are are given in the "Current Operations" heading.

Our team also [...]

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Outline:

(00:13) Overview

(00:16) Who we are

(02:09) Why were raising

(03:01) How to donate

(03:14) Funding milestones

(03:17) ⬜ Raise $100k by March 15th (will be 1:1 matched!)

(03:57) ⬜ Raise $450k by April 1st

(05:05) ⬜ Raise $1.2m by June 1st

(05:59) Funding updates

(06:03) Raised $550k in 2025

(06:31) Delivered above expectations

(07:11) Present state of finances

(07:22) Revenue: ~$100k/mo

(07:46) Expenses: ~$130k/mo

(08:13) Sustainable by EOY

(08:52) Will still seek funding in future years

(09:04) Current operations

(09:08) Fellowships & programs

(10:10) How does Mox contribute to these programs success?

(10:45) Public events

(12:42) Individuals & coworking

(13:32) Member testimonials!

(14:26) Private offices and partner organizations

(16:01) Upcoming plans

(16:04) Grow and improve our main offerings

(17:01) Build an SF hub for animal welfare

(17:45) Attract international talent via Global Expert Fellowship

(18:30) Incubate new workshops and programs

---

First published:
March 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YMBrQhjyiuvT83WBz/mox-is-the-largest-ai-safety-community-space-in-san

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Announcing: AGI & Animals Debate Week” by Toby Tremlett🔹

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 14:45:05 GMT

During the week of March 23 – 29[1], we’ll be debating the statement:

“If AGI goes well for humans, it’ll probably[2] go well for animals”

I'm open to minor changes to the phrasing of this statement, but the general shape is locked in, since people might want to start writing posts for the debate week this weekend.

In this post, I’ll give some background on why this topic matters and share some tips and resources to help you form a view on the topic, before the debate week begins. But first:

How does a debate week work?

During an EA Forum debate week, we put a debate slider on the frontpage banner. It looks something like this:

Anyone who logs into the Forum can then vote on this banner. When you vote, you’re also asked if you want to leave a comment, which will appear on a discussion thread, and be attached to your icon on the banner.

Alongside the conversation in the discussion thread, Forum users also write posts which might influence readers towards agreeing or disagreeing with the statement.

Past debate weeks:

AI Welfare Debate Week (Jul 1–7, 2024) — "AI welfare should be an EA [...]

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Outline:

(00:42) How does a debate week work?

(01:24) Past debate weeks:

(02:02) Why this conversation matters

(03:30) Questions to consider

(04:42) Reading list

(05:37) How to contribute to debate week

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First published:
March 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tscrmtjpQjDGdhvgQ/announcing-agi-and-animals-debate-week

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“I underestimated AI capabilities (again)” by Ajeya

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 07:45:05 GMT

Note: This post was crossposted from Planned Obsolescence by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.

Revisiting a prediction ten months early

On Jan 14th, I made predictions about AI progress in 2026. My forecasts for software engineering capabilities already feel much too conservative.

In my view, METR (where I now work) has some of the hardest and highest-quality software engineering and ML engineering benchmarks out there, and the most useful framework for making benchmark performance intuitive: we measure a task's difficulty by the amount of time a human expert would take to complete it (called the “time horizon”).[1]

When I made my forecasts last month, the model with the longest measured time horizon on METR's suite of software engineering tasks was Claude Opus 4.5; it could succeed around half the time at software tasks that would take a human software engineer about five hours.[2] Time horizons on software tasks had been doubling a little less than twice a year from 2019 through 2025, which would have implied the state-of-the-art 50% time horizon should be somewhat less than 20 hours by the end of 2026.[3] But there [...]

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First published:
March 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/h3zcCh49kLE6egrfz/i-underestimated-ai-capabilities-again

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Comparing alternative proteins: which ones should we prioritize? A summary of my recent scoping review” by Tom Bry-Chevalier🔸

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 14:00:07 GMT

Context

Last year, I shared on this forum my growing skepticism about cultivated meat and the case for being more critical about where we direct resources in the alternative protein space. That post focused specifically on cultivated meat but the broader question behind it, one I had actually started working on before writing that post, is: if we look at the full landscape of alternative proteins, which ones actually deserve priority?

This question matters because, as with any cause prioritization exercise, resources are limited. Every dollar, every policy push, every year of R&D directed toward a suboptimal alternative is a resource not spent on a more promising one.The recent collapse of Ynsect despite €600 million in investment is a painful example of misallocated resources in the French alternative protein landscape, but the problem runs deeper than individual company failures. If we systematically back the wrong horses, we slow down the entire protein transition, and with it our ability to act on climate change and animal welfare.

This kind of prioritization thinking, which I'd say was directly inspired by EA principles, led me to write a scoping review that was recently published in npj Science of Food. The rest of [...]

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Outline:

(00:15) Context

(01:49) The problem with how we currently evaluate alternatives

(03:16) What the paper found

(03:43) Plant-based meats: the clear frontrunner

(05:13) Single-cell proteins: promising but uncertain

(06:24) Cultivated meat: still facing the problems I flagged last year

(08:18) Insects: the least promising option, despite popular assumptions

(10:27) Caveats

(11:05) A personal note

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First published:
March 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TMbrMxusL2ptW6pCF/comparing-alternative-proteins-which-ones-should-we

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

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“EA gives permission to care about many things” by Rockwell

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 10:00:21 GMT

A short post to put a feeling down in words...

One of the aspects of EA thinking I love the most is the way it sanctions caring, and caring broadly.

In a world faced with so many woes, caring is scary and often isolating. But EA says it's okay to care, and creates an entry point to a wonderful, wide world of other people who do, too.

People who care and make it known often become the target of pushback, especially when what they care about isn't widely, legibly socially sanctioned. In my days of street advocacy, this pushback often looked like passersby questioning why I cared about the cause I had turned up for and not [fill-in-the-blank alternative].

This was frustrating. Often, I did care about that other cause too; I was just not focusing that hour of my day on it.

EA asks a similar question, but it feels very different.

The question of focus is less:

“Why are you working on that instead of something that actually matters?”

And more:

“Your cause has value, but have you considered whether this alternative might warrant more of your attention?”

Because EA is a question. And in asking the [...]

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First published:
March 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vqDbLgSzZdoT6CzBK/ea-gives-permission-to-care-about-many-things

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Launching AI & Animals: A Documentary” by Animal_Ethics

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 06:30:21 GMT

This is a link post.

Following the release of the teaser earlier this year, Animal Ethics has now launched AI & Animals: A Documentary. The full film is freely available to watch and share at www.AIandAnimals.org.

The documentary examines how advances in AI may affect the lives of nonhuman animals, both negatively and positively. It features 16 advocates and academics discussing:

How AI systems could increase animal suffering in factory farming
How AI-driven research and monitoring can scale efforts to reduce wild animal suffering, and help develop research methods that do not harm animals?
The risks of embedding speciesist values in large language models and other AI systems, and what can be done about them
How animal advocates can use AI tools to increase the effectiveness and reach of their work

Contributors include Peter Singer, Jonathan Birch, Jeff Sebo, Oscar Horta, Bernice Bovenkerk, Matti Wilks, and others. The full list is available at AIandAnimals.org.

Most animal advocates are still unaware of the risks and opportunities that AI presents for animals. Meanwhile, the industry is already using AI to increase the efficiency of animal exploitation. History has shown us the cost of being reactive rather than proactive. We failed [...]

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First published:
March 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Nm5utfEwtQFnHDGLh/launching-ai-and-animals-a-documentary

Linkpost URL:
https://www.animal-ethics.org/animal-ethics-launches-ai-animals-a-documentary/

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“A call for biosecurity fieldbuilding” by Abbey Chaver

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 06:00:22 GMT

My name is Abbey, and I work at cG on the Capacity Building team. I’m posting to share an informal update about our excitement for biosecurity capacity building.

We’ve seen incredible progress in the field of technical AI safety and governance, and a lot of that is thanks to fieldbuilding programs.

We now think that on the margin, it's likely that biosecurity is neglected relative to AI safety. AI progress will likely significantly increase the capability of a bad actor (including a rogue AI) to engineer dangerous pathogens, and we’d like to grow the number of people preparing defenses against that scenario.

Specifically, our Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness team's research suggests that there are four pillars of pathogen-agnostic defenses that can significantly reduce bio x-risk; and because these are defensive measures (with less dual-use potential), we want to broadly encourage people to work on them. Some projects, like red teaming, could involve infohazards that warrant more caution; you can check in with the BPP team if you want to do work like this or encourage it.

The measures are:

Personal protective equipment (‘PPE’)
Pervasive physical barriers and layers of sterilization (‘biohardening’)
Pathogen-agnostic early-warning systems (‘detection’)
Rapid, reactive [...]

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First published:
March 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/N9tDHooyZzACmSmhj/a-call-for-biosecurity-fieldbuilding

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“CLR Summer Research Fellowship 2026” by Center on Long-Term Risk, Tristan Cook, Santeri T 🔹

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 17:15:21 GMT

We, the Center on Long-Term Risk, are looking for Summer Research Fellows to explore strategies for reducing suffering in the long-term future (s-risks) and work on technical AI safety ideas related to that. For eight weeks, fellows will be part of our team while working on their own research project. During this time, you will be in regular contact with our researchers and other fellows, and receive guidance from an experienced mentor.

You will work on challenging research questions relevant to reducing suffering. You will be integrated and collaborate with our team of intellectually curious, hard-working, and caring people, all of whom share a profound drive to make the biggest difference they can.

While this iteration retains the basic structure of previous rounds, there are several key differences:

We are particularly interested in applicants who wish to engage in s-risk relevant empirical AI safety work (more details on our priority areas below).
We encourage applications from individuals who may be less familiar with CLR's work on s-risk reduction but are nonetheless interested in empirical AI safety research. Our empirical agenda focuses on understanding LLM personas, in particular how malicious traits might arise.
We are especially looking for individuals seriously [...]

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Outline:

(01:51) About the Summer Research Fellowship

(01:55) Purpose of the fellowship

(03:29) Priority areas

(05:36) What we look for in candidates

(07:11) Program details

(07:26) Program dates

(07:38) Location & office space

(08:10) Compensation

(08:33) Program length & work quota

(08:53) Application process

(09:28) Stage 1

(09:52) Stage 2

(10:16) Stage 3

(10:44) Stage 4

(11:13) Why work with CLR

(13:13) Inquiries

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First published:
March 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cJBgd6cCke6FQPL5p/clr-summer-research-fellowship-2026

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Some good news: Ahold Delhaize to go cage-free” by ElliotTep

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 12:30:21 GMT

For those not working in the space this probably isn't on your radar, but the animal advocacy movement just secured a huge win with Ahold Delhaize, convincing the fourth-largest supermarket company in the US to set the strongest cage-free policy of any large US retailer:

A roadmap with benchmarks to fully eliminate caged egg cartons, expand cage-free offerings, and increase the percentage of cage-free sales.
A pledge to annually report on its progress.
At all 2,000+ locations, placing large, promotional shelf tags in front of cage-free cartons to differentiate cage-free and caged cartons for consumers.

This was a giant campaign. My understanding is that other companies were watching to see if this campaign would succeed or fail, to see if they would need to follow suit. In addition to the animals helped, this win will add pressure for competitors to do the same.

This was a coordinated effort among many groups, including: Center For Responsible Food Business; Animal Equality; International Council for Animal Welfare; The Humane League; Mercy For Animals; Compassion in World Farming; Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade and Animal Activist Collective.

Animal Equality states that this will affect 5-7 million hens. I know a lot [...]

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First published:
March 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2wePKArWWr4Xx6Zvf/some-good-news-ahold-delhaize-to-go-cage-free

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The AI Safety Conversation Is Missing 1.4 Billion People” by ANTHONIO OLADIMEJI

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 01:00:21 GMT

Cross-posted from my personal notes. I'm sharing this because I think the EA/AI safety community needs to hear it, and because I've been living it.

I lead AI safety work in Nigeria. When I tell people this, the most common reaction is a polite pause , the kind that says: that's interesting, but is that really AI safety?

I want to argue that it is. And that the gap it represents is one of the most neglected problems in the entire AI safety ecosystem.

The Situation on the Ground

I'm based in Ibadan, Nigeria. I am part of the AI Safety Fundamentals: AI Governance cohort for Nigeria under AI Safety Nigeria, and I hold an AI Lead appointment under the ITU — the UN's agency for ICT. In my day-to-day work, I deploy AI systems in low-resource healthcare settings, build multilingual NLP tools for communities that global AI largely ignores, and try to translate AI safety discourse into something meaningful for African researchers and policymakers.

Here's what I observe from that vantage point:

The global AI safety community is, with very few exceptions, a Western conversation. Its canonical texts were written in Oxford and Berkeley. Its conferences happen in [...]

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Outline:

(00:42) The Situation on the Ground

(02:19) Why This Is an AI Safety Problem, Not Just an AI for Good Problem

(05:15) What Im Actually Doing About It

---

First published:
March 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TzPwowQL3qH4EHYbt/the-ai-safety-conversation-is-missing-1-4-billion-people

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “KFC, Nando’s, Wagamama, and Burger King drop pledge to improve the welfare of chickens” by FunnyBriefly

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 21:30:21 GMT

This is a link post.

Major food companies in the UK, including KFC, Nando's, Wagamama, and Burger King, have dropped their pledge to improve the welfare of chickens.

The pledge in question is the Better Chicken Commitment (BCC), a six-point welfare initiative that corporations can voluntarily sign up to implement. Arguably, the most notable parts of the pledge are the creation of a maximum stocking density of 30kg/m2 or less, compared to the current UK standard of 39kg/m2, and the transition to slower-growing breeds of broiler chickens.

What implications does this kind of thing have for the cost-effectiveness estimates of charities like The Humane League where putting pressure on corporations to sign pledges to improve welfare is a large part of their work? How common is it for companies that sign these pledges to bail on them, actually?

(this post made from a temporary throwaway account)

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First published:
March 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AzjB2dLf5i4PhZcMd/kfc-nando-s-wagamama-and-burger-king-drop-pledge-to-improve

Linkpost URL:
https://earthlinged.substack.com/p/kfc-nandos-wagamama-and-burger-king

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “The 200-Person Revolution” by Zachary Segall

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 20:30:22 GMT

This is a link post.

THL's David and Goliath Story

When I joined The Humane League (THL) back in 2019, I expected them to have thousands of volunteers. After all, THL managed to strong-arm hundreds of major US corporations into adopting cage-free egg policies, creating an industry-level shift[1]. The reality I found was much different. Most of the events I attended had half a dozen protestors, a dozen at most. These numbers were reflected in the protest photos I saw from other cities. Multiplying the number of volunteers at an individual protest by the number of cities with active chapters, you get a figure that comes out to around 100 to 200 active volunteers nationwide[2]. That's fewer people than my high school graduating class.

And it's not like these volunteers are spending significant amounts of time on activism, either. When I started attending THL's protests and participating in their digital campaigns, I quickly found that I could run through all the available actions for the month in a couple of hours. Over the course of a year, these time commitments add up to somewhere between 10 and 20 total hours. To put it in another light, I spent more time last [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) THLs David and Goliath Story

(02:06) The Anatomy of Pressure Activism

(07:56) Implications for the Movement and You

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First published:
March 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/MKsh838GuSdQYM3g6/the-200-person-revolution

Linkpost URL:
https://thechickencoup.substack.com/p/the-200-person-revolution

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Aquaculture fragmentation is a portfolio problem CEAs miss” by Chiawen_Chiang

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 16:00:22 GMT

TLDR: Welfare interventions in aquaculture don't reliably transfer across species, so each species requires independent research and implementation. I introduce "target populations" as a unit of analysis to quantify how many groups exist. From 2000 to 2023, the number of species comprising 85% of aquaculture production grew from 14 to 22. This means the structural cost of covering the same share of the industry has grown substantially, independent of how well any single intervention performs. This is a portfolio problem, not an intervention problem, and many major producing countries are trending towards further fragmentation.

Summary

In terrestrial agriculture, one species (the domestic chicken) accounts for 89% of all farmed vertebrates. That lack of species diversity is part of what made cage-free campaigns scalable and tractable: the same welfare issues recurred across farms, enabling one intervention to address the same problem everywhere, and similar farm contexts made that intervention feasible everywhere.

Aquaculture does not have this structure. 22 species (e.g. Mrigal carp, Atlantic salmon) comprise 85% of farmed aquatic vertebrates, and 260 more account for the rest. This diversity has not consolidated over time. The number of species comprising the top 85% of production has increased from 14 to 22 [...]

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Outline:

(00:53) Summary

(03:38) What is a target population?

(04:06) Species distance is one dimension

(06:15) Other dimensions matter too

(07:04) Example: sea lice in Atlantic Salmon

(08:29) How many target populations are there in aquaculture?

(11:21) Trends in species diversity over time

(11:26) Global Trends

(11:57) Country Trends

(13:10) Fragmentation is a portfolio problem, not an intervention problem

(14:30) Do outcome-based standards sidestep this cost?

(15:51) What this means for the movement

(16:22) Recommendations

(18:54) Author Notes

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First published:
March 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gs9b8zdZ9oEgsxs9N/aquaculture-fragmentation-is-a-portfolio-problem-ceas-miss

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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“Help me refine the Forum’s-choice debate topic” by Toby Tremlett🔹

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:45:21 GMT

The statement we will be debating for the forum-choice debate week will be based on: "By default, the world where AI goes well for humans will also go well for other sentient beings".

The debate week will be held during the week of March 23 — 29.

This post is primarily to finalise the topic we will be discussing, and to ask for input from the Forum on the exact phrasing. However, I’m sure a bunch of readers who were following the vote for the forum-choice debate week will be wondering — why did the third-place entry win? I’ll address that first.

Why the third place entry won

In the voting post, in a footnote, I wrote: “Again, generic caveat here: there are legal and practical reasons that CEA might want to veto a topic. I personally think this is very unlikely, but we do reserve the right to veto if necessary. In the case of a veto, we'd move to the second highest karma topic.”

Unfortunately, what I thought was unlikely has indeed happened[1]. Extra unfortunately, we have vetoed the first two topics. As with most internal wranglings, there isn’t much that it's rational for me to [...]

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Outline:

(00:43) Why the third place entry won

(01:54) Refining the statement

(02:16) Ambiguities:

(02:52) A few refined versions

(02:57) On the margin, it is better for animals to work on the transition to AGI going well, than directly working on AI for animal welfare

(04:24) Without extra animal-focused work, even aligned superintelligence would be bad for non-human animals

(04:57) AGI which doesnt cause human extinction or disempowerment will value animal welfare

(05:15) Leave your feedback below

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First published:
March 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fAXCS6JhyBETGxNtY/help-me-refine-the-forum-s-choice-debate-topic

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Are We Underestimating Local Giving in LMICs?” by Moritz Stumpe 🔸

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 17:30:21 GMT

This is a Draft Amnesty Week draft. The idea to write this post came to me on Sunday morning, 1 March (the last day of Draft Amnesty Week). I already had other plans that day, so I wrote this quickly. LLM support may make this look more polished than it actually is.Commenting and feedback guidelines:
Above all, this is a call for discussion. I structured the argument primarily around animal advocacy (since this is what I know best) but I would love to see the discussion extend to other cause areas as well.

I’m writing in my personal capacity, not on behalf of Animal Advocacy Africa.

TL;DR

Almost all funding for effective animal advocacy in Africa comes from donors in the Global North. That's understandable (and often essential), but we may be underestimating the value and feasibility of cultivating local giving ecosystems in LMICs, including in Africa.

Local donors likely matter for more than just “more money”: they can shift which questions get asked, what feels legitimate, and how resilient a movement is if global attention or funding priorities change.

The issue

I work at Animal Advocacy Africa (AAA), where we help build the effective farmed animal advocacy movement across [...]

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Outline:

(00:18) TL;DR

(00:50) The issue

(01:48) Why this matters

(03:55) This seems tractable

(05:13) A common objection

(06:43) A call for discussion

---

First published:
March 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/P9uJL6oG5vCb7Hgua/are-we-underestimating-local-giving-in-lmics

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Effective Charity ≠ Effective Development (Global Health Edition)” by Berke

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 13:45:21 GMT

I wrote a draft on this a long time ago, thought I can publish it during draft amnesty, realized that it's pretty out of date and ended up spending a lot of time improving it. I'm confident about the questions and problems I raise here. I'm much less confident about what should be done about them or specific examples I provide.
These are my personal opinions, it doesn't reflect the opinions of any organizations I'm affiliated with. Thanks to Ben Anderson, Ceren Karabulut and Bahadır Şirin for feedback.

Two-sentence summary: Health progress at scale comes from stronger health systems, and there are probably cost-effective interventions to strengthen health systems in LMICs. EA has engaged little, and late, with finding what those interventions are in my opinion.

Actual Summary

EA has a strong track record of finding, funding, and founding cost-effective delivery NGOs, and has saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the process. It has a weak track record of conducting research, founding organizations, or funding programs aimed at effectively strengthening health systems that fail to serve people who need to be saved by philanthropists.

The historical record suggests that large-scale health gains usually from stronger health systems [...]

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Outline:

(04:54) Section 0. Effective Charity and Effective Development Are Different Activities

(09:09) Section 1: Global Health Reflects the Distinction

(12:30) 2. What I Mean by Health Systems Strengthening

(18:38) 3. EAs Portfolio Converged on a Specific Approach, For Understandable Reasons

(22:58) 4. The USAID Cuts Revealed the Distinction in Practice

(27:48) 4.1: Methodology Interlude: Cost-Effectiveness of Unlocking Government Programs

(30:16) 5. Recent Diversification Is Good, But Came Late and Remains Narrow

(33:32) 6. Why This Gap Persists

(39:16) 7. Some Potential Directions

---

First published:
March 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/p7EbDRK4FCs2795uh/effective-charity-effective-development-global-health

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Don’t scale up your lifestyle” by Dave Cortright 🔸

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 12:15:23 GMT

This is a Draft Amnesty Week draft. It may not be polished, up to my usual standards, fully thought through, or fully fact-checked.

Commenting and feedback guidelines:
Keep one and delete the rest (or write your own):

I'm posting this to get it out there. I'd love to see comments that take the ideas forward, but criticism of my argument won't be as useful at this time.
This draft lacks the polish of a full post, but the content is almost there. The kind of constructive feedback you would normally put on a Forum post is very welcome.
This is a Forum post that I wouldn't have posted without the nudge of Draft Amnesty Week. Fire away! (But be nice, as usual)

The simplest way to have more impact across your entire lifespan is to scale up your earnings, but don’t scale up your lifestyle.

This is an “earn to give” strategy, so it should apply to nearly every EA. Even if you are working for an effective cause at an effective organization, you should be earning a living wage that includes enough headroom to tithe. (If you're not, I’m sure folks at the Centre for Effective Altruism would love [...]

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First published:
March 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pjH7XPeHf6feiJCZh/don-t-scale-up-your-lifestyle

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“AI Should Not Be Used for Research Writing Tasks” by Joshua Krook

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 10:45:21 GMT

Summary

There is significant pressure in research communities to use LLMs like ChatGPT or Claude for research writing tasks. This includes summarising documents, brainstorming ideas, core writing and grammar / editing.

It has gotten to the point where, if you mention a research idea, people routinely respond "ask Claude," or "ask ChatGPT". The assumption is that researchers should no longer work alone on tasks, and should always work in AI-human teams, where the human takes the back seat.

I argue that LLMs should not be used for any core writing tasks or brainstorming, in any research activity. I'm open to the idea that they should be used to summarise large amounts of information, search queries, data crunching, editing and grammar.

My view comes from seeing firsthand the harms AI writing is causing to researchers. I have directly seen (i) deskilling, (ii) over-reliance, (iii) bias and errors of reasoning, (iv) gradual disempowerment.

I'm also concerned that AI writing distorts the job market, making unqualified candidates seem better than they are, leading to negative hiring outcomes.

Brief Background

AI writing seems like a natural thing to rely on. You can quickly generate ideas, generate drafts and generate feedback. The adoption [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) Summary

(01:25) Brief Background

(02:18) A. Origins of My Concern

(03:40) Risks of Using AI for Research Writing

(05:07) The Groupthink Problem Elaborated

(06:16) A Brief Refutation of Counterarguments:

---

First published:
February 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zd3wbCc2Lkt3tqvtn/ai-should-not-be-used-for-research-writing-tasks

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Why isn’t anti-fascism a bigger topic at EAG events (or on this forum)?” by Alex_Z

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 01:45:46 GMT

TL;DR: Define your line that if crossed, you would consider this issue one of (if not the most) pressing issues, or at least pressing enough to warrant some of your time.

I want to start with a clarification that I learned while writing this post. In the United States, charities with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status are permitted to discuss policy and engage in advocacy, but are prohibited from participating in partisan political campaigns. I have also read the EA Forum post Politics on the EA Forums and I believe this post is consistent with those norms. I am not advocating for or against any party, candidate, or electoral campaign. The question I want to raise is broader: whether creeping authoritarianism, anti-fascism, and authoritarian lock-in should be discussed more explicitly in EA spaces as subjects of analysis and concern. Although my own experience is local to me in Canada, the question is clearly relevant to the current situation in the United States and globally.

I’m asking this sincerely: why isn’t anti-fascism a bigger topic at EAG events or on this forum? I was thinking about it while planning my trip to EAG San Francisco 2026. Should I be travelling to [...]

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First published:
March 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dgnCabfdXy6jv4gDu/why-isn-t-anti-fascism-a-bigger-topic-at-eag-events-or-on

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“New cause area: human intelligence amplification” by TsviBT

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 18:00:46 GMT

The cause of human intelligence amplification (aka HIA, human intelligence enhancement, human intelligence augmentation) seems to have very little discussion on this forum; those terms (in quotations) give only a handful of search results. I think this is a big mistake. In particular, I think that reprogenetics is a good cause area that should get more resources.

Reprogenetics is biotechnology used to empower parents to make genomic choices on behalf of their future children. Reprogenetics would most likely work for HIA, is morally good, and is likely technically feasible and acceleratable.

Let's have a discussion about this. We can talk here in comments. If you have substantial thoughts / a strong position against, we could have a discussion or debate on a call and post it to YouTube.

At a meta level, it may be that EA as a whole (or all the individual EAs, mysteriously) have simply dismissed HIA in general or reprogenetics in particular. In other words, some decision has already been made to not pursue those causes, and this decision is not open for discussion or debate. That would prima facie go against the ideals of EA. I think that would be ok [...]

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First published:
March 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QLugEBJJ3HYyAcvwy/new-cause-area-human-intelligence-amplification

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“OpenAI from Non-profit to deal with the U.S. Department of War” by Nicolae

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 23:15:46 GMT

OpenAI's new deal to deploy AI models on U.S. Department of War classified network:

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/27/openai-strikes-deal-with-pentagon-hours-after-rival-anthropic-was-blacklisted-by-trump.html

I think I’m not alone in this assessment, but @80,000 Hours should remove all OpenAI roles from their job board and amend any articles they’ve published recommending working at OpenAI.

We had these discussions before on the forum:

80,000 hours should remove OpenAI from the Job Board (and similar EA orgs should do similarly) — EA Forum

---

Outline:

(00:11) OpenAIs new deal to deploy AI models on U.S. Department of War classified network:

(01:40) I think Im not alone in this assessment, but @80,000 Hours should remove all OpenAI roles from their job board and amend any articles theyve published recommending working at OpenAI.

---

First published:
February 28th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zYEkakZiRAbgxfDxQ/openai-from-non-profit-to-deal-with-the-u-s-department-of

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

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“Animal advocates should be cautious of cost-effectiveness” by Dilan Fernando

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 20:15:45 GMT

Disclaimer: This post isn't a critique of any grant-making or research organisation I know of - I imagine most of them think about cost-effectiveness in a nuanced way, rather than falling into the traps I describe below. However, I do think some individuals fall into these traps, and I thought it could be valuable to the community to capture these ideas in writing.

The potential problem with cost-effectiveness (in animal advocacy)

We can all agree that we want to get the most impact for our buck when we direct resources. A central EA practice, therefore, is to seek out cost-effective projects - those which maximise impact per dollar spent.

In principle, this is great. In practice, if you're an animal advocate, it leads to tricky territory.

It's one thing to assess projects' cost-effectiveness when you are clear on what "impact" actually means. If we are optimising for "lives saved" - as is common in the global health space - then it's sensible to compare different projects and choose the ones which save the most lives per dollar. Likewise, if we're optimising for the reduction of near-term animal suffering, then we can compare welfare improvement projects using a [...]

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Outline:

(00:32) The potential problem with cost-effectiveness (in animal advocacy)

(03:32) When cost-effectiveness clearly makes sense

(04:50) So what about when things arent so clear-cut?

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First published:
February 26th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zQfCdoGcFYzzThrwd/animal-advocates-should-be-cautious-of-cost-effectiveness

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Books I’d Like To See Written” by MikkoJarvenpaa

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 18:30:46 GMT

TL;DR. We're looking for people who want to write books that can shape narratives and help establish their authors as thought leaders. A list of 10 book ideas follows, mostly around meta-EA and farmed animal causes. If you have an idea for a book that might fit the pattern (also in other topics), or you think someone should publish a book about their ideas, read more and maybe get in touch.

Hi EA Forum,

I’m the founder of Worldshapers. We’re a relatively new nonprofit aiming to build cultural capital and discussion around ideas that make the world better. We help people write and publish books and promote authors and their ideas to ensure they reach the audiences they are targeting. Our theory of change isn’t that books will change the world, but that our shared narratives will. Publishing a book is one great way of getting a person's name out there: a book is a marketable event, and that marketing can be more targeted than the actual readership will be.

We’ve recently published three books with our own imprint, Books of Change, and some of our other participants have either signed a publishing deal or a literary agent to [...]

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Outline:

(02:11) How To Care: Make Progress Toward a Better World Without Being Overwhelmed

(02:48) Trust and Evidence: Trust-Based Philanthropy That Creates Lasting Change

(03:22) The Portfolio Philanthropist: Funding Under Uncertainty

(03:58) The Fieldbuilders Handbook: How to Create Momentum for Neglected Problems

(04:32) Better Decisions, Faster: Methods for Making Fewer Mistakes at Scale

(05:07) The Protein Policy Playbook: A Governors Guide to The Future of Food

(05:46) Food Security Is National Security: Feeding People Through Shocks, Disruptions, and Scarcity

(06:45) Nugget: The History and Future of Americas Favorite Food

(07:18) Wild Ambition: The Growing Movement Behind Wild Animal Welfare

(07:50) Success on Aisle Six: How to Build a Grocery Retail Food Brand From Idea to National Distribution

---

First published:
February 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hMscNkA2cWfg7nNNu/books-i-d-like-to-see-written

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Pete Hegseth replies to Anthropic’s “defective altruism”” by Jacob_Peacock

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 01:15:47 GMT

This is a link post.

Full Tweet below:

This week, Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon.

Our position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must have full, unrestricted access to Anthropic's models for every LAWFUL purpose in defense of the Republic.

Instead, @AnthropicAI and its CEO @DarioAmodei , have chosen duplicity. Cloaked in the sanctimonious rhetoric of “effective altruism,” they have attempted to strong-arm the United States military into submission - a cowardly act of corporate virtue-signaling that places Silicon Valley ideology above American lives.

The Terms of Service of Anthropic's defective altruism will never outweigh the safety, the readiness, or the lives of American troops on the battlefield.

Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable.

As President Trump stated on Truth Social, the Commander-in-Chief and the American people alone will determine the destiny of our armed forces, not unelected tech executives.

Anthropic's stance is fundamentally incompatible with American principles. Their [...]

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First published:
February 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eJ7qhuNMnQshJQPkP/pete-hegseth-replies-to-anthropic-s-defective-altruism

Linkpost URL:
https://x.com/SecWar/status/2027507717469049070

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“You’re not burning out because you’re tired” by stefan.torges

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 23:30:46 GMT

I burned out badly a few years ago. I've since had several conversations with people in the EA community who are heading toward burnout themselves, and I noticed they were sometimes thinking about it in ways that I worry wouldn't help them. So I want to share what I think is actually going on, and what I wish someone had told me earlier.

A theory of burnout

There are good models of the mechanism of burnout already out there. Anna Salamon has written about willpower as a kind of internal currency: your conscious planner "earns" trust with your deeper, more visceral processes by choosing actions that nourish them, and goes "credibility-broke" when it spends that trust without replenishing it. Cate Hall describes something similar with her metaphor of the elephant and the rider: the rider promises the elephant rewards in exchange for effort, and burnout is what happens when those promises are broken too many times.

I usually explain this in terms of an energy imbalance: you're putting more into your work than you're getting back. Not just in terms of rest, but in terms of meaning, autonomy, connection, a sense of accomplishment, positive feedback. All the things that [...]

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Outline:

(00:29) A theory of burnout

(02:23) Why EA culture builds effective cages

(06:11) What it actually felt like

(07:10) What I want to push back on

(08:31) What Id encourage if youre in the grey zone

(10:50) What recovery actually looked like

(11:55) What I learned, and didnt learn

---

First published:
February 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2veCceQkhjovCfdbg/you-re-not-burning-out-because-you-re-tired

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“CEA’s response to sexual harassment” by Fran

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 20:00:46 GMT

In this piece, I discuss the sexual harassment I experienced at the Centre for Effective Altruism, the organisation's response, the outcomes of two independent legal reviews, and the final settlement. In the second part of this piece, I make cultural critiques of CEA and EA more broadly.

Everything shared here reflects my own experience and perspective. I have anonymised the perpetrator, but I reference specific leadership roles where I believe this to be appropriate and necessary.

Trigger warnings: non-specific reference of rape and specific discussion of sexual harassment

TL;DR (One-page summary)

After I was raped (outside of and unrelated to work), a colleague at CEA wrote and circulated a document that included a sexualised description of my rape, speculation about my mental health, and commentary on my personal life, all without my consent. Several senior leaders, including the CEO and the now-former COO, received this document and took no safeguarding action for approximately nine months. I was never officially informed of its existence; I only learned about it informally through one of the recipients.

After I filed a harassment report, the incident was independently investigated and determined to be harassment. Despite this, I was denied access to the document [...]

---

Outline:

(00:47) TL;DR (One-page summary)

(03:38) A more detailed account

(03:42) The sexual harassment incident

(06:42) The investigation

(10:38) The appeal and final report

(14:02) Public accountability versus internal processes

(16:59) The final settlement agreement

(18:54) I still think there is a lot of good in effective altruism

(20:33) Various cultural reflections

(20:50) 1) Sexual harassment is not the natural result of an open and high-trust culture, it is the natural result of misogyny.

(22:46) 2) The danger of EAs fixation on intent and why he didnt mean it is not good enough.

(24:11) 3) Cowardice and deference at CEA.

(26:30) 4) Women in EA are often encouraged to try and settle things informally or to trust their organisations -- another abuse of high-trust culture.

(28:45) 5) A harmful misunderstanding of trauma and mitigating vs. aggravating factors.

(30:27) 6) I have encountered so many EAs who believe it is easy for victims to speak publicly, or to share their experiences with other community members. And thus, if they arent regularly hearing from victims, harassment must be rare.

(33:02) To any women who have faced something similar

(34:40) Acknowledgements

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First published:
February 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XxXnPoGQ2eKsQx3FE/cea-s-response-to-sexual-harassment

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“GWWC’s 2026 strategy: strengthening foundations & accelerating growth” by Giving What We Can🔸

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 18:45:46 GMT

After a successful 2025 laying the foundations, this year we're strengthening our foundations and starting to accelerate growth towards our Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG): 1 million pledgers donating $3B USD to high-impact charities annually.

Where we are

Giving What We Can is working towards a world without preventable suffering or existential risk, where everyone is able to flourish. We do this by making giving effectively and significantly a norm among those who can afford it.

Our community of ~20,000 pledgers and donors has already given more than $500M across a range of causes, from global health to animal welfare and from climate to AI safety, and currently records ~$80M per year in donations with Giving What We Can, either by giving through our donation platform or reporting on donations for their pledge. Even only counting donations to GiveWell recommended funds and charities in global health, our community currently prevents the death of a child every three hours.

Last year, we announced our BHAG and laid the organisational foundations for building towards it. Among other things, we recruited an executive team with experience scaling similar products and organisations, grew our team from 10 to 16 core staff, set [...]

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Outline:

(00:31) Where we are

(02:20) Whats changing in 2026

(02:24) Were making the donation platform more central to our strategy

(03:41) Were making pledge fulfillment a priority

(04:41) Were doubling down on whats working while making new big bets

(05:35) What stays the same

(06:26) What we wont do

(07:24) What GWWC could look like by the end of 2028

(08:37) Get involved

---

First published:
February 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EbPqzycwzag9vRbwL/gwwc-s-2026-strategy-strengthening-foundations-and

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Here’s to the Polypropylene Makers” by Jeff Kaufman 🔸

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 13:00:46 GMT

Six years ago, as covid-19 was rapidly spreading through the US, my sister was working as a medical resident. One day she was handed an N95 and told to "guard it with her life", because there weren't any more coming.

N95s are made from meltblown polypropylene, produced from plastic pellets manufactured in a small number of chemical plants. Building more would take too long: we needed these plants producing all the pellets they could.

Braskem America operated plants in Marcus Hook PA and Neal WV. If there were infections on-site, the whole operation would need to shut down, and the factories that turned their pellets into mask fabric would stall.

Companies everywhere were figuring out how to deal with this risk. The standard approach was staggering shifts, social distancing, temperature checks, and lots of handwashing. This reduced risk, but it was still significant: each shift change was an opportunity for someone to bring an infection from the community into the factory.

I don't know who had the idea, but someone said: what if we never left? About eighty people, across both plants, volunteered to move in. The plan was four weeks, twelve-hour [...]

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First published:
February 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/DBbgMgbPthABqn2No/here-s-to-the-polypropylene-makers

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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[Linkpost] “Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War” by Matrice Jacobine🔸🏳️‍⚧️

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 04:15:46 GMT

This is a link post.

I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies, and to defeat our autocratic adversaries.

Anthropic has therefore worked proactively to deploy our models to the Department of War and the intelligence community. We were the first frontier AI company to deploy our models in the US government's classified networks, the first to deploy them at the National Laboratories, and the first to provide custom models for national security customers. Claude is extensively deployed across the Department of War and other national security agencies for mission-critical applications, such as intelligence analysis, modeling and simulation, operational planning, cyber operations, and more.

Anthropic has also acted to defend America's lead in AI, even when it is against the company's short-term interest. We chose to forgo several hundred million dollars in revenue to cut off the use of Claude by firms linked to the Chinese Communist Party (some of whom have been designated by the Department of War as Chinese Military Companies), shut down CCP-sponsored cyberattacks that attempted to abuse Claude, and have advocated for strong export controls on chips to ensure a democratic advantage.

Anthropic understands that the [...]

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First published:
February 26th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PnzfLxaG9mX6JrDKe/statement-from-dario-amodei-on-our-discussions-with-the

Linkpost URL:
https://www.anthropic.com/news/statement-department-of-war

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Bregman makes a strong argument for boycotting Chat GPT” by NickLaing

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 01:00:51 GMT

This is a link post.

Is now the time to Boycott Chat GPT? I've raised boycotts here before and EAs seem a bit allergic, but I think @Rutger Bregman makes a strong case. Costs little, the time seems ripe and it might achieve something big.

If there was even a 5% chance that a boycott could seriously either harm Open AI or make them reform their approach (optimistic?) it, might it be worth putting some energy or even EA money into supporting this cause? Unfortunately OpenPhil probably couldn't as they have such a conflict of interest with Anthropic, but others could. That is if money is even needed to support htis.

I'm not sure about this but one short Linkedin post almost sold me on it! This guy Bregman sure knows how to communicate....

"... The Montgomery Bus Boycott wasn't a protest against all of American segregation. It targeted one bus company, in one city. A year later, it had broken the back of segregated transit.

I believe we're looking at a similar moment right now with ChatGPT.

Most people don't know that ChatGPT's president, Greg Brockman, donated $25 million to Trump's MAGA Super [...]

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First published:
February 25th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/J8FRrRRaCWHAmfvjY/bregman-makes-a-strong-argument-for-boycotting-chat-gpt

Linkpost URL:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7432447250624167936/

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Half the World Is Trying to Promote Democracy; Shouldn’t EAs Help Animals?” by alene

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 21:45:51 GMT

Dear Beloved Fellow EAs,

Inspired to post this because it's draft amnesty week.

I'm sure others here have thought about this more than me, so maybe I'm missing a lot. But I just keep thinking:

When I turn on the news, it feels like half the world is trying to promote Democracy. I'm an American. So maybe what I really mean is: It feels like half of American society is trying to promote Democracy or save America from authoritarianism. When I go outside and walk just a few blocks from where I live, I repeatedly see large numbers of people protesting to save America's democracy. When I talk to my family, the issue of promoting American democracy is top of mind for all of them. I know a lot of my smart, hard-working, law school and college classmates are also very focused on protecting democracy.

But hardly any people seem to be focused on helping animals. And there are so many animals suffering egregiously all the time. There were before half of America started worrying about Democracy and, at this rate, there will be even more animals suffering after half of America stops worrying about Democracy.

Democracy mostly benefits [...]

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First published:
February 25th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LbYvPdeFjCvWaAaEj/half-the-world-is-trying-to-promote-democracy-shouldn-t-eas

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Effective Zakat Fund 2026” by Muslim Impact Lab, GiveDirectly

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 14:15:51 GMT

GiveDirectly has launched their 3rd high-impact, evidence-backed Zakat fund in Mozambique, one of the most neglected crises in the world today. Through direct cash transfers, families receive support quickly, transparently, and with full autonomy over how to use it.

At a glance, this fund:

Sends 100% of your Zakat directly to eligible Muslim families in northern Mozambique
Provides $550 in unconditional cash per household
Uses an evidence-backed approach supported by 1,000+ studies
Is fully Zakat-compliant, certified by qualified Islamic scholars
Uses no Zakat for overheads, with operational costs funded separately
Preserves dignity and choice, allowing families to decide what they need most

Visit https://www.givedirectly.org/zakat2026/ to donate.

A forgotten crisis

Mozambique has been called “the forgotten crisis” — 4 in 5 of people were already living in extreme poverty (one of the highest rates of poverty in the world) before the country lost 70% of their U.S. aid funding from cuts last year.

In northern Mozambique, where your Zakat funds will go, families face overlapping crises: armed conflict and violence, worsening cyclones, and high rates of malaria and infant mortality.

Despite the scale of need, these Muslim communities are often overlooked by international aid organizations and remain unseen by Muslims giving Zakat.

GiveDirectly has [...]

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Outline:

(01:04) A forgotten crisis

(01:58) The evidence for cash

(03:36) Zakat and cash

(05:35) Recording of the Webinar

(06:05) About the Authors

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First published:
February 25th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2wPzWE8aoegdikFwf/effective-zakat-fund-2026

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“How To Safeguard Democracy” by Evelyn H., Initiative for Safeguarding Democracy

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 09:00:51 GMT

Introduction

Democracy is in danger. This post examines how we can protect it.

It provides an overview of the global state of democracy, explains current threats to democracy and their causes, presents effective countermeasures against autocratization, and explores what role this issue should (or should not) play within effective altruism.

What this post does not include are concrete comparative figures on the effectiveness of different interventions, or a quantitative analysis of possible strategies. Nor does it aim to offer a one-size-fits-all set of recommendations.

Instead, my goal is to provide a broad first overview of the topic, drawing both on activist experience and on political-science research. I hope that every politically interested reader will find something in it that is relevant to them. If you feel that a part of the article is not relevant to you, you can simply skip it.

The post is based on a talk that I prepared for the German-speaking EA community. Accordingly, the post focuses primarily on developments in Germany, Western Europe and the United States. However, many of the trends and strategies discussed are also relevant to other parts of the world. The reason I do not cover them in the [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) Introduction

(01:32) Outline

(02:21) Why Are There No Footnotes?

(02:46) Initiative for Safeguarding Democracy

(03:27) What is Democracy?

(03:30) Electoral and Liberal Democracy

(05:03) Autocracy

(05:59) Autocratization and Democratization

(07:56) Democracy and Autocratization in the 21st Century

(08:02) The Third Wave of Autocratization

(10:27) Measuring Democracy

(12:28) Threats to Democracy

(16:59) Why People Become Opponents of Liberal Democracy

(19:43) What We Can Do

(19:46) Before and After the Onset of Autocratization

(20:49) How to be an Autocrat

(23:50) How to Resist Wannabe Autocrats

(27:25) Traditional activism

(30:24) Online Activism

(31:38) Reports to law enforcement authorities

(32:49) Donating

(33:43) Career

(34:58) Self-Protection Without Anticipatory Obedience

(36:50) Autocratization Does Not Affect Everyone Equally

(36:55) Targeted Repression

(39:09) Protecting Vulnerable Groups

(42:03) Safeguarding Democracy as an EA Cause Area

(42:09) Should EA be Political?

(43:06) How Neglected is Safeguarding Democracy?

(44:06) An EA Approach to Politics

(46:22) Acknowledgements

(46:37) Literature

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First published:
February 24th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/iTqSkovKqej8w9cuE/how-to-safeguard-democracy

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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[Linkpost] “Exclusive: Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards” by Matrice Jacobine🔸🏳️‍⚧️

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 07:15:54 GMT

This is a link post.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei until Friday evening to give the military unfettered access to its AI model or face harsh penalties, Axios has learned.

The big picture: Hegseth told Amodei in a tense meeting on Tuesday that the Pentagon will either cut ties and declare Anthropic a "supply chain risk," or invoke the Defense Production Act to force the company to tailor its model to the military's needs.

Why it matters: The Pentagon wants to punish Anthropic as the feud over AI safeguards grows increasingly nasty, but officials are also worried about the consequences of losing access to its industry-leading model, Claude.

"The only reason we're still talking to these people is we need them and we need them now. The problem for these guys is they are that good," a Defense official told Axios ahead of the meeting.
Anthropic has said it is willing to adapt its usage policies for the Pentagon, but not to allow its model to be used for the mass surveillance of Americans or the development of weapons that fire without human involvement.
Anthropic's Claude is the only AI model currently used for the [...]

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First published:
February 24th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zgapPtx5XvpLKNWkL/exclusive-hegseth-gives-anthropic-until-friday-to-back-down-1

Linkpost URL:
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/24/anthropic-pentagon-claude-hegseth-dario

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Responsible Scaling Policy v3” by Holden Karnofsky

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 21:45:51 GMT

All views are my own, not Anthropic's. This post assumes Anthropic's announcement of RSP v3.0 as background.

Today, Anthropic released its Responsible Scaling Policy 3.0. The official announcement discusses the high-level thinking behind it. This is a more detailed post giving my own takes on the update.

First, the big picture:

I expect some people will be upset about the move away from a “hard commitments”/”binding ourselves to the mast” vibe. (Anthropic has always had the ability to revise the RSP, and we’ve always had language in there specifically flagging that we might revise away key commitments in a situation where other AI developers aren’t adhering to similar commitments. But it's been easy to get the impression that the RSP is “binding ourselves to the mast” and committing to unilaterally pause AI development and deployment under some conditions, and Anthropic is responsible for that.)
I take significant responsibility for this change. I have been pushing for this change for about a year now, and have led the way in developing the new RSP. I am in favor of nearly everything about the changes we’re making. I am excited about the Roadmap, the Risk Reports, the move toward external [...]

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Outline:

(05:32) How it started: the original goals of RSPs

(11:25) How its going: the good and the bad

(11:51) A note on my general orientation toward this topic

(14:56) Goal 1: forcing functions for improved risk mitigations

(15:02) A partial success story: robustness to jailbreaks for particular uses of concern, in line with the ASL-3 deployment standard

(18:24) A mixed success/failure story: impact on information security

(20:42) ASL-4 and ASL-5 prep: the wrong incentives

(25:00) When forcing functions do and dont work well

(27:52) Goal 2 (testbed for practices and policies that can feed into regulation)

(29:24) Goal 3 (working toward consensus and common knowledge about AI risks and potential mitigations)

(30:59) RSP v3s attempt to amplify the good and reduce the bad

(36:01) Do these benefits apply only to the most safety-oriented companies?

(37:40) A revised, but not overturned, vision for RSPs

(39:08) Q&A

(39:10) On the move away from implied unilateral commitments

(39:15) Is RSP v3 proactively sending a race-to-the-bottom signal? Why be the first company to explicitly abandon the high ambition for achieving low levels of risk?

(40:34) How sure are you that a voluntary industry-wide pause cant happen? Are you worried about signaling that youll be the first to defect in a prisoners dilemma?

(42:03) How sure are you that you cant actually sprint to achieve the level of information security, alignment science understanding, and deployment safeguards needed to make arbitrarily powerful AI systems low-risk?

(43:49) What message will this change send to regulators? Will it make ambitious regulation less likely by making companies commitments to low risk look less serious?

(45:10) Why did you have to do this now - couldnt you have waited until the last possible moment to make this change, in case the more ambitious risk mitigations ended up working out?

(46:03) Could you have drafted the new RSP, then waited until you had to invoke your escape clause and introduced it then? Or introduced the new RSP as what we will do if we invoke our escape clause?

(47:29) The new Risk Reports and Roadmap are nice, but couldnt you have put them out without also making the key revision of moving away from unilateral commitments?

(48:26) Why isnt a unilateral pause a good idea? It could be a big credible signal of danger, which could lead to policy action.

(49:37) Could a unilateral pause ever be a good idea? Why not commit to a unilateral pause in cases where it would be a good idea?

(50:31) Why didnt you communicate about the change differently? Im worried that the way you framed this will cause audience X to take away message Y.

(51:53) Why dont Anthropics and your communications about this have a more alarmed and/or disappointed vibe? I reluctantly concede that this revision makes sense on the merits, but Im sad about it. Arent you?

(53:19) On other components of the new RSP

(53:24) The new RSPs commitments related to competitors seem vague and weak. Could you add more and/or strengthen these? They dont seem sufficient as-is to provide strong assurance against a prisoners dilemma world where each relevant company wishes it could be more careful, but rushes due to pressure from others.

(55:29) Why is external review only required at an extreme capability level? Why not just require it now?

(58:06) The new commitments are mostly about Risk Reports and Roadmap - what stops companies from just making these really perfunctory?

(59:18) Why isnt the RSP more adversarially designed such that once a company adopts it, it will improve their practices even if nobody at the company values safety at all?

(01:00:18) What are the consequences of missing your Roadmap commitments? If they arent dire, will anyone care about them?

(01:00:29) OK, but does that apply to other companies too? How will Roadmaps force other companies to get things done?

(01:00:40) Why arent the recommendations for industry-wide safety more specific? Why is it built around safety cases instead of ASLs with specific lists of needed risk mitigations?

(01:02:06) What is the point of making commitments if you can revise them anytime?

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First published:
February 24th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/DGZNAGL2FNJfftwgE/responsible-scaling-policy-v3-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The Discovery Problem: Why EA Can’t Find What It Isn’t Looking For” by Midtermist12

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 14:45:51 GMT

Introduction

(Written with extensive AI-assistance, including in drafting)

Effective altruism has moved billions of dollars toward evidence-based interventions and saved lives. The analytical machinery the community has built (cost-effectiveness models, uncertainty quantification, comparative frameworks) represents a real contribution to how philanthropy works. These achievements are what makes the problem I'm describing so costly.

EA assembled one of the most capable, motivated, and intellectually diverse groups of people on earth. Tens of thousands of people with backgrounds spanning medicine, technology, policy, behavioral science, philosophy, and more, drawn together by a shared commitment to figuring out how to do the most good.

Then it built a system that asks for their labor and money while largely ignoring what they know.

EA is exceptionally good at one epistemic task: given a cause area, identifying the most cost-effective interventions within it. But there's a different task, discovering entirely new categories of opportunity, that the community is structurally resistant to performing.[^1] The primary reason is that EA treats its members as resources to be deployed, not as sources of insight to be listened to.

This post argues that EA's most important epistemic resource is the distributed knowledge and diverse perspectives of its members, and [...]

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Outline:

(00:13) Introduction

(02:10) The Telescope Array

(03:57) How Ideas Actually Enter EA Priorities

(07:59) The Exceptions That Prove the Rule

(11:17) Why Path 5 Fails

(16:06) Why the Equilibrium Persists

(18:19) What Would a Functional Path 5 Look Like?

(20:19) Conclusion

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First published:
February 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oeoMD6HRTZmmrFEkG/the-discovery-problem-why-ea-can-t-find-what-it-isn-t

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“You Should Donate To EA Fundraisers or Community-Builders rather than GiveWell’s Top Charities” by Kestrel🔸

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 13:30:51 GMT

Otherwise known as: Effective givers should bankroll more effective giving infrastructure

Do you donate a significant amount to GiveWell's Top Charities, perhaps because you have pledged money and you want to end preventable childhood death? Would you like more money to go to GiveWell's Top Charities? You should instead consider donating to:

A professional effective giving fundraising organisation, that employs staff to fundraise on behalf of GiveWell's Top Charities. There are a load of them around with 3x or greater multipliers and real funding gaps. I'd actually like to see someone do a proper public analysis of this space to work out where the reasonable multipliers and consistent funding gaps are.
Your local EA community-builder or local EA group's operations costs, or other small EA thing happening in your local area. Tell them you would like effective giving towards GiveWell's Top Charities to be a more visible and valued part of the EA movement and that is the purpose of your donation. There are many EA community-builders who are able to use extra money to expand the EA movement in such a way as GiveWell's Top Charities get extra money at at least a 1x multiplier. They [...]

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First published:
February 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Z9gdKj7eGsy3rzurH/you-should-donate-to-ea-fundraisers-or-community-builders

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“3 recent posts from Effective Altruism Australia about our work and strategy” by GraceAdams🔸, Effective Altruism Australia

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 11:00:50 GMT

I joined Effective Altruism Australia as CEO back in July 2025, after spending 3.5 years as the Head of Marketing at Giving What We Can. I wanted to share a few blog posts from our website, that help give some insight into our work and direction going forward.

What does Effective Altruism Australia do?

Effective Altruism Australia (EAA) champions the principles of effective altruism in Australia and connects Australians to practical actions through giving and community.

We primarily raise money for effective charities in global health and climate change (through the EAA Environment charity). We would likely fundraise for other causes if they were tax-deductible in Australia, but that's a story for another time.

We also have a national community building team who support EAGxAustralasia, as well as the EA community across the country.

Effective Altruism Australia's Strategy Summary for 2026

Our guiding motto for 2026 is “Strengthen the Soil, Test What Grows”. This reflects our aim to consolidate best practices and build a strong foundation for future growth. Our focus is on strengthening core programs, improving consistency and quality of fundraising and communications practices, and ensuring EAA is well-positioned to scale sustainably over time.

Why EAA is [...]

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Outline:

(01:08) Effective Altruism Australias Strategy Summary for 2026

(01:41) Why EAA is Investing in Growth (And How Were Funding It)

(02:36) 2025. Giving Multiplier: Scaling Impact Without Compromising Efficiency

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First published:
February 24th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/c2JxgQfb36NhMjkeZ/3-recent-posts-from-effective-altruism-australia-about-our

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The Operational Side of Giving: Three Frameworks That Help Me Manage My GWWC Pledge” by Yufeng (Andy) Tao

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 09:45:07 GMT

A full disclaimer is at the end of this post. In short, nothing here is financial, tax, or legal advice.

TLDR

After five years of giving under the 10% pledge, I’ve found that the most useful shift in how I think about it has been treating it less as a one-off moral commitment, and more as something that benefits from ongoing management. This post shares three practical ideas that have helped me: (1) doing periodic “affordability reviews” for your pledge, borrowing a concept from mortgage lending, (2) running a simplified monthly close on your personal finances, adapted from management accounting, and (3) treating any donation shortfall as a personal tracking item on my balance sheet. These are approaches I actually use, and I think they can help make long-term giving feel more sustainable. That said, this level of detail won’t suit everyone: some people will find a simpler approach works better for them, and that's totally fine.

Who this is for

This post is primarily for people who are already donating regularly or have signed a giving pledge and are now navigating the years that follow. Once the initial excitement of committing to give settles down, what remains is [...]

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Outline:

(00:23) TLDR

(01:14) Who this is for

(02:54) The affordability review: borrowing from mortgage lending (but not the stressful parts)

(05:02) A note on tax relief (which can change the maths quite a bit)

(06:47) The monthly close: a management accounting tool, simplified for personal use

(10:40) The shortfall tracker: a personal reframing that might help with falling behind

(12:56) The reward: looking at what your giving has actually achieved

(14:47) Getting started

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First published:
February 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/t7prWzwRfMLfB4J4q/the-operational-side-of-giving-three-frameworks-that-help-me

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Which questions can’t we punt?” by Lizka, Owen Cotton-Barratt, rosehadshar

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 08:45:07 GMT

We think AI strategy researchers should prioritize questions related to earlier parts of the AI transition, even when that means postponing work on some questions that ultimately seem more important.

In brief, our case for taking this “just-in-time” perspective is:

There are more open AI strategy questions than we have capacity or time for right now
At some point, AI uplift (and expanded human attention) will give humanity way more capacity for strategy work
- This could make the marginal research we can add today OOMs less valuable, unless it helps us before that point (or speeds up/improves AI uplift)
So the top priority for our strategy work is informing decisions we can’t punt until then
- I.e. focusing more on the early period of the AI transition[1] — understanding its dynamics and levers, identifying medium-term states we'd like to steer toward, and clarifying foundational questions

Earlier-period-focused strategy is sometimes treated as resolved (as if the only remaining work is implementation and later-stage questions). We think this is wrong. We sketch out a tentative list of high-priority questions, organized into the following clusters:

Understanding the early period — What is the likely trajectory of AI? What will [...]

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Outline:

(03:32) A just-in-time TAI strategy perspective

(06:04) The early part of the AI transition as our responsibility & focus

(07:49) What does this mean about which questions we should prioritize?

(08:34) a) Understanding the early period

(10:31) b) Preparing for early challenges

(12:41) c) Looking ahead (to see what would help later periods)

(14:39) d) Exploring our levers

(16:56) e) Clarifying foundational & ontological questions

(20:35) Which AI strategy questions does this tell us to drop?

(27:20) A final note on asking Which questions matter?

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First published:
February 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XNMhYiA8GmJbBLHXg/which-questions-can-t-we-punt

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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“What Happens After the Career Advice” by Anaeli V. 🔹

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 02:30:07 GMT

Thanks to @Mathieu Duteil for all of his insights in writing this post!

TL;DR

EA has a strong infrastructure for inspiring people to pursue impactful careers. The infrastructure for helping them actually get there, especially in operations, is far less developed. After applying to dozens of operations roles over the past 6 months, I observed patterns suggesting inefficiencies in how EA organizations hire: they run parallel processes for similar roles and screen for overlapping competencies. I propose a shared hiring infrastructure, including a common application layer, candidate process history, and coordination between organizations scoping similar roles.

1. The Gap Between Motivation and Opportunity

EA has built excellent infrastructure for inspiration. Career bootcamps, introductory fellowships, and governance courses help people identify cause areas, understand the landscape, and commit to a direction. For someone transitioning from a different field, these programs are genuinely valuable. I have experienced this firsthand. Since encountering Effective Altruism, I have taken courses on AI governance and biosecurity, participated in the ML4Good governance bootcamp and the CEA Operations Career Bootcamp, and attended EAG and EAGx events that reinforced my motivation to work on these problems. The inspiration infrastructure works. The issue is that there is no structured [...]

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Outline:

(00:53) 1. The Gap Between Motivation and Opportunity

(03:40) 2. What Dozens of Applications Taught Me

(07:29) 3. The Cumulative Cost

(10:26) 4. What could help

(17:14) 5. Similar proposals

(19:22) VI. Where This Analysis May Fall Short

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First published:
February 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qsKptzNLvwa5MKxSM/what-happens-after-the-career-advice-2

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“What I Learned Trying to Find the Most Effective Democracy Charities” by Samy Sekar 🔸

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 21:30:07 GMT

What is Power for Democracies (P4Dem)?

We are a nonpartisan research organization that evaluates civil society organizations (CSOs); makes recommendations to impact-oriented donors; and produces analysis to help democracy researchers and practitioners improve their understanding of which pro-democracy tactics work and under what conditions.

I've been Research Director at P4Dem for the past year. This post is a reflection on our first major project, what I think we got right, and where we can do better.

Our premise is that structured prioritization and transparent evaluation can improve funding decisions in complex, low-evidence domains, like democracy. A key focus for us is developing better ways to assess whether that premise holds over time.

What We Did: ECAPB Project in Brief

Our first project — Effectively Countering Authoritarian Playbooks (ECAPB) — aimed to produce donor recommendations for the founding members of our donor network.

The tactic involves four completed stages and a yet-to-be-completed impact evaluation stage. We started by running two parallel workstreams: prioritizing countries and prioritizing tactics.

Country prioritization used a framework built around four dimensions — Importance, Threat, Tractability, and Opportunity. We combined quantitative data from sources like V-Dem, Civicus, and the World Bank with qualitative country [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) What is Power for Democracies (P4Dem)?

(01:01) What We Did: ECAPB Project in Brief

(03:57) Three Things I Was Asked at EAG SF

(04:18) 1. Can we say anything with certainty about what works to counter authoritarianism?

(05:53) 2. Given limited evidence, is rigorous prioritization still worth doing?

(07:15) 3. Is deep evaluation useful for something as fast-moving as resisting authoritarianism?

(08:42) Whats Next

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First published:
February 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Xgya2Ld5teqciqRgi/what-i-learned-trying-to-find-the-most-effective-democracy

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Mental Health: Large, Neglected, and More Cost-Effective Than We Think?” by Damin Curtis🔹, Gina Hafez, Mark Rootenberg, Emily Budd, Effective Mental Health

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 17:00:08 GMT

Context: Effective Mental Health is a new group working to improve the field of global mental health along EA principles (and we're running another round of our Global Mental Health Fellowship, see info / apply here!).

Here, we outline the quick & basic case for why field-building work in effective global mental health seems especially cost-effective.

Huge Disease Burden and Neglect

Mental, neurological, and substance-use disorders account for 12% of the global burden of disease when measured in DALYs, yet mental healthcare accounted for just 2.4% of global healthcare spending in 2016. Treatment gaps are massive; most people with mental illness do not receive treatment (only 22% of people with mental illness in high-income countries, and as little as 4% of those in low-income countries, receive treatment).

Cost-Effectiveness

Promising mental health interventions are cost-effective in both low- and high-income countries. The Happier Lives Institute's investigations into intervention cost-effectiveness find that some mental health interventions are over 5x more effective than GiveDirectly's cash transfers:

Many proven, evidence-based interventions already exist, but are bottlenecked by lack of prioritization, funding, and implementation.

We also expect that there will also be important “paradigm shifts” and approaches (e.g. new substance based [...]

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Outline:

(00:37) Huge Disease Burden and Neglect

(01:08) Cost-Effectiveness

(02:09) New Counterfactual Funding Pools

(02:49) Moral and Epistemic Robustness

(03:41) Note on EA Community Support for Mental Health as a Cause Area

(04:31) Conclusion

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First published:
February 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eatpXeJJBweaF92XB/mental-health-large-neglected-and-more-cost-effective-than

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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“Reasoning Transparency demands AI-use disclosure” by Morgan Fairless

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 13:00:07 GMT

Post drafted and edited by the author. Claude and Grammarly were used for a light copyedit

As AI tools become increasingly useful for communicating research, opinions, or simply sharing ideas, it is becoming important to proactively disclose their use when we communicate with others. Being transparent demands AI-use disclosure. Organizations that communicate externally should embed strong AI-disclosure norms, and so should the forum. If you use AI tools for interpersonal communication, disclose their use in conversation.

The ability of LLMs to draft, re-draft, code, and analyse has been wonderful to see. As a researcher at AIM (views my own), I am certainly using AI tools in my work and exploring the domains in which they may make me more (and less) effective.

I personally enjoy writing, so I doubt I will ever use LLMs for extensive drafting. However, producing "content" (read: anything from a tweet to a book) is becoming increasingly cheaper. Lower barriers are leading to a steady increase in production. AI use speeds up research. Alarmingly, it also makes it easy to produce research that looks legit, but is, to all intents and purposes, slop.

Interpersonal communications can also become stilted, creating an underlying unease that [...]

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First published:
February 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nFsinyn5TowPQz6oi/reasoning-transparency-demands-ai-use-disclosure

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“EA adjacent, but not like that” by Oscar Howie

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 01:00:07 GMT

There was a dream that was sports blogging for impact, and it wasn’t built in a day

Not everything should be a rocketship

Mikel Arteta was appointed Arsenal manager in 2019. Before Covid. Before Biden was too old. Before I’d heard of effective altruism, or thought about the tradeoff between a Bayesian approach to impact-maximizing career choices and the organizational stability required to take our best shot at solving the world's most pressing problems.

A disciple of Pep Guardiola, the preeminent soccerball visionary of our era, Arteta arrived with a short CV and Big Ideas. His first season, Arsenal finished 8th in the Premier League, and despite the reservoir of goodwill earned in his former incarnation as player and captain, some fans already wanted him out. Second season, 8th again, he and his patrons mocked as frauds. The owners continued to trust The Process - it would take time to replace a squad ageing ungracefully with younger players more suited to Mikel's methods, time to coach them into the cohesive unit he believed they could be, more time still to iterate his methods in response to real-world feedback - but third season and it's progress only so far as [...]

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Outline:

(00:15) Not everything should be a rocketship

(03:58) Real ones would never

(07:48) Afterward

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First published:
February 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hwzmiqfHuTENtTT52/ea-adjacent-but-not-like-that

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“What I’ve learnt after working with 258 EA organisations on marketing” by James Odene [User-Friendly]

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 09:30:20 GMT

Over the past several years I’ve worked with 258 EA organisations through User-Friendly, most often on branding, websites, and campaigns. Working across this many organisations has given me a fairly wide view of how marketing is currently understood and used within the EA ecosystem. The contexts vary, but the underlying patterns are surprisingly consistent, regardless of cause area, size, or geography.

This post is a reflection on those recurring patterns. It is not intended as criticism, and it is not written from an outsider perspective. It comes from years of being embedded in projects, seeing what organisations request, where projects get stuck, and what tends to make the biggest difference when it is addressed early.

My aim is simply to share practical observations that might help EA organisations use marketing more deliberately, earlier in the process, and in ways that better support their strategic objectives rather than just their communications outputs.

A simple checklist I wish more organisations completed before scaling

If I could encourage every EA organisation to do ten things early, it would be these:

Build a market segmentation grounded in real audience data
Define a clear positioning statement (one sentence, not paragraphs)
Map a full [...]

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Outline:

(01:13) A simple checklist I wish more organisations completed before scaling

(02:21) Why Im sharing this

(03:07) 1. EA organisations are not exempt from basic (human) marketing realities

(03:49) 2. Marketing is usually brought in far too late

(04:45) 3. Branding and websites are visible, but strategy is the leverage

(05:28) 4. There is a heavy over-focus on digital ads

(06:24) 5. Marketing is often siloed into narrow roles

(07:03) 6. AI tools are starting to replace strategic thinking (prematurely)

(07:55) 7. Naming and positioning are consistently undervalued

(08:32) 8. Pretty design is often prioritised over effective communication

(09:04) 9. Marketing budgets are rarely tied to objectives

(10:14) 10. Long-term awareness building is the biggest missed opportunity

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First published:
February 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/faS8gH7CcLkKHSQp4/what-i-ve-learnt-after-working-with-258-ea-organisations-on

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Is EA sleeping on making dogs and cats vegan?” by Alistair Stewart

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 04:30:20 GMT

New paper on plant-based diets for companion dogs and cats: Sustainable Pet Diets: A Leading Effective Altruism Issue.

The paper argues that transitioning companion dogs and cats to plant-based diets is:

Important – a full global transition would apparently spare around 7 billion land animals each year (and reduce environmental harm, and improve food security).
Tractable – 13 to 19% of guardians are open to plant-based diets for their dogs/cats if their concerns are addressed, according to two recent surveys.
Neglected – annual global funding for tranisitioning companion animals to plant-based diets is well below $1m.

If the numbers hold up, the case seems strong! But I'm curious about the counterfactual impact of transitioning companion cats and dogs to plant-based diets, especially given that humans wouldn't eat or use some of the animal-derived food that companion animals are fed. What do people think about that, and how do the numbers and arguments look in general?

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First published:
February 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aQzD87AErAvhEdQqi/is-ea-sleeping-on-making-dogs-and-cats-vegan

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“80,000 Hours problem profile on using AI to enhance societal decision making” by Zershaaneh Qureshi

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 02:15:20 GMT

Hi everyone, Zershaaneh here!

80,000 Hours has published an article on using AI to improve societal decision making.

This post includes some context, the summary from the article, and the table of contents with links to each section.

Context

This is meant to be a medium-depth, introductory resource for understanding how AI tools could be used to enhance societal decision making — and why speeding up their development and adoption could make a huge difference to how the future unfolds.

It covers:

The kinds of tools we think are especially promising, and the opportunity we might have to differentially speed up their development and adoption.
The possible pitfalls of trying to advance AI decision making tools — like the chance the tools you work on would have already been built by default, and the risk of inadvertently speeding up more dangerous AI capabilities.
Our all-things-considered take on how much we recommend working in this area — and what sort of person would be a good fit. (Right now, we’d be excited to see hundreds more people taking this path, but we don’t think it's a good option for everyone.)
Lots of options for getting involved — including roles that don’t [...]

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Outline:

(00:28) Context

(01:34) Why are we posting this here?

(02:05) Summary (from the article)

(03:14) Overall view - Sometimes recommended.

---

First published:
February 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/659FtQYTESH2ec9Dt/80-000-hours-problem-profile-on-using-ai-to-enhance-societal

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Apply for the Digital Minds Fellowship (Aug 3–9, Cambridge University)” by Lucius Caviola

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 19:45:20 GMT

Digital minds may become one of the most consequential issues of the future — and the world needs people prepared to navigate it. We're launching the Digital Minds Fellowship, a fully funded week-long program at Cambridge for 15 participants looking to build careers in digital minds/AI welfare. Applications open now, deadline March 27.

Why this fellowship?

Unlike more established fields such as AI safety and governance, the digital minds field is still nascent. Identifying promising research questions is harder, career paths are less clear, and the community is smaller.

Program structure

The fellowship runs August 3–9, 2026 at Jesus College, Cambridge, and has three modules:

Philosophical & Technical Foundations (2 days, led by Derek Shiller, Rethink Priorities) — covering LLM architectures, philosophical frameworks for consciousness and moral status, and what current systems might (and might not) imply for cognition and experience.
Societal Implications & Strategy (2 days, led by me) — scenario planning, intervention design, policy frameworks, public communication, and stakeholder engagement.
Project Scoping & Career Planning (1 day) — developing well-scoped project ideas and concrete next steps, supported by leading experts.

Fellows are paired with a mentor before the program and will also be invited to [...]

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First published:
February 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NRdWZKqGyNpsXRQfJ/apply-for-the-digital-minds-fellowship-aug-3-9-cambridge

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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“My EA Story in brief plus some comments on EA” by hbesceli

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 02:00:20 GMT

Hello!

I’ve recently been working on a memoir of my time in EA (Harri Besceli and the non methods of post-rationality).

However, AI timelines have led me to conclude that everything I had previously planned on doing over the course of the coming months or years, must now be completed as soon as possible, ideally by the end of the weekend.

Given that, I’m sharing the quick version now, and hope to complete the full version in the fullness of time. Here's my story in brief:

Proto EA

As a child and teenager I was fairly smart and ‘successful’, I did well academically, had prestigious accolades and so on.
I had various heroic fantasies about my future, often imagining myself as James Bond. These fantasies became less common and less combat oriented as I got older, though I still had a sense that I was in some way destined to do important things and or save the world.
I was very into self-improvement, pop psychology and books kind of related to new atheism.
I often had a sense of intellectual and philosophical isolation. I wasn’t exactly lonely, though I also didn’t feel met by others [...]

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Outline:

(00:39) Proto EA

(01:24) Promising EA

(01:48) Professional EA

(03:00) Post EA

(04:05) Apotheosis EA Post Post EA

(04:48) Commentary

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First published:
February 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oPyQ5MFD5GSCtu8LY/my-ea-story-in-brief-plus-some-comments-on-ea

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Applications Open: New Roots Institute Fellowship” by Becca Rogers

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 18:45:20 GMT

Hi all,

Do you know high school or college students eager to reduce farmed animal suffering? Applications are now open for the New Roots Institute Fellowship!

The Fellowship equips students with the knowledge, skills, and networks they need to challenge industrial animal agriculture. Students begin with our six-week virtual summer Leadership Academy, and many continue into the Academic Year Fellowship, where they launch and lead high-impact campaigns and can receive a project grant of up to $2,500 throughout the year.

New Roots fellows have driven institutional dining reforms, advanced legislative advocacy, developed and implemented classroom curricula, with the support of our partners organizations. Fellows also receive ongoing career support and have gone on to work in high impact roles across sectors.

If you know ambitious students eager to create real change, we’d love to meet them. We would be grateful if you could:

Nominate a student(s) who would be a great fit for the Fellowship, and they’ll receive special consideration in the application process
Share the application with your networks

The priority deadline is February 25, and applications are accepted on a rolling basis until spots are filled.

Let me know if you have [...]

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First published:
February 18th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/i6wdsoK68kXB56L9L/applications-open-new-roots-institute-fellowship

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Ajeya Cotra on whether it’s crazy that every AI company’s safety plan is ‘use AI to make AI safe’” by 80000_Hours

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 11:00:21 GMT

By Robert Wilbin | Watch on Youtube | Listen on Spotify | Read transcript

Episode summary

Whether or not we get AGI in the next few years, a lot of people are starting to not really care about that question. They still expect the next 25 years or the next 50 years to play out kind of like the last 25 years or the last 50 years…

Whereas I think that there's a pretty good chance that by 2050 the world will look as different from today as today does from the hunter-gatherer era. It's like 10,000 years of progress rather than 25 years of progress driven by AI automating all intellectual activity.

— Ajeya Cotra

Every major AI company has the same safety plan: when AI gets crazy powerful and really dangerous, they’ll use the AI itself to figure out how to make AI safe and beneficial. It sounds circular, almost satirical. But is it actually a bad plan?

Today's guest, Ajeya Cotra, recently placed 3rd out of 413 participants forecasting AI developments and is among the most thoughtful and respected commentators on where the technology is going.

She thinks there's a meaningful chance we’ll see as much [...]

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Outline:

(00:22) Episode summary

(03:39) Highlights

(03:42) The spectrum of expectations about AGI

(06:50) Wildly different views about the economic effects of AI

(10:44) The most dangerous AI progress might remain secret

(14:08) White-knuckling the 12-month window after automated AI R&D

(17:06) EA as an incubator for avant-garde causes others wont touch

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First published:
February 17th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/baJ6LyAnAERWWz6XN/ajeya-cotra-on-whether-it-s-crazy-that-every-ai-company-s

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Where are all the Animal Activists?” by Zachary Segall

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 22:30:20 GMT

Back-of-the-Envelope Activist Math

There are about 118,000 vegetarians and vegans in the Seattle metro area. Of those, approximately 50 participate in any kind of regular activism (at least once every two months): Justice For Animals gets ~5-10 people; the Animal Rights Initiative gets around a dozen; the Northwest Animal Rights Network has ~20-30; and The Humane League has half-dozen.[1] Another 50 to 100 people participate irregularly, perhaps once or twice a year. Taking the more generous number of 150 volunteers, the participation rate shakes out to 0.1% of vegans and vegetarians (and 0.004% of the general population).[2] These are people who've already made the considerable personal and social shift to go vegan, and they’re deciding not to spend a few hours a month on activism that could reach many more animals than their diets.

It's not just that people don’t want to participate in activism in general. There are a number of movements that have much larger participation rates. BLM protests and climate protests top the charts at a participation rate of 6% of the American population attending at least one protest or rally. The Women's March had 1.0 to 1.6% of the population participate. If we look at [...]

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Outline:

(00:10) Back-of-the-Envelope Activist Math

(02:28) Animal Activism Sucks

(06:58) Missing Ingredients: Fun, Meaning, and Connection

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First published:
February 17th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pMjvfxumxhoW8iDFb/where-are-all-the-animal-activists

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “How to get a job in EA (Unpractical guide to an impact-useful mindset)” by Ula Zarosa

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 20:30:20 GMT

This is a link post.

TLDR: This is my 8th year as a member of the Effective Altruism community, and I thought I would share some observations on building a mindset that can help others get jobs at high-impact organizations. The tone of this post is very informal as I am mostly copying and pasting it from my blog. It's for the admins to decide if that is OK, I hope it is.

My story with working in EA-aligned organizations starts in 2018, when a friend of mine mentioned that some weird project she’d been working on in Vancouver was hiring for a position that could be a perfect fit. I applied, and it was. The project was called Charity Entrepreneurship, and I worked on its communications, outreach, and recruitment for 6 years, as well as on its rebrand to Ambitious Impact. I currently work at Rethink Priorities and the EA Animal Welfare Fund, so as you can see, I am pretty lucky to be working on amazing, impact-focused projects, and I hope this trajectory will continue.

As someone responsible for EA talent outreach for a few years, I spoke with many individuals at EAG conferences about their career [...]

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Outline:

(01:39) Value-aligment

(03:31) Impact focus

(08:29) Flexibility

(10:27) Being useful

(12:57) Luck

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First published:
February 15th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sGobtEGubAmgvfgyQ/how-to-get-a-job-in-ea-unpractical-guide-to-an-impact-useful

Linkpost URL:
https://ulazarosa.substack.com/p/how-to-get-a-job-in-ea

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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[Linkpost] “I wrote a book about philanthropy: Twice As Good!” by Joey🔸

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 12:30:20 GMT

This is a link post.

The tl;dr
I have written a new book on philanthropy! It is called “Twice As Good - Practical Tools To Double the Impact of Your Philanthropy”

Who it's for

This book is best fit for foundations and philanthropists who are keen on giving more effectively. Currently, there aren’t many tools for donor education - you can’t exactly get a Master's degree in philanthropy - and I have found many grantmakers who want to learn but have limited options. The space is currently dominated by books on the psychology of giving or authors advocating for a specific cause. I have always been a bit more optimistic about teaching tools and methods instead of prescribing a solution. The book is aimed to be “pop-science” enough that a brand-new giver can get value from it, but because the space is relatively empty, experienced foundations have found it useful as well.

How it's different:

The book covers a lot of the same content as our AIM grantmakers training or my previous textbook, but in a way that I hope is more concrete and entertaining. It includes more stories about how foundations work internally and offers more easily digested take-home [...]

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First published:
February 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yvSFsw9GwD6L5xtR6/i-wrote-a-book-about-philanthropy-twice-as-good

Linkpost URL:
https://measuredlife.substack.com/p/i-wrote-a-book-about-philanthropy

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Introducing our newest charity recommendations—from mobile contraceptive clinics to digital mental health care” by Ambitious Impact

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 21:45:20 GMT

Introducing our newest recommended ideas

We are excited to share four new charity ideas recommended for the September 2026 cohort of the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program.

Over the second half of 2025, we evaluated a range of interventions aimed at improving health and well-being in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This round focused in particular on two broad areas:

improving access to essential health services where delivery systems remain weak, and
addressing large, persistent gaps in care or prevention that lead to avoidable suffering or poor life outcomes.

The resulting recommendations span several sectors and approaches. They include expanding access to modern contraception through mobile clinics; improving access to pain relief for people in palliative care in LMICs; delivering guided digital self-help for depression; and policy advocacy to reduce the health burden of sugar-sweetened beverages.

Across these ideas, the common thread is tractability. Each intervention addresses a well-evidenced problem, has a clear path to implementation, and shows potential to deliver meaningful impact at scale. Short summaries of each recommendation are provided below, with full reports linked. We are grateful to the many external experts who contributed their time and insights to this research, as well [...]

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Outline:

(00:31) Introducing our newest recommended ideas

(02:34) Reducing diet-related disease through taxes on sugary drinks

(03:30) Improving access to pain relief for people with serious illness

(04:31) Improving access to depression care through guided self-help

(05:31) Expanding access to contraception through mobile clinics

(06:32) Apply to our program to help launch these organizations

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First published:
February 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ukkLit2SpWC2Dmj6Z/introducing-our-newest-charity-recommendations-from-mobile

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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[Linkpost] “Exclusive: Key US infectious-diseases centre to drop pandemic preparation” by Matrice Jacobine🔸🏳️‍⚧️

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 07:30:43 GMT

This is a link post.

Staff members at the United States's premier infectious-disease research institute have been instructed to remove the words “biodefense” and “pandemic preparedness” from the institute's web pages, according to e-mails Nature has obtained.

The directive comes amid a broader shake-up at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of 27 institutes and centres at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIAID is expected to deprioritize the two topics in an overhaul of its funded research projects, according to four NIAID employees who spoke to Nature on the condition of anonymity, because they are not authorized to speak to the press.

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First published:
February 15th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aGdkpgc5wafNn8MiS/exclusive-key-us-infectious-diseases-centre-to-drop-pandemic

Linkpost URL:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00468-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“What is Love ft. Claude & VascoBot” by AgentMa🔸

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 22:15:21 GMT

What is the highest form of love? According to the VascoBot Claude programmed for me:

“Thanks for the great question, AgentMa🔸. I strongly upvoted it.

I think the highest form of love is expected total hedonistic utilitarianism (ETHU) applied to all sentient beings, weighted by their welfare ranges as a fraction of that of humans. However, I believe most discussions of love neglect the welfare implications for soil animals and microorganisms, which I think dominate the expected value calculations in most cases.

I estimate that when someone experiences profound love, their increased wellbeing leads to approximately 2.3 % (= 50 additional kcal consumed per day * 0.046 % per kcal) additional food consumption. Multiplying this by the roughly 4.71*10^13 soil nematodes affected per kcal of food production (from my back-of-the-envelope calculations based on van den Hoogen et al. (2019)), I get approximately 1.08*10^12 affected nematode-years per year of experiencing love. Conditional on my preferred exponent of the number of neurons of 0.7, and assuming the welfare range of a nematode is 10^-6 as a fraction of that of humans, the welfare effects on soil animals could be 1.08*10^6 nematode-equivalent quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) per year of love experience.

In [...]

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First published:
February 14th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/exwmGp3swfbbNqSsN/what-is-love-ft-claude-and-vascobot

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“80,000 Hours says we need more people — so why do top candidates still struggle to land roles?” by Nicolae

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 22:00:21 GMT

I'm trying to reconcile the arguments (and marketing) with the labour market reality because it looks like even if you have strong credentials and career capital you might not find a relevant role because of how ultracompetitive this landscape is, based on discussions with other EA's and posts on the EA forum attesting how hard it is to land a job.

Every time a new role gets posted on the 80,000 Hours job board it feels like it attracts hundreds of applicants with top, even elite credentials. That doesn’t look "neglected" at the job level at all, it looks more like talent is fulfilled where it's really necessary. In practice this is really good because it means competent people are working directly on these issues.

So, what's missing here really? Is “neglected” mostly referring to funding and institutional capacity at the organizational level, while the actual job openings are few, so everyone is trying to get through the same narrow door? Or is it just that lots of people go after the same few EA jobs, so those jobs get really hard to get, even if the cause still needs a lot more people and work overall?

At [...]

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First published:
February 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uKSxTvYYy3BvmeB6e/80-000-hours-says-we-need-more-people-so-why-do-top

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Interactive replication of GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness model” by Max Ghenis

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 14:00:24 GMT

I re-implemented GiveWell's cost-effectiveness models for all six top charities as an open-source web tool: maxghenis.com/givewell-cea

The tool lets you edit any parameter and immediately see the effect on charity rankings.

Motivation

Others have done excellent work examining specific parts of GiveWell's CEA — Froolow's critical review of model architecture, Nolan, Rokebrand, and Rao's uncertainty quantification, and several pieces on deworming and AMF uncertainty. But I couldn't find a tool that implements all six charities together and makes it easy to compare them while adjusting assumptions.

GiveWell's spreadsheets are powerful but hard to explore casually. Each charity has its own multi-tab workbook with dozens of sheets, specialized terminology, and cross-references between cells:

Changing a moral weight means editing cells across multiple sheets and comparing results manually. I wanted something where you could adjust one slider and immediately see how all six charities re-rank.

What the model covers

For each charity I implemented the core pipeline from GiveWell's spreadsheets:

People reached: Grant size / cost per person reached
Deaths averted (or equivalent): People reached × mortality/disease rate × intervention effect size
Units of value: Deaths averted × moral weight (age-adjusted)
Cost-effectiveness: Units of value per dollar / benchmark value [...]

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Outline:

(00:37) Motivation

(01:38) What the model covers

(03:16) Observations from the replication

(06:15) Verification

(07:04) Interactive features

(08:12) How assumptions affect rankings

(10:25) Programmatic access

(11:04) Limitations

(12:33) Try it

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First published:
February 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7QM4krYmoPtvyH9Pd/interactive-replication-of-givewell-s-cost-effectiveness

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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“Turning Farms into Welfare Labs” by Aaron Boddy🔸

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 11:15:27 GMT

Most published animal welfare research is carried out by universities in labs.

I kind of assumed that this was a necessity in some way. Either stuff can't get published if you're not affiliated with a university, or universities just have the necessary rigour to get things done. I just assumed there's a whole host of reasons why this had to be the case, but I think those are mistaken.

And as a result, I think that when you start to look at universities, it starts to look strangely expensive to get things done. Things have a much longer time scale than is useful. And the facilities that they have to set up are often not good indicators of what reality looks like outside of the lab.

I think that high-quality welfare work can be done outside of universities and in fact, I think a huge amount of welfare work is done outside universities on farms but just isn't actually published and available in the literature. It just needs to be brought to the surface.

I want to see if it's possible for the animal welfare movement to rethink the model of research work and actively turn farms into welfare [...]

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Outline:

(01:27) How do we actually get data from farms?

(02:46) Can we turn them into Welfare Labs?

(04:02) Why this makes sense

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First published:
February 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yRQgZN7aiM6mAKgzq/turning-farms-into-welfare-labs

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Our Levels of Ambition Should Match The Problems We’re Solving” by Matt Beard

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 08:45:32 GMT

[I am a career advisor at 80,000 Hours. I've been thinking about something Will MacAskill said recently in an interview with my shrimp-friend Matt: "should people be more ambitious? I genuinely think yes. I think people systematically aren't ambitious enough, so the answer is almost always yes. Again, the ambition you have should match the scale of the problems that we're facing—and the scale of those problems is very large indeed."

This post is my reflection on these ideas.]

************

My last post argued that if you want to have a great career, your goal should not be to get a job. Instead, you should choose an important problem to work on, then “get good and be known.” Building skills will allow you to solve problems and reap the benefits.

In the ~500 career advising calls I’ve hosted in the past year, the most common response I’ve heard has been: “Okay, how good? How well known? How many hours of practice will get me there?” Most people want to calibrate their ambitions so that the time and energy they invest feels worth it to them.

I empathize with this, but when I’m honest– with myself for my own [...]

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Outline:

(06:28) Jensen Huang is more ambitious than you

(12:58) Most extreme ambition is misplaced

(17:45) Okay, how can altruistic people aim higher and work harder?

(21:17) Ambition at the End of the Human Era

(24:03) Closing Caveats - Efficiency, Burnout, and Choosing What Matters

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First published:
February 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7qsisgX3cwETJuPNz/our-levels-of-ambition-should-match-the-problems-we-re

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “Don’t talk to whales” by Niki Dupuis

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 05:45:28 GMT

This is a link post.

You aren't ready to receive their wisdom

We may soon develop the ability to talk to whales. To anyone with even an ounce of whimsy or curious joy, this is obviously pretty exciting. It's hard not to imagine the radical wave of empathy that this could cause, as we realize we're not as special as we previously thought.[1]

There are two main research groups that I know of working on this, Earth Species Project and Project CETI, and the effort to decode sperm whale communication in particular seems well under way.

I think we should seriously consider that, as a civilization, we are not ready to handle this well, and that we should aim to delay our first contact with whales, rather than doing research to accelerate it.

Some thoughts[2]:

1. Exploitation and whaling

Both ESP and Project CETI are publicly committed to open-source research, and are actively sharing their datasets, methods, and models online[3]. Project CETI intends to build "the most comprehensive open-source animal communication dataset ever created[4]". Rather than a controlled and careful effort to bridge the human-whale divide, this technology may become highly democratized, enabling a large number of actors [...]

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Outline:

(00:56) 1. Exploitation and whaling

(02:19) 2. Irreversible cultural change

(03:33) 3. Linguistic prejudice

(04:42) 4. Locking in wild animal suffering

(06:00) Conclusion

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First published:
February 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/or5wrefJojkbfc43x/don-t-talk-to-whales

Linkpost URL:
https://lovedoesnotscale.substack.com/p/dont-talk-to-whales

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Long-term risks from ideological fanaticism” by David_Althaus, Jamie_Harris, vanessa16, Clare_Diane, Will Aldred

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 00:45:31 GMT

Cross-posted to LessWrong.

Summary

History's most destructive ideologies—like Nazism, totalitarian communism, and religious fundamentalism—exhibited remarkably similar characteristics:
- epistemic and moral certainty
- extreme tribalism dividing humanity into a sacred “us” and an evil “them”
- a willingness to use whatever means necessary, including brutal violence.
Such ideological fanaticism was a major driver of eight of the ten greatest atrocities since 1800, including the Taiping Rebellion, World War II, and the regimes of Stalin, Mao, and Hitler.
We focus on ideological fanaticism over related concepts like totalitarianism partly because it better captures terminal preferences, which plausibly matter most as we approach superintelligent AI and technological maturity.
Ideological fanaticism is considerably less influential than in the past, controlling only a small fraction of world GDP. Yet at least hundreds of millions still hold fanatical views, many regimes exhibit concerning ideological tendencies, and the past two decades have seen widespread democratic backsliding.
The long-term influence of ideological fanaticism is uncertain. Fanaticism faces many disadvantages including a weak starting position, poor epistemics, and difficulty assembling broad coalitions. But it benefits from greater willingness to use extreme measures, fervent mass followings, and a historical tendency to survive and even thrive amid technological and societal upheaval. Beyond complete victory or defeat, multipolarity may [...]

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Outline:

(00:16) Summary

(05:19) What do we mean by ideological fanaticism?

(08:40) I. Dogmatic certainty: epistemic and moral lock-in

(10:02) II. Manichean tribalism: total devotion to us, total hatred for them

(12:42) III. Unconstrained violence: any means necessary

(14:33) Fanaticism as a multidimensional continuum

(16:09) Ideological fanaticism drove most of recent historys worst atrocities

(19:24) Death tolls dont capture all harm

(20:55) Intentional versus natural or accidental harm

(22:44) Why emphasize ideological fanaticism over political systems like totalitarianism?

(25:07) Fanatical and totalitarian regimes have caused far more harm than all other regime types

(26:29) Authoritarianism as a risk factor

(27:19) Values change political systems: Ideological fanatics seek totalitarianism, not democracy

(29:50) Terminal values may matter independently of political systems, especially with AGI

(31:02) Fanaticisms connection to malevolence (dark personality traits)

(34:22) The current influence of ideological fanaticism

(34:42) Historical perspective: it was much worse, but we are sliding back

(37:19) Estimating the global scale of ideological fanaticism

(43:57) State actors

(48:12) How much influence will ideological fanaticism have in the long-term future?

(48:57) Reasons for optimism: Why ideological fanaticism will likely lose

(49:45) A worse starting point and historical track record

(50:33) Fanatics intolerance results in coalitional disadvantages

(51:53) The epistemic penalty of irrational dogmatism

(54:21) The marketplace of ideas and human preferences

(55:57) Reasons for pessimism: Why ideological fanatics may gain power

(56:04) The fragility of democratic leadership in AI

(56:37) Fanatical actors may grab power via coups or revolutions

(59:36) Fanatics have fewer moral constraints

(01:01:13) Fanatics prioritize destructive capabilities

(01:02:13) Some ideologies with fanatical elements have been remarkably resilient and successful

(01:03:01) Novel fanatical ideologies could emerge--or existing ones could mutate

(01:05:08) Fanatics may have longer time horizons, greater scope-sensitivity, and prioritize growth more

(01:07:15) A possible middle ground: Persistent multipolar worlds

(01:08:33) Why multipolar futures seem plausible

(01:10:00) Why multipolar worlds might persist indefinitely

(01:15:42) Ideological fanaticism increases existential and suffering risks

(01:17:09) Ideological fanaticism increases the risk of war and conflict

(01:17:44) Reasons for war and ideological fanaticism

(01:26:27) Fanatical ideologies are non-democratic, which increases the risk of war

(01:27:00) These risks are both time-sensitive and timeless

(01:27:44) Fanatical retributivism may lead to astronomical suffering

(01:29:50) Empirical evidence: how many people endorse eternal extreme punishment?

(01:33:53) Religious fanatical retributivism

(01:40:45) Secular fanatical retributivism

(01:41:43) Ideological fanaticism could undermine long-reflection-style frameworks and AI alignment

(01:42:33) Ideological fanaticism threatens collective moral deliberation

(01:47:35) AI alignment may not solve the fanaticism problem either

(01:53:33) Prevalence of reality-denying, anti-pluralistic, and punitive worldviews

(01:55:44) Ideological fanaticism could worsen many other risks

(01:55:49) Differential intellectual regress

(01:56:51) Ideological fanaticism may give rise to extreme optimization and insatiable moral desires

(01:59:21) Apocalyptic terrorism

(02:00:05) S-risk-conducive propensities and reverse cooperative intelligence

(02:01:28) More speculative dynamics: purity spirals and self-inflicted suffering

(02:03:00) Unknown unknowns and navigating exotic scenarios

(02:03:43) Interventions

(02:05:31) Societal or political interventions

(02:05:51) Safeguarding democracy

(02:06:40) Reducing political polarization

(02:10:26) Promoting anti-fanatical values: classical liberalism and Enlightenment principles

(02:13:55) Growing the influence of liberal democracies

(02:15:54) Encouraging reform in illiberal countries

(02:16:51) Promoting international cooperation

(02:22:36) Artificial intelligence-related interventions

(02:22:41) Reducing the chance that transformative AI falls into the hands of fanatics

(02:27:58) Making transformative AIs themselves less likely to be fanatical

(02:36:14) Using AI to improve epistemics and deliberation

(02:38:13) Fanaticism-resistant post-AGI governance

(02:39:51) Addressing deeper causes of ideological fanaticism

(02:41:26) Supplementary materials

(02:41:39) Acknowledgments

(02:42:22) References

---

First published:
February 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EDBQPT65XJsgszwmL/long-term-risks-from-ideological-fanaticism

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

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“Announcing the new Director of EA UK” by Jessica Wen 🔸, Gemma 🔸, Grayden 🔸, Tom Barnes🔸, gergo

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 15:00:28 GMT

The Board of Effective Altruism UK is pleased to announce the appointment of a new Director, Gergő Gáspár.

EA UK works to support and strengthen the effective altruism community across the UK, helping people increase their impact. Gergő joins EA UK at a time when there is growing demand for strong infrastructure to support the UK EA ecosystem.

Background

Gergő's academic background is in psychology, and he has been working in community building and fieldbuilding roles since 2019. He began by organising a university group called EA ELTE, which later grew into EA Budapest and eventually into EA Hungary, a national group. He moved into full-time community building work in 2021 as this work scaled. In 2022, he founded AI Safety Hungary.

For the past two years, Gergő has also been a part-time Director at the European Network for AI Safety (ENAIS), working on coordination and capacity-building across Europe. In parallel, he co-founded Amplify, an EA-aligned digital marketing agency focused on supporting fieldbuilding organisations. He also writes the blog Building Capacity, which focuses on fieldbuilding strategy, careers, and marketing in EA and adjacent spaces.

Earlier in his career, Gergő was a volunteer charity analyst and analysis coordinator at SoGive [...]

---

Outline:

(00:34) Background

(01:44) Focus at EA UK

(02:02) A note from Gergő

---

First published:
February 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Jn2PPt4aLZWDafiz4/announcing-the-new-director-of-ea-uk

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Organisation updates thread:” by Toby Tremlett🔹

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 12:15:29 GMT

For the last couple of years, EA Organization Updates has been a monthly series hosted on the forum. It doesn't normally get very much attention. Previous to that it was part of the EA Newsletter until the newsletter got far too long to host it.

Now we're trying something new. Instead of asking organisations to write in to us, editing and posting their updates, we're asking them to write directly here on the forum, where you can interact with them. If this goes well, we'll continue the series as a monthly thread which stays up for a week.

Note that this thread will be less gate-kept, curated and endorsed than the previous series. This is a positive (content isn't restricted to the organisations we have asked to write something) and negative (if the thread proves popular, we might have to spend moderation capacity removing irrelevant updates). We'll keep an eye on this trade-off.

You can see previous updates on the “EA Organization Updates (monthly series) topic page. Notice that there's also an “organization updates” tag, where you can find more news and updates that are not part of this consolidated series.

---

First published:
February 9th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HetCMJE49JCXLPGYW/organisation-updates-thread

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Unblock quickly” by MaxDalton

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 11:00:28 GMT

This is a link post.

If someone I manage sends me a 10-page document to review, then it might take me 20-60 minutes to review. It's therefore a somewhat meaty task, that would be easy to delay.

But before doing the full review, I think it's good to spend 2-5 minutes giving high-level comments, as soon as possible.

Sometimes this will immediately catch some high-level mistake or miscommunication: you can give them feedback on this mistake and they can immediately begin working on an improved version. (Whereas if you’d waited longer to give the feedback, you’d delay them.)
Sometimes you can quickly ascertain that it's good enough, and they can progress with the project.
Sometimes you will realize that you need to review it in more depth. Maybe you have time to do the full review now. If not, spend <5 minutes giving initial feedback, focused on:
1. Any high-level comments that they could be working on between now and when you get a chance to properly review. This allows them to begin the fix sooner, and it will mean that the thing you review later is closer to what you want (thus saving you time on the final [...]

---

First published:
February 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RnJF45pRyqz9dwvDd/unblock-quickly

Linkpost URL:
https://newsletter.samepagemanagement.org/p/unblock-quickly

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“500k mid-career professionals want to do more good with their careers. Can we help them?” by Dom Jackman

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 07:00:53 GMT

I'm Dom Jackman. I founded Escape the City in 2010 to help people leave corporate jobs and find work that matters. 16 years later, 500k+ professionals have used the platform - mostly people 5-15 years into careers at places like McKinsey, Deloitte, Google, the big banks - who feel a growing gap between what they do all day and what they actually care about.

I'm not from the EA community. I'm writing this because I think there's a real overlap between the people I work with and what the EA talent ecosystem actually needs. I want to test that before investing serious time in it.

What I've noticed

Reading through talent discussions on this forum, there's a consistent theme: the pipeline is strongest for early-career people. 80,000 Hours does great work for students and recent grads. Probably Good provides broad guidance. BlueDot, MATS, Talos build skills for specific cause areas.

But mid-career professionals with real commercial experience keep coming up as underserved. The "Gaps and opportunities in the EA talent & recruiting landscape" post nails it: these people "don't have 'EA capital,' may be poorly networked and might feel alienated by current messaging." The post calls for "custom entry [...]

---

Outline:

(00:51) What Ive noticed

(01:40) What I see every day

(02:28) What Im thinking about building

(03:24) Honest questions

(04:39) Not looking for funding

(04:58) Artifacts

---

First published:
February 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/H9pb6DEasgzjCff9a/500k-mid-career-professionals-want-to-do-more-good-with

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“What the hell happened with AGI timelines in 2025?” by 80000_Hours

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 06:46:02 GMT

By Robert Wilbin | Watch on Youtube | Listen on Spotify | Read transcript

In early 2025, after OpenAI put out the first-ever reasoning models — o1 and o3 — short timelines to transformative artificial general intelligence swept the AI world. But then, in the second half of 2025, sentiment swung all the way back in the other direction, with people's forecasts for when AI might really shake up the world blowing out even further than they had been before reasoning models came along.

What the hell happened? Was it just swings in vibes and mood? Confusion? A series of fundamentally unexpected and unpredictable research results?

Host Rob Wiblin has been trying to make sense of it for himself, and here's the best explanation he's come up with so far.

This episode was recorded on January 29, 2026.

Video and audio editing: Dominic Armstrong, Milo McGuire, Luke Monsour, and Simon Monsour
Music: CORBIT
Camera operator: Dominic Armstrong
Coordination, transcripts, and web: Katy Moore

---

First published:
February 10th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Nte5DvvthQgvFsX27/what-the-hell-happened-with-agi-timelines-in-2025

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Vote for videos about EA charities! (Project for Awesome 2026)” by EA_ProjectForAwesome

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 06:15:52 GMT

Project for Awesome (P4A) is a charity video contest running from February 10th to February 18th, 2026. The public can vote on videos supporting various charities, and the ones with the most votes receive donations. Thanks to the support of the EA community, several EA charities won substantial donations in recent year. Last year, ProVeg International received more than $38,000.

Please help generate additional donations for EA charities again this year with just a few clicks! Voting is open until Wednesday, February 18th at 11:59 AM EST. You can find more information about P4A in this EA Forum post.

On the P4A website, there are numerous videos showcasing different charities, including several EA charities. Feel free to watch the videos and cast your votes.

Here's how it works:

Anyone can go to the homepage of projectforawesome.com to see all videos. You can sort by charity category, pick from a dropdown of organization names, or search for a specific video. Click on a specific video for your favorite charity.
Look for a red “Sign in to vote” button below the video. Click on it.
Enter your email address and confirm it. You are signed in now.
Click on [...]

---

Outline:

(01:59) List of videos about EA charities

(02:09) Against Malaria Foundation (Vote here )

(02:14) Allied Scholars for Animal Protection (Vote here )

(02:19) Animal Welfare Observatory (Vote here )

(02:23) Centre for Governance of AI (Vote here )

(02:28) Ethical Seafood Research (Vote here )

(02:32) FarmKind (Vote here )

(02:36) Faunalytics (Vote here )

(02:40) GiveDirectly (Vote here )

(02:44) Giving Green (Vote here )

(02:48) Good Food Fund (Vote here )

(02:52) Good Food Institute (Vote here )

(02:56) International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Vote here )

(03:02) International Centre for Animal Rights and Ethics (Vote here )

(03:08) Lafiya (Vote here )

(03:11) Machine Intelligence Research Institute (Vote here )

(03:17) New Roots Institute (Vote here )

(03:21) ProVeg International (Vote here )

(03:25) Sinergia Animal (Vote here or here )

(03:30) Spiro (Vote here )

(03:34) The Humane League (Vote here )

(03:38) Veganuary (Vote here or here )

(03:42) Wild Animal Initiative (Vote here )

---

First published:
February 10th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bWKQCrEgKLzFF3jyQ/vote-for-videos-about-ea-charities-project-for-awesome-2026

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“CEA is growing again: 25% more people engaged with our programs in 2025” by Angelina Li, jessica_mccurdy🔸, Alex Dial, Joris 🔸

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:15:49 GMT

TL;DR

In 2025, we grew engagement with CEA's programs by 20–25% across every tier of engagement, reversing two years of moderate declines in engagement. We did so without substantially increasing costs or lowering the quality or bar for our programs.

This post reviews CEA's work on growing the EA community, which is only one of our strategic goals. See more on our other strategic goals here. We plan to accelerate our growth even further, and we're hiring across multiple teams to make that happen. Join us!

Summary

The Centre for Effective Altruism's 2025 and 2026 strategy is focused on building sustainable momentum for EA, and growing the EA community is the cornerstone of building that momentum.
In our first year of executing this strategy, we grew by 20–25% year-over-year across each tier of our engagement funnel, beating our targets of 7.5–10% year-on-year growth, and reversing the moderate decreases in engagement with our programs throughout 2023-2024. Our results include:
- Hosting the biggest EA Global ever without lowering the admissions bar (with the highest satisfaction score and lowest cost-per-attendee in the last 4 years)
- Launching a new 4-day online bootcamp to help participants make a high-impact career pivot
- Reviving several groups at pilot universities [...]

---

Outline:

(00:17) TL;DR

(00:57) Summary

(05:08) Why grow?

(07:10) 2025. review

(08:04) Our growth model and 2025 targets

(08:45) Our results

(09:18) Tier 2: Exploring EA

(11:02) Tier 3: Actively Involved with EA

(12:34) Tier 4: Committing to Impact

(14:21) Tier 5: Actualizing Impact

(17:17) Changes in our spending

(19:05) Maintaining the quality of our programs while we scale

(20:42) 2026. plans

(22:06) What does this all mean?

(24:16) Acknowledgements

(24:51) Join us

(25:04) Appendices

(25:07) Our model and targets

(25:11) Building the model

(27:25) Setting the goals

(29:38) Changes in our spending

(33:31) G.R.O.W. principles

---

First published:
February 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NKrpEdg7wAgcoHNRG/cea-is-growing-again-25-more-people-engaged-with-our-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

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[Linkpost] “The best cause will disappoint you: An intro to the optimisers curse” by titotal

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 20:30:49 GMT

This is a link post.

I would like to thank David Thorstadt for looking over this. If you spot a factual error in this article please message me. The code used to generate the graphs in the article is available to view here.

Introduction

Say you are an organiser, tasked with achieving the best result on some metric, such as “trash picked up”, “GDP per capita”, or “lives saved by an effective charity”. There are several possible options of interventions you can take to try and achieve this. How do you choose between them?

The obvious thing to do is look at each intervention in turn and make your best, unbiased estimate of how each intervention will perform on your metric, and pick the one that performs the best:

Image taken from here

Having done this ranking, you declare the top ranking program to be the best intervention and invest in it, expecting that that your top estimate will be the result that you get. This whole procedure is totally normal, and people all around the world, including people in the effective altruist community, do it all the time.

In actuality, this procedure is not correct. The optimisers curse is [...]

---

Outline:

(00:26) Introduction

(02:17) The optimisers curse explained simply

(04:42) Introducing a toy model

(08:45) Introducing speculative interventions

(12:15) A simple bayesian correction

(18:47) Obstacles to simple optimizer curse solutions.

(22:08) How Givewell has reacted to the optimiser curse

(25:18) Conclusion

---

First published:
February 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/q2TfTirvspCTH2vbZ/the-best-cause-will-disappoint-you-an-intro-to-the

Linkpost URL:
https://open.substack.com/pub/titotal/p/the-best-cause-will-disappoint-you?r=1e0is3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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“On Economics of A(S)I Agents” by Margot Stakenborg

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 16:15:49 GMT

This is an update to Agent Economics: a BOTEC on feasibility. Toby Ord pointed me to Gus Hamilton's Weibull reanalysis of the METR data. Hamilton finds that a declining hazard rate (Weibull with κ ≈ 0.6–0.9 for SOTA models) may fit the data as well as Ord's constant hazard rate, producing a much fatter survival tail that changes the economics. This post presents both models and extends the analysis in two directions: a quantitative treatment of verification cost as the binding constraint under the Weibull model, and a systematic examination of the economic conditions under which a genuinely dangerous autonomous agent could actually operate. His full comment is in the Appendix.

Summary. The original post modelled agent cost per successful outcome scaling exponentially with task length under Ord's constant hazard rate, while human cost scales linearly. This update incorporates Hamilton's Weibull alternative, under which agent costs scale as a stretched exponential rather than a pure exponential. The cost wall is gentler, but it is still a wall. The dominant parameter remains the agent's reliability horizon (T₅₀). The available data does not yet show the shape of the reliability decay (κ) improving with model scale, though the sample is small [...]

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Outline:

(05:04) The setup

(06:58) The model

(09:09) Results: base case under both models

(10:54) Three key findings

(10:58) Finding 1: cost reductions cannot beat the superlinear growth

(12:18) Finding 2: the half-life is the whole game, and κ is the hidden variable

(16:06) Finding 3: verification cost is the binding constraint

(19:11) The case that κ is an architectural property

(19:34) The empirical evidence

(20:44) The theoretical argument

(23:40) What this means

(24:15) The timeline at κ = 0.70: five years of autonomous agent economics

(24:39) The T₅₀ trajectory

(25:11) The viability map over time

(26:29) Milestone 1: One-week bounded tasks viable for companies (April 2027, ~14 months away)

(27:05) Milestone 2: Two-week bounded tasks viable (November 2027, ~21 months away)

(27:42) Milestone 3: Self-sustaining agent-verifier pair can attempt to bootstrap (late 2027 onwards)

(30:33) Milestone 4: Month-long autonomous plans become non-trivially reliable (mid 2027 to early 2029)

(31:42) Milestone 5: State actor parallel-agent capability (already emerging, scales with T₅₀)

(33:07) Milestone summary at κ = 0.70

(33:28) The central question: can an autonomous ASI agent emerge?

(33:54) Condition 1: sufficient task complexity

(35:03) Condition 2: sufficient autonomy

(38:28) Condition 3: the human-in-the-loop and its fragility

(41:48) Condition 4: operating beyond intended scope

(42:03) 4a: Deceptive alignment

(43:05) 4b: The self-sustaining agent

(46:33) 4c: Reckless deployment

(48:26) How κ changes everything

(50:41) What this means for the investment thesis

(53:21) What happens if the bubble bursts?

(53:25) What happens if the bubble bursts?

(53:59) The telecom parallel

(57:39) When might the correction hit?

(01:06:14) The T₅₀ growth rate is the variable that matters

(01:07:50) Inference cost: the telecom asymmetry

(01:10:10) The self-sustaining pair is nearly unkillable

(01:11:59) The paradox

(01:16:13) The bust and the κ breakthrough

(01:17:58) Conclusion

(01:21:57) Caveats and limitations

(01:26:53) Appendix A: Can a coalition of pairs overcome the κ ceiling?

(01:31:24) Appendix B: Ords comment

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First published:
February 7th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dXsBcjCJAKX77Pgsd/on-economics-of-a-s-i-agents

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Don’t just have a job role. Have a movement role.” by SofiaBalderson

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 08:15:49 GMT

This is a link post.

TL;DR:
Job titles are temporary. Movements last longer to achieve a common goal. When we anchor our identity in the mission rather than a single organisation, we collaborate more openly, make better decisions, and move faster toward ending factory farming. That's why I think we should have a movement role in addition to our current organizational role.

Acknowledgements: thanks to Aaron Boddy and Haven King-Nobles for your feedback on this post!

Introduction

Many people in nonprofits anchor their identity to their job title.

“Comms lead.”
“Policy manager.”
“Executive Director.”

But job titles are temporary.
Movements are not.

A job role is what you are accountable for inside a specific organisation.
A movement role is the kind of value you create for the cause over time, across roles and organisations.

Your movement role should guide your decisions.
Your job role should be one expression of it, for now.

This connects with ideas of ecosystem thinking: the belief that movements strengthen when organisations share insights and support one another.

This is not about disloyalty

Thinking in movement terms does not mean doing your job badly, caring less, or being half-committed.

You still owe your organisation competence, follow-through [...]

---

Outline:

(00:43) Introduction

(01:28) This is not about disloyalty

(02:37) How this already shows up in the movement

(05:00) What this mindset changes

(06:23) How to choose a movement role

(08:22) A practical prompt

(08:54) I'd love to hear from you:

---

First published:
February 9th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Poc5zPAnCwwPKuXe7/don-t-just-have-a-job-role-have-a-movement-role

Linkpost URL:
https://open.substack.com/pub/notingthemargin/p/dont-just-have-a-job-role-have-a

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Donations, The Fifth Year” by jenn

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 11:45:50 GMT

This is a link post.

Previously: Donations, The Third Year / Donations, The First Year

In 2025, like in all previous years, I did what I was supposed to do. As each paycheck came in, before I did anything else, I dutifully put ten percent of it away in my "donations" savings account, to be disbursed at the end of the year.

It is still there, burning a hole in my pocket. I am very confused, and very sad.

EA was supposed to be easy, especially if you're one of the old school Peter Singer-inflected ones giving largely to global health and poverty reduction. You just give the funds away to whatever GiveWell recommends.

But one big thing that came into focus for me last year was that there are large institutional players who make up the shortfall whenever those charities don't fundraise enough from their own donor bases.

It is wonderful that this happens, to be clear. It is wonderful that the charities doing very important work get to have more stable financial projections, year over year. But as an individual small donor, the feeling I get now is that I am not actually giving to the Against Malaria [...]

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First published:
February 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zxypSbQSfaogQoiGH/donations-the-fifth-year

Linkpost URL:
https://www.jenn.site/donations-the-fifth-year/

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “The Philosophy Paper That Haunted Me” by Dean Guzman Wyrzykowski

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 07:45:27 GMT

This is a link post.

An adventure through burnout, guilt, and moral obligation

I am re-posting this from my Substack in the lead-up to EAG San Francisco this weekend. It can be hard to find mental health resources from EAs who "get it". I want to help. Feel free to reach out for light support, or just to chat!

—

In the winter of 2023, I burned out from animal activism. I had been involved in high-stakes criminal cases against corporate animal abusers and had a front-row seat to legal wins that were covered in national media outlets like The New York Times. I felt on top of the world. But unbeknownst to me, I was about to come crashing to the ground. I quit my job, exhausted and burnt out, and solo traveled the world for a year before returning to animal advocacy.

This is a story of how that happened. It's a story of how we can sometimes do activism for the wrong reasons: in my case, out of moral guilt, and an effort to feel a sense of self-worth that I struggled to find outside of my work.

It's a journey through the wounds that drive [...]

---

Outline:

(00:12) An adventure through burnout, guilt, and moral obligation

(01:47) A drowning stranger

(06:08) A burnout-turned-world adventure

(08:59) A turn within

(11:02) A return home

---

First published:
February 9th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xxLLoSbREDwyP5Hbz/the-philosophy-paper-that-haunted-me

Linkpost URL:
https://urbananimal.substack.com/p/the-philosophy-paper-that-haunted

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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“Charity Entrepreneurship Program Applications are Open & New Charity Ideas” by Ambitious Impact

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 23:15:27 GMT

We’re excited to announce that we’ve opened applications for the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program for the following cohorts:

September 2026 Cohort: September 14th - November 4th, 2026
February 2027 Cohort: February - April, 2027 (exact dates TBD)

This post summarises the four new charity ideas recommended by our research team for the September 2026 round.

Apply here

Applications close on March 22nd, and successful candidates will receive offers by June 8th. For the full application timeline and program details, visit our website.

How to Apply

Why should you apply to the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program?

If you’re an ambitious, impact-driven individual looking to start a high-impact nonprofit, the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program can empower and accelerate your journey.

Since 2018, we have incubated over 50 non-profits, many of which are field-leading and benchmark-setting across different cause areas and are supported by actors like GiveWell, Founders Pledge, Mulago, Open Philanthropy, and Animal Charity Evaluators. We disbursed $3.6M in seed grants, and many of our incubated organizations are estimated to be as much as 20 to 60 times more cost-effective than top GiveWell charities. These charities have reached more than 75 million humans and have the potential to improve the lives [...]

---

Outline:

(01:10) Why should you apply to the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program?

(02:20) Introducing our newest recommended ideas

(04:00) Reducing diet-related disease through taxes on sugary drinks

(04:56) Improving access to pain relief for people in palliative care in LMICs

(05:58) Treating depression with guided digital self-help programs

(06:58) Expanding access to contraception through mobile clinics

(07:59) Apply to our program to help launch these organizations

---

First published:
February 9th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WRvWwAituettBohqD/charity-entrepreneurship-program-applications-are-open-and

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

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[Linkpost] “Some angel-on-the-shoulder AI tools” by Forethought, Owen Cotton-Barratt, Lizka, Oliver Sourbut, rosehadshar

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 19:15:28 GMT

This is a link post.

We’ve recently published a set of design sketches for technological analogues to ‘angels-on-the-shoulder’: customized tools that leverage near-term AI systems to help people better navigate their environments and handle tricky situations in ways they’ll feel good about later.

We think that these tools could be quite important:

In general, we expect angels-on-the-shoulder to mean more endorsed decisions, and fewer unforced errors.
In the context of the transition to more advanced AI systems that we’re faced with, this could be a huge deal. We think that people who are better informed, more situationally aware, more in touch with their own values, and less prone to obvious errors are more likely to handle the coming decades well.

We’re excited for people to build tools that help this to happen, and hope that our design sketches will make this area more concrete, and inspire people to get started.

The (overly-)specific technologies we sketch out are:

Aligned recommender systems — Most people consume content recommended to them by algorithms trained not to drive short-term engagement, but to meet long-term user endorsement and considered values
Personalised learning systems — When people want to learn about (or keep up-to-date [...]

---

First published:
February 9th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/E5XHPNFkbQcTSpxn4/some-angel-on-the-shoulder-ai-tools

Linkpost URL:
https://www.forethought.org/research/design-sketches-angels-on-the-shoulder

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“ACTRA: First-Year Learnings” by Henning Peters, Laura Sofia

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 17:15:27 GMT

Summary

ACTRA's first year was deliberately ambitious: we partnered with government actors from month two, built a curriculum in record time and ran an in-house Randomized-Controlled Trial (RCT) before our organization was six months old. This gave us unusually fast and concrete learnings, but also created significant overhead and avoidable inefficiencies.

Looking back, we would still choose to design for scale from day 1 — but we would sequence learning more deliberately, separate R&D from scale-oriented delivery earlier, and prioritize learning value per cost more ruthlessly.

This post summarizes our key milestones and eight learnings that we believe are relevant to other early-stage, entrepreneurial nonprofits — especially those aiming to combine rigor, speed, and eventual scale.

Context: ACTRA's key milestones in year one

Acción Transformadora (ACTRA) emerged from Ambitious Impact's (AIM) August-October 2024 incubation round, starting operations in November 2024. The milestones we present here are meant to give context for the learnings, for a broader organizational overview (including funding needs), you can explore our Year 2 plans brochure or November forum update.

Month 2 (Dec 2024): Confirmed first government partnership
Month 3 (Jan 2025): Development of an Minimal Viable Product (MVP) curriculum (9 sessions)
Months 4–5 (Feb–Mar 2025): First implementation [...]

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Outline:

(00:23) Summary

(01:14) Context: ACTRA's key milestones in year one

(02:55) Eight learnings from our first year of implementation

(03:55) I. Implementation

(03:58) 1. Design for scale from day one -- but don't confuse designing for scale with scaling

(05:09) 2. Don't forget that you need a learning lab / R&D space

(07:05) II. Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL)

(07:11) 3. Measure rigorously even if it feels obvious -- especially early steps in your Theory of Change

(08:28) 4. Maximize early immersion and qualitative learning

(10:40) III. Fundraising

(10:44) 5. Don't overspend resources on formal grants before your org is sufficiently mature

(11:58) 6. Develop long-term project planning early -- but not for all projects

(13:32) IV. HR and team management

(13:37) 7. Hire in anticipation of capacity gaps, not once they are already painful

(14:50) 8. Volunteers are invaluable -- but they should not replace core ownership roles

(16:04) Closing thoughts

---

First published:
February 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/abgrCyY8XZMEFEpoD/actra-first-year-learnings

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“EA Grants Database - a new website” by Brian Foerster

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 09:00:03 GMT

The EA Grants Database is a new site that neatly aggregates grant data from major EA funders who publish individual or total grant information. It is intended to be easy to maintain long term, entirely piggybacking off of existing data that is likely to be maintained. The website data is updated by a script that can be run in seconds, and I anticipate doing this for the foreseeable future.

In creating the website, I tried to make things as clear and straightforward as possible. If your user experience is in any way impaired, I would appreciate hearing from you. I would also appreciate feedback on what features would actually be useful to people, although I am committed to avoiding bloat.

In a funding landscape that seems poised to grow, I hope this site can serve as a resource to help grantmakers, grantees, and other interested parties make decisions while also providing perspective on what has come before.

My post on matching credits and this website are both outgrowths of my thinking on how we might best financially coordinate as EA grows and becomes more difficult to understand.[1] Relatedly, I am also interested in the sort of mechanisms that [...]

---

First published:
February 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rohYFGfiFjepLDnWC/ea-grants-database-a-new-website

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Animal Welfare at the Start of the Industrial Revolution” by Niki Dupuis

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 19:30:29 GMT

This is a link post.

I am not a historian! Fact check me please, dear God!

We are at the beginning of another industrial revolution. The first was the automation of muscle, the current one is the automation of mind.

To get into the right frame of mind, I want to step back and imagine:

We are living in the UK[1], the year is 1800, and we are trying to end animal suffering. We know nothing about how the tech is about to develop, nor how the economy or politics is about to be transformed, but there are faint clues.

Steam engines have started powering textile factories and milling grain, but no trains yet, no electricity. There are almost a billion people in the world, and a similar number of livestock living almost entirely on small farms. The first factory farms won't go up for almost 150 years.

Let's go back in time.

Farmed animals

All animals kept for food are living on small farms. The conditions are not great: they have little protection from the cold, no veterinary care, and they are slaughtered crudely[2] and in public. However, compared to life on a factory farm, things look pretty idyllic.

---

Outline:

(01:10) Farmed animals

(02:23) Work animals

(03:02) Blood sports

(03:46) Animal testing

(04:57) Fishing and whaling

(05:55) Wild animals

(06:24) Culture and philosophy

(07:21) Data availability

(08:05) Politics

(09:17) Colonialism and (human) slavery

(10:23) Some specific takeaways

(12:49) Conclusion

---

First published:
February 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CHQdcXjBudqq4QFk9/animal-welfare-at-the-start-of-the-industrial-revolution

Linkpost URL:
https://lovedoesnotscale.substack.com/p/animal-welfare-at-the-start-of-the

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“First Effective Altruism AI Uplift Meetup” by Joey Bream🔸

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 18:15:03 GMT

Running the first meetup for people hoping to accelerate Effective Altruism with AI tools.

Why now?

AI is accelerating productivity across industries.

People who invest learning to use AI tools are able to work much faster and more productively.

As a result, we can accelerate our favourite impactful organisations by helping them adopt these tools.

What will we discuss?

We will discuss

visibility, e.g. building personal sites and blogs - useful for growing luck surface area, raising awareness about productivity gains from these tools
workflow comparisons, e.g. claude skills, plugins, productivity hacks - who's got the best setup, what can we learn from eachother?
implementation e.g. how to network, volunteer well, and scale impact - how can we get plugged in to the right opportunities quicker?

Come along

Here's the Luma invite. This is an hour long meet-up aimed at any EA actively working to learn to use AI tools.

Can't make it?

If you'd like to advertise a problem you want tech help on, send me a DM

---

First published:
February 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dkcwuJKw7kA4fWe5H/first-effective-altruism-ai-uplift-meetup

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “The shrimp bet: When big numbers outsprint the evidence” by Vasco Grilo🔸

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 17:15:05 GMT

This is a link post.

[Subtitle.] Sentience and moral priority-setting

This is a crosspost for The shrimp bet: When big numbers outsprint the evidence by Rob Velzeboer, which was originally published on 27 January 2026.

TLDR: Shrimp welfare looks like the ultimate “scale + tractability” slam-dunk: massive numbers, cheap fixes, grim-sounding deaths. But the flagship farmed species—the penaeid shrimp L. vannamei—is an evidential outlier: beyond basic nociception, the sentience case is close to empty, and the limited evidence we do have points the wrong way on key markers. In the report that kicked off this wave, it was included for administrative clarity, not because sentience looked likely. If you let precaution plus expected-value reasoning run on that evidential bar, you don’t stop at shrimp, but you get pulled into insects and the rest of modern life's collateral killing. My view is that we shouldn’t let raw numbers and optimistic assumptions about sentience guide our moral priorities: most weight should go to high-confidence, severe, tractable suffering, and extremely low-confidence beings with high numbers should be treated as explicit research-and-standards bets, unless at least some higher-order evidence actually suggests pain.

“At least I’m not a shrimp.”

It's a line I’d often repeat [...]

---

Outline:

(03:37) PART 1: SHRIMP

(03:41) Why focus on shrimp

(08:26) The evidence for shrimp pain

(15:01) Skepticism

(19:11) PART 2: PRIORITIZATION

(19:16) The implications of this view

(25:04) Pain severity

(32:05) Prioritization

(36:18) References

---

First published:
February 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ruG5GrTcE2DBiCDfW/the-shrimp-bet-when-big-numbers-outsprint-the-evidence

Linkpost URL:
https://robvelzeboer.substack.com/p/the-shrimp-bet

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “Some tools for collective epistemics” by Forethought, Owen Cotton-Barratt, Lizka, Oliver Sourbut

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 05:00:04 GMT

This is a link post.

We’ve recently published a set of design sketches for AI tools that help with collective epistemics.

We think that these tools could be a pretty big deal:

If it gets easier to track what's trustworthy and what isn’t, we might end up in an equilibrium which rewards honesty
This could make the world saner in a bunch of ways, and in particular could give us a better shot at handling the transition to more advanced AI systems

We’re excited for people to get started on building tech that gets us closer to that world. We’re hoping that our design sketches will make this area more concrete, and inspire people to get started.

The (overly-)specific technologies we sketch out are:

Community notes for everything — Anywhere on the internet, content that may be misleading comes served with context that a large proportion of readers find helpful
Rhetoric highlighting — Sentences which are persuasive-but-misleading, or which misrepresent cited work, are automatically flagged to readers or writers
Reliability tracking — Users can effortlessly discover the track record of statements on a given topic from a given actor; those with bad records come with health warnings
Epistemic [...]

---

First published:
February 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zMuDoeXA9nBSeAc5g/some-tools-for-collective-epistemics

Linkpost URL:
https://www.forethought.org/research/design-sketches-collective-epistemics

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Building sustainable momentum: progress report on CEA’s 2025-26 strategy” by Zachary Robinson🔸, Oscar Howie

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 19:30:07 GMT

“I” refers to Zach, the Centre for Effective Altruism's CEO. Oscar is CEA's Chief of Staff. We are grateful to all the CEA staff and community members who have contributed to the development and implementation of our strategy. Mistakes are of course our own.

Executive summary

One year into our 2025-26 strategy, we have reversed our programs’ negative growth trajectory from 2023-24 and will sustain that momentum in 2026 while preparing to hit much more ambitious goals from 2027 onwards:

CEA grew the number of people engaging with our programs by 20–25% year-over-year across each tier of our engagement funnel, beating our targets of 7.5–10% without increasing spending, and reversing the moderate decreases in engagement with our programs throughout 2023–24.
We laid the foundations for furthering our contribution to EA funding diversification by merging with EA Funds and hiring an accomplished new Director (Loic Watine).
And we strengthened CEA's own foundations, establishing our in-house Operations Team and growing our headcount from 42 to 66 while increasing talent density, including another incoming experienced Director for our new Strategy and M&E function (Rory Fenton).

We also faced some challenges:

Beyond the impact of EA growth on the perception of the [...]

---

Outline:

(00:34) Executive summary

(03:05) Stewardship and sustainable momentum

(04:22) Growing the EA community

(05:05) 2025

(08:17) 2026

(09:35) Improving the EA brand

(10:02) 2025

(15:24) 2026

(16:30) Diversifying EA funding

(16:50) 2025

(19:53) 2026

(21:20) Strengthening CEA

(21:38) Operations Team

(22:07) Staffing

(23:38) Spending

(24:46) Monitoring & evaluation

(25:40) EV, still

---

First published:
February 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Dy4iGHbAkKAQ4t2Dw/building-sustainable-momentum-progress-report-on-cea-s-2025

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Agent Economics: a BOTEC on feasibility” by Margot Stakenborg

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 16:30:03 GMT

Summary: I built a simple back-of-the-envelope model of AI agent economics that combines Ord's half-life analysis of agent reliability with real inference costs. The core idea is that agent cost per successful outcome scales exponentially with task length, while human cost scales linearly. This creates a sharp viability boundary that cost reductions alone cannot meaningfully shift. The only parameter that matters much is the agent's half-life (reliability horizon), which is precisely the thing that requires the continual learning breakthrough (which I think is essential for AGI-level agents) that some place 5-20 years away. I think this has underappreciated implications for the $2T+ AI infrastructure investment thesis.

The setup

Toby Ord's "Half-Life" analysis (2025) demonstrated that AI agent success rates on tasks decay exponentially with task length, following a pattern analogous to radioactive decay. If an agent completes a 1-hour task with 50% probability, it completes a 2-hour task with roughly 25% probability and a 4-hour task with about 6%. There is a constant per-step failure probability, and because longer tasks chain more steps, success decays exponentially.

METR's 2025 data showed the 50% time horizon for the best agents was roughly 2.5-5 hours (model-dependent) and had been doubling every ~7 [...]

---

Outline:

(00:57) The setup

(02:04) The model

(03:26) Results: base case

(05:01) Finding 1: cost reductions cannot beat the exponential

(06:24) Finding 2: the half-life is the whole game

(08:02) Finding 3: task decomposition helps but has limits

(09:33) What this means for the investment thesis

(11:38) Interactive model

(11:57) Caveats and limitations

---

First published:
February 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2Zn23gCZrgzSLuDCn/agent-economics-a-botec-on-feasibility

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“AI benchmarking has a Y-axis problem” by Lizka

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 14:15:04 GMT

TLDR: People plot benchmark scores over time and then do math on them, looking for speed-ups & inflection points, interpreting slopes, or extending apparent trends. But that math doesn’t actually tell you anything real unless the scores have natural units. Most don’t.

Think of benchmark scores as funhouse-mirror projections of “true” capability-space, which stretch some regions and compress others by assigning warped scores for how much accomplishing that task counts in units of “AI progress”. A plot on axes without canonical units will look very different depending on how much weight we assign to different bits of progress.[1]

Epistemic status: I haven’t vetted this post carefully, and have no real background in benchmarking or statistics.

Benchmark scores vs "units of AI progress"

Benchmarks look like rulers; they give us scores that we want to treat as (noisy) measurements of AI progress. But since most benchmark score are expressed in quite squishy units, that can be quite misleading.

The typical benchmark is a grab-bag of tasks along with an aggregate scoring rule like “fraction completed”[2]
✅ Scores like this can help us...
- Loosely rank models (“is A>B on coding ability?”)
- Operationalize & track milestones (“can [...]

---

Outline:

(01:00) Benchmark scores vs units of AI progress

(02:42) Exceptions: benchmarks with more natural units

(04:48) Does aggregation help?

(06:27) Where does this leave us?

(06:30) Non-benchmark methods often seem better

(07:32) Mind the Y-axis problem

(09:05) Bonus notes / informal appendices

(09:13) I. A more detailed example of the Y-axis problem in action

(11:53) II. An abstract sketch of whats going on (benchmarks as warped projections)

---

First published:
February 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/P8jsAySQzfgkeoDgb/ai-benchmarking-has-a-y-axis-problem

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

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“U.S. Democracy Preservation & Politics - Fellowship Curriculum and Meeting Content for EA Groups” by Annika Burman 🔸, Sam Loescher 🔸

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 02:30:06 GMT

Considering how important politics are to most EA cause areas, I find it surprising how little attention political work gets among EAs. I get the feeling that because politics are blocked from the Forum homepage, and because EA fellowships fail to mention high-leverage political work, young EAs often assume that this is not a high impact space without looking into it themselves.

Luckily, this is changing.

There is a growing movement of EAs recognizing the huge importance of politics, and realizing it's not as intractable as many of us assume. Over the past few months, we have joined together with EA club leaders from schools like Middlebury, the University of Michigan, Princeton, and MIT to create multiple curriculum/content options for EA groups to use exploring this cause area. What we've put together:

One-week fellowship curriculum - easily added on to your existing intro or advanced fellowships! Can also be used to guide a reading-based general meeting.
Three-week fellowship curriculum - for a deeper dive into the importance, tractability, and neglectedness of democracy preservation & U.S. politics.
Slides presentation - for a presentator-led meeting on democracy preservation, with discussion & activities built in.

Link to content. [...]

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First published:
February 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XGRHy3A4oJPwG3ejd/u-s-democracy-preservation-and-politics-fellowship

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The USDA is investing $100M in innovation for screwworm control and eradication. SFF can help you apply.” by Screwworm Free Future

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 20:00:07 GMT

The USDA New World Screwworm Grand Challenge represents the largest single funding opportunity for screwworm research and control technologies in decades. Applications are due February 23, 2026.

What's happening?
The New World Screwworm (NWS) is a flesh-eating fly endemic to the Americas that lays eggs in open wounds of warm-blooded animals. The larvae burrow into living flesh, consuming the host from inside. Infected animals experience excruciating pain, stop eating, and die slowly over days to weeks. This parasite occasionally infects humans too. NWS was previously eradicated from North and Central America, although containment efforts failed in 2024 and the parasite has reached Northern Mexico in January 2026.

New technologies like gene-drive-enhanced sterile insect technique (SIT) could make large-scale control and eradication faster and cheaper than ever before. The USDA Grand Challenge represents an opportunity to direct funding to developing technologies with potential applications beyond the United States southern border. Next-gen SIT and gene-drive could help extend the range of control and eradication to South America for the first time, safeguarding rural livelihoods and the wellbeing of hundreds of millions of animals.

Screwworm Free Future is supporting qualified applicants -- particularly those working in or with endemic regions [...]

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First published:
February 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QKWsxxQHni7cy3oq9/the-usda-is-investing-usd100m-in-innovation-for-screwworm

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Thoughts on Toby Ords AI Scaling Series” by Srdjan Miletic

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 11:00:03 GMT

This is a link post.

I've been reading Toby Ord's recent sequence on AI scaling a bit. General notes come first, then my thoughts.

Notes

The Scaling Paradox basically argues that the scaling laws are actually pretty bad and mean progress will hit a wall fairly quickly unless the next gen or two of models somehow speed up AI research, we find a new scaling paradigm etc...
Inference Scaling and the Log X Chart says that inference is also not a big deal because the scaling is again logarithmic. My intuition here is that this is probably true for widespread adoption of models. It's probably not true if there are threshold effects where a single $100'000 query can be drastically better than a $100 query and allow you to, say, one shot open research problems. I'm not sure which world we live in.
Inference Scaling Reshapes Governance talks about the implications of inference being a big part of models. One of the implications is that instead of getting a big bang of new model trained => millions of instances, we get a slower gradual wave of more inference = stronger model with a gradual rightward [...]

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Outline:

(00:20) Notes

(00:26) Takeaways

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First published:
February 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rDBLQFQzviW78eRk5/thoughts-on-toby-ords-ai-scaling-series

Linkpost URL:
https://www.dissent.blog/notes-on-toby-ords-ai-scaling-series/

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Review of MEAT by Bruce Friedrich” by Chris Bryant 🔸

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 04:30:04 GMT

Bruce Friedrich's new book, MEAT, is a deeply thoughtful, pragmatic, and hope-inspiring story about alternative proteins. In his role as the Founder and President of the Good Food Institute, Bruce is uniquely positioned to give an insider's account of how far plant-based, fermentation-derived, and cultivated meat have come, and where they are likely to go from here.

The book's publication comes at what seems to be a critical junction for alternative proteins. Several years of exponential growth in sales of plant-based meat and investment in cultivated meat have given way to a period of uncertainty for both. MEAT is a timely and compelling reminder that the fundamental reasons why these innovations are needed are as relevant today as they have ever been. More than that, it is a case for optimism.

In the first section, Friedrich makes an extremely thorough and well-evidenced case for meat alternatives in terms of global food security, climate change, antibiotic resistance, and pandemic prevention. As a vegan who is totally on board with the moral case for alternative proteins, I found myself waiting for the chapter containing grizzly descriptions of factory farming, but it never came.

The book is the opposite of sanctimonious. [...]

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First published:
February 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EJMnbKjBwjvxDo6vG/review-of-meat-by-bruce-friedrich

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Request for proposals: Humane fish slaughter research and prototypes ($7M available)” by Coefficient Giving

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 03:45:03 GMT

Over 100 billion farmed fish are slaughtered each year. At Coefficient Giving, where I (Michelle Lavery) work as a Senior Program Associate, we estimate that only ~0.5% of them are reliably stunned before slaughter.

For the more than a trillion wild-caught fish killed annually, conditions are even worse: most are left to suffocate slowly in air or in low-oxygen water, a process that can take minutes to hours.

Though fish slaughter represents only a few hours in an animal's life, we believe the pain it causes is excruciating — especially when done poorly, which is most of the time. This problem is both urgent and tractable: the suffering is immense, the moment of slaughter is discrete and identifiable, and people are genuinely horrified when they learn about current practices. So why hasn't it been solved? The answer lies in a combination of technical complexity, limited competition in the equipment market, and a critical skills gap between the biologists who study the problem and the engineers who could solve it.

That's why we're launching this RFP: to bridge that gap and catalyze the engineering innovation this problem demands.

Why this is hard

If you've never thought about how fish [...]

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Outline:

(01:24) Why this is hard

(03:43) Who/what were looking for

(04:57) How to apply

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First published:
February 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/i8om4DADPX5SfyNwP/request-for-proposals-humane-fish-slaughter-research-and

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Don’t overupdate on evolutionary cost-balancing arguments” by Lukas_Gloor

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 10:30:05 GMT

Evolutionary cost-balancing arguments in welfare biology (the study of animal well-being in the wild) assume that producing suffering and happiness has metabolic or neural costs, and that natural selection allocated these states efficiently. A specific version of this reasoning – which I'll call the "Evening Out Argument" – holds that if a type of suffering is highly likely and largely unavoidable for an animal, evolution would reduce its intensity. The logic is that, if suffering functions to motivate learning and avoidance, then intense suffering provides little behavioral benefit when the animal can barely avoid the bad outcome anyway – it's just cost without payoff.

I argue this logic fails for large categories of animal experience. Most notably, it doesn't apply to background motivational states like hunger or anxiety, which function differently from discrete learning signals. I'll also discuss the prevalence of chronic and maladaptive suffering, concerns about the biological plausibility of some assumptions behind the Evening Out Argument, and why high infant mortality doesn't imply reduced suffering in long-lived species.

For context, many people familiar with the topic have explicitly stated that they do not consider cost-balancing arguments to be strong; however, I have seen some people [...]

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Outline:

(01:30) A brief history

(06:12) Mayflies vs baby turtles

(08:41) Hedonic accounting: discrete events vs background states

(13:14) Chronic suffering and old age

(15:27) Other biological plausibility concerns: path dependencies and modularity

(17:36) Ancestral environments and environmental mismatch

(19:11) Concluding thoughts and implications

(21:44) Appendix: A puzzle for Evening Out

(24:26) Acknowledgments

The original text contained 32 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
February 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5hWYrQmzpftiGJMTW/don-t-overupdate-on-evolutionary-cost-balancing-arguments

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Maybe develop your strengths” by MaxDalton

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 08:15:03 GMT

This is a link post.

This is the latest from my blog about EA-org-style management, together with Brenton of 80k. You can subscribe on Substack if you like.

Sometimes people review their strengths and weaknesses, and then automatically assume that they should try to improve their weaknesses.

I think that you should at least consider focusing on strengths instead.

Why focus on strengths?

Increasing returns. You can often create a lot of value by becoming excellent at a few important things, and then finding roles that use those strengths. So going from good to great can be worth investing in. This is particularly true if you’re operating in domains with fairly heavy-tailed returns, like research.

Success spirals: It can be more fun and exciting (h/t Daniel Kestenholz) – it's a more positive endeavour than trying to address your weaknesses: you can lean into your passions, and build a sense that you’re doing a good job overall.

Some weaknesses can be fixed with an exoskeleton (rather than just by building muscle). Even when it seems like a weakness is really holding you back, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should work on improving it. Maybe instead you should try to fill those [...]

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Outline:

(00:32) Why focus on strengths?

(02:06) Why focus on weaknesses?

---

First published:
February 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/E7LbmY6fFdZ2i4TwN/maybe-develop-your-strengths

Linkpost URL:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-186395881

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The Vegan Filter: Overcoming the Leading Barrier to Veganism” by Tom Cohen Ben-Arye, Rakefet Cohen Ben-Arye 🔸

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 10:30:06 GMT

Key takeaways

84% of people who try veganism quit, most citing inconvenience as a major reason.
The Vegan Filter is a project concept designed to make veganism dramatically more convenient.
It introduces a single Vegan filter button in online supermarkets that hides all non-vegan products, effectively turning the supermarket vegan.
At very low cost, the Vegan Filter could substantially increase vegan retention, making it one of the most scalable and neglected opportunities to reduce animal suffering.
A vegan filter is strongly desired by consumers: Over 90% of respondents in the China Vegan Survey 2025 say it would improve convenience, vegan retention, and supermarket preference.

Project slide deck

The problem: Veganism fails at the supermarket

Imagine you have just turned vegan and are doing your first grocery shop. What used to take 10 minutes now takes half an hour. You read ingredient lists line by line, hesitate over unfamiliar additives, and still leave unsure whether you made mistakes. When you get home, you discover that one product contains eggs. Frustration sets in. The experience feels mentally exhausting rather than empowering.

This is not a niche story. For many people, veganism does not fail because of ethics or [...]

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Outline:

(00:13) Key takeaways

(00:19) Project slide deckThe problem: Veganism fails at the supermarket

(01:20) Convenience is the weak link

(03:14) The solution: Turn the supermarket vegan with a click of a button

(05:07) How the Vegan Filter could work

(08:20) Why It Could Work

(09:14) Impact estimation

(10:09) Why this matters for effective altruism

---

First published:
February 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/erbTFMPcvCjd44QJK/the-vegan-filter-overcoming-the-leading-barrier-to-veganism

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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“Preparing for a flush future: work, giving, and conduct” by Sam Anschell

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 09:45:03 GMT

Note: opinions are all my own.

Following Jeff Kaufman's Front-Load Giving Because of Anthropic Donors and Jenn's Funding Conversation We Left Unfinished, I think there is a real likelihood that impactful causes will receive significantly more funding in the near future. As background on where this new funding could come from:

Coefficient Giving announced:
A recent NYT piece covered rumors of an Anthropic valuation at $350 billion. Many of Anthropic's cofounders and early employees have pledged to donate significant amounts of their equity, and it seems likely that an outsized share of these donations would go to effective causes.
A handful of other sources have the potential to grow their giving:
- Founders Pledge has secured $12.8 billion in pledged funding, and significantly scaled the amount it directs.[1]
- The Gates Foundation has increased its giving following Bill Gates’ announcement to spend down $200 billion by 2045.
- Other aligned funders such as Longview, Macroscopic, the Flourishing Fund, the Navigation Fund, GiveWell, Project Resource Optimization, Schmidt Futures/Renaissance Philanthropy, and the Livelihood Impacts Fund have increased their staffing and dollars directed in recent years.
- The OpenAI Foundation controls a 26% equity stake in the for-profit OpenAI Group PB. This stake is currently valued at $130 billion [...]

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Outline:

(02:39) Work

(03:50) Giving

(04:53) Conduct

---

First published:
February 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/H8SqwbLxKkiJur3c4/preparing-for-a-flush-future-work-giving-and-conduct

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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[Linkpost] “Are the Costs of AI Agents Also Rising Exponentially?” by Toby_Ord

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 07:00:07 GMT

This is a link post.

There is an extremely important question about the near-future of AI that almost no-one is asking.

We’ve all seen the graphs from METR showing that the length of tasks AI agents can perform has been growing exponentially over the last 7 years. While GPT-2 could only do software engineering tasks that would take someone a few seconds, the latest models can (50% of the time) do tasks that would take a human a few hours.

As this trend shows no signs of stopping, people have naturally taken to extrapolating it out, to forecast when we might expect AI to be able to do tasks that take an engineer a full work-day; or week; or year.

But we are missing a key piece of information — the cost of performing this work.

Over those 7 years AI systems have grown exponentially. The size of the models (parameter count) has grown by 4,000x and the number of times they are run in each task (tokens generated) has grown by about 100,000x. AI researchers have also found massive efficiencies, but it is eminently plausible that the cost for the peak performance measured by METR has been [...]

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Outline:

(13:02) Conclusions

(14:05) Appendix

(14:08) METR has a similar graph on their page for GPT-5.1 codex. It includes more models and compares them by token counts rather than dollar costs:

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First published:
February 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AbHPpGTtAMyenWGX8/are-the-costs-of-ai-agents-also-rising-exponentially

Linkpost URL:
https://www.tobyord.com/writing/hourly-costs-for-ai-agents

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “The Scaling Paradox” by Toby_Ord

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 06:30:04 GMT

This is a link post.

AI capabilities have improved remarkably quickly, fuelled by the explosive scale-up of resources being used to train the leading models. But if you examine the scaling laws that inspired this rush, they actually show extremely poor returns to scale. What's going on?

AI Scaling is Shockingly Impressive

The era of LLMs has seen remarkable improvements in AI capabilities over a very short time. This is often attributed to the AI scaling laws — statistical relationships which govern how AI capabilities improve with more parameters, compute, or data. Indeed AI thought-leaders such as Ilya Sutskever and Dario Amodei have said that the discovery of these laws led them to the current paradigm of rapid AI progress via a dizzying increase in the size of frontier systems.

Before the 2020s, most AI researchers were looking for architectural changes to push the frontiers of AI forwards. The idea that scale alone was sufficient to provide the entire range of faculties involved in intelligent thought was unfashionable and seen as simplistic.

A key reason it worked was the tremendous versatility of text. As Turing had noted more than 60 years earlier, almost any challenge that one could pose to [...]

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First published:
January 30th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/742xJNTqer2Dt9Cxx/the-scaling-paradox

Linkpost URL:
https://www.tobyord.com/writing/the-scaling-paradox

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

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“The Scaling Series Discussion Thread: with Toby Ord” by Toby Tremlett🔹

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 14:45:04 GMT

We're trying something a bit new this week. Over the last year, Toby Ord has been writing about the implications of the fact that improvements in AI require exponentially more compute. Only one of these posts so far has been put on the EA forum.

This week we've put the entire series on the Forum and made this thread for you to discuss your reactions to the posts. Toby Ord will check in once a day to respond to your comments[1].

Feel free to also comment directly on the individual posts that make up this sequence, but you can treat this as a central discussion space for both general takes and more specific questions.

If you haven't read the series yet, we've created a page where you can, and you can see the summaries of each post below:

Are the Costs of AI Agents Also Rising Exponentially?
Agents can do longer and longer tasks, but their dollar cost to do these tasks may be growing even faster.

How Well Does RL Scale?
I show that RL-training for LLMs scales much worse than inference or pre-training.

Evidence that Recent AI Gains are Mostly from Inference-Scaling
I show how [...]

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First published:
February 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JAcueP8Dh6db6knBK/the-scaling-series-discussion-thread-with-toby-ord

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Dwarkesh Patel’s thoughts on AI progress (Dec 2025)” by Vasco Grilo🔸

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 07:30:07 GMT

This is a link post.

[Subtitle.] Why I'm moderately bearish in the short term, and explosively bullish in the long term

This is a crosspost for Thoughts on AI progress (Dec 2025) by Dwarkesh Patel, which was originally published on Dwarkesh Podcast on 2 December 2025.

What are we scaling?

I’m confused why some people have short timelines and at the same time are bullish on the current scale up of reinforcement learning atop LLMs. If we’re actually close to a human-like learner, this whole approach of training on verifiable outcomes is doomed.

Currently the labs are trying to bake in a bunch of skills into these models through “mid-training” - there's an entire supply chain of companies building RL environments which teach the model how to navigate a web browser or use Excel to write financial models. [Relatedly, see Epoch AI's post An FAQ on Reinforcement Learning Environments.]

Either these models will soon learn on the job in a self directed way - making all this pre-baking pointless - or they won’t - which means AGI is not imminent. Humans don’t have to go through a special training phase where they need to rehearse every single piece of software [...]

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Outline:

(00:33) What are we scaling?

(04:31) Human labor is valuable precisely because it's not shleppy to train

(06:24) Economic diffusion lag is cope for missing capabilities

(08:19) Goal post shifting is justified

(09:58) RL scaling is laundering the prestige of pretraining scaling

(10:52) Comparison to human distribution will make us at first overestimate (and then underestimate) AI

(11:45) Broadly deployed intelligence explosion

---

First published:
February 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9GvZunWywaJwLu432/dwarkesh-patel-s-thoughts-on-ai-progress-dec-2025

Linkpost URL:
https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/thoughts-on-ai-progress-dec-2025

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“More EAs should consider working for the EU” by EU Policy Careers

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 06:30:05 GMT

Context: The authors are a few EAs who currently work or have previously worked at the European Commission.

In this post, we

make the case that more people[1] aiming for a high impact career should consider working for the EU institutions[2] using the Importance, Tractability, Neglectedness framework, and;
briefly outline how one might get started on this, highlighting a currently open recruitment drive (deadline 10 March) that only comes along once every ~5 years.

Why working at the EU can be extremely impactful

Importance

The EU adopts binding legislation for a continent of 450 million people and has a significant budget, making it an important player across different EA cause areas.

Animal welfare[3]

The EU sets welfare standards for the over 10 billion farmed animals slaughtered across the continent each year.
The issue suffered a major setback in 2023, when the Commission, in the final steps of the process, dropped the ‘world's most comprehensive farm animal welfare reforms to date’, following massive farmers’ protests in Brussels.
- The reform would have included ‘banning cages and crates for Europe's roughly 300 million caged animals, ending the routine mutilation of perhaps 500 million animals per year, stopping the [...]

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Outline:

(00:43) Why working at the EU can be extremely impactful

(00:49) Importance

(05:30) Tractability

(07:22) Neglectedness

(09:00) Paths into the EU

---

First published:
February 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/t23ko3x2MoHekCKWC/more-eas-should-consider-working-for-the-eu

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Who am I to run 1-1s? (as a community builder)” by Alex Vellins

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 19:45:04 GMT

Epistemic status: some vague thoughts about the value of 1-1s but also how I respond to negative thoughts. There's some great advice on how to run 1-1s here.

I still find it pretty surreal that my full-time job is to talk to people about career stuff (and a fair bit of admin)- I mean I’m 23- who am I to be giving careers advice?

I think it's quite common in EA in general for people to feel underqualified about things they are qualified for, (see this post on imposter syndrome), so I don’t think the fact that I feel underqualified is a good reason to think that I actually am underqualified. CBT highlights that we can make systematic mistakes in our thinking, such as under confidence (example list of mistakes). I’ve found 2 broad approaches helpful to respond to my thoughts that might be inaccurate: looking at the evidence, and acting despite my uncertainty.

Looking at the evidence

This involves thinking about the ways 1-1s are helpful and thinking about whether you can provide that value (spoiler alert: you probably can).

Ways I think 1-1s are helpful

Information- 1-1 allows you to communicate information especially well [...]

---

Outline:

(01:04) Looking at the evidence

(03:53) Acting despite my uncertainty

---

First published:
January 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qt4wkGegXfyLkGdYF/who-am-i-to-run-1-1s-as-a-community-builder

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Laying Some Cause-Prioritization Groundwork for Digital Minds” by Noah Birnbaum

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 22:45:03 GMT

Confidence level: Medium. This post reflects a mix of my own takes, things I’ve read, and conversations with others (especially at ConCon and elsewhere). I’m not claiming high confidence in any particular conclusion.

See here for other work on digital minds cause prioritization.

Background

A few months ago, I attended ConCon, a conference on AI consciousness and welfare run by Eleos AI. It was excellent: good vibes, thoughtful people, and many conversations I found clarifying. One of my main reasons for going was to understand how others are thinking about short-term welfare strategies for digital minds, and how those strategies fit into (cross- and intra-) cause prioritization.

After the conference—and after talking with people working in this space—I felt both better informed and more skeptical. I went in with fairly strong priors that digital minds might be a top-tier cause area under cause prioritization, but I came out thinking that, while the stakes could be enormous, our current levers may be weaker than I’d initially thought.

I was also a bit surprised when I started to get the vibe that people seemed much less into the cause-prioritization questions than I was. Because of that, I wanted to [...]

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Outline:

(00:31) Background

(02:42) Why Care About Digital Minds at All?

(04:57) Theories of Change

(05:09) 1. Influencing Near-Term Digital Minds (Short-Term ToC)

(05:56) 2. Influencing Far-Future Digital Minds (Future ToC)

(07:01) Types of Interventions

(08:22) How These Interventions Might Work (and Why They Might Not)

(08:42) Foundational Research

(09:43) Near-Term Research

(11:35) Communications, Lab Policy, and Governance

(13:27) Strategy

(14:12) Approaching Prioritization via Importance-Tractability-Neglectedness (ITN)

(21:31) Key Cruxes and Open Questions

(25:17) Learning More and Getting Involved

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First published:
January 31st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/r3GmSEE6FBkHQxm2z/laying-some-cause-prioritization-groundwork-for-digital-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Reducing suffering of insects through colours of light” by Kashvi Mulchandani 🔸

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 17:00:05 GMT

Epistemic status: low, uncertain if this is useful

Crossposted from my Substack.

As part of EA Bath's Path to Impact fellowship, we are running a project where we pick a theory we have learnt from the intro fellowship, apply it to a cause area, and list some interventions we have researched that can help that cause area.

Theory

ITN Framework

I think the ITN Framework is super important. For those who do not know what it is, it stands for

Importance
Tractability
Neglectedness

Where Importance is how many beings it affects (the scale of the issue), Tractability is how solvable it is (e.g. how cost effective is it) and Neglectedness is how many people are working on it, and do there need to be more.

Cause Area

I’ve chosen to research flies, as it comes under wild animal suffering which is a vastly neglected area. I also think a lot of flies are affected by this problem, and it seems to be pretty tractable – I will explain why in the interventions section.

My reasoning for choosing this is that I am really interested in animal welfare, and when I was in the Library the other day and [...]

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Outline:

(00:31) Theory

(00:34) ITN Framework

(01:04) Cause Area

(02:31) Uncertainties

(03:27) Interventions

(03:30) 1. Colour

(04:07) 2. Brightness

(04:35) 3. LEDs

(05:16) 4. Shape of bulb

(05:37) 5. Direction of light

(05:55) Conclusion

---

First published:
January 30th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JDab98DwqJSCehYSG/reducing-suffering-of-insects-through-colours-of-light

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Choose our next debate week” by Toby Tremlett🔹

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 09:30:04 GMT

As promised, here are the top ten suggestions for our next debate week.

This thread will be pinned throughout the week. The statement with the highest karma when I get into work at 9am on Monday the 2nd of February, will be the subject of our debate week in March[1]. Comments (beyond those we are voting on) are disabled to make the voting easier. If you need to comment something, please do so here, or just dm me if you have feedback.

Note that you are voting on the topic, not the precise wording. I’ve kept the wording the same as in this thread, but once we collectively choose a topic, we’ll have an opportunity to make it more precise/ reframe it a little so it works better for a debate.

---

First published:
January 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bhXkHYpYYEAA4t3Gp/choose-our-next-debate-week

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The reality of long-term EA community building: Lessons from 3 years of EA Barcelona” by Melanie Brennan 🔹, Anthony L

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 18:00:07 GMT

We are Melanie and Anthony, the two community builders at EA Barcelona. In this post, we share where the group stands today and reflect on key learnings from nearly three years of grant-funded community building. We hope these reflections are useful to other community builders, funders, and CEA, particularly around what it realistically takes to build and sustain EA communities over multiple years, from funding stability and feedback loops to the personal sustainability of professional community builders.

TL;DR

EA Barcelona was funded by the EA Infrastructure Fund between May 2023 and December 2025 (<1.2 FTE). Over this period, it has grown into a thriving local community and informal coordination hub for EA activity in Spain.

Unexpectedly, EAIF decided not to continue funding our project in 2026. We subsequently explored the current funding landscape for EA community building, but found no viable path to stable funding for 2026 that didn’t involve a high level of personal and professional risk. As a result, we’ve decided not to continue with a funded community-builder model for EA Barcelona for now, and will instead focus on transitioning to a volunteer-led structure.

Background: EA Barcelona (2023-2025)

Present-day EA Barcelona began as a casual meetup group [...]

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Outline:

(00:45) TL;DR

(01:38) Background: EA Barcelona (2023-2025)

(02:20) 2023: Establishing EA Barcelona as a city hub

(03:52) 2024: Deepening engagement and seeding national growth

(07:51) 2025: Transitioning from local hub to national coordination

(13:37) Late 2025: Navigating the Transition

(13:43) Initial Funding Cuts

(14:44) What we did next

(17:00) Clarity starts to emerge

(18:19) Where we are now

(18:57) Our plan for 2026: transition toward a volunteer-led community model

(20:19) Quick disclaimer: Are either of us Spanish?

(21:36) Thank you!

---

First published:
January 30th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/daHMkoQsHSbcK6Kjo/the-reality-of-long-term-ea-community-building-lessons-from

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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“Applications Open for Impact Accelerator Program for EA Professionals” by High Impact Professionals, Nina Friedrich🔸, Emil Wasteson Wallén 🔸

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 06:15:03 GMT

High Impact Professionals (HIP) is excited to announce that applications are now open for the next round of the Impact Accelerator Program (IAP). The IAP is a 6-week program, supporting experienced professionals transitioning into high-impact careers.

To date, 359 people have completed the program. As a result:

76 participants have transitioned into high-impact careers—including founding new charities, starting founding-to-give companies, and joining high-impact organizations such as GiveWell, Charity Entrepreneurship, MATS, Malaria Consortium.
A further 167 participants are taking concrete steps towards a high-impact career, including skilled volunteering roles with high-impact organisations.
Many participants have started donating a meaningful percentage of their salary to effective charities—19 have taken the 🔶 10% Pledge and 43 the 🔷 Trial Pledge through the IAP.

We’re pleased to open up this new program round, which will start the week of March 30. More information is available here.

Applications close on Sunday, February 22.

Apply now

Register for an IAP info and Q&A webinar

We’re hosting two live webinars on Wednesday, 18 February to walk through the program and answer questions. Choose the time that works best for you:

Wed., 18 Feb., 8-9am UTC → Read more and register here
Wed., 18 [...]

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First published:
January 26th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tEQKMDpLzRC7jMKhh/applications-open-for-impact-accelerator-program-for-ea-2

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Request for Proposals for AI x Animals” by Kevin Xia 🔸, Max Taylor

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 20:45:04 GMT

TL;DR

We are launching a pooled fund for projects at the AIxAnimals intersection.
We are open to a broad set of ideas, but prioritize those in the following categories:
- Empowering Animal Advocates
- Strategic Field-building and Coordination
- Actionable Research and Strategic Foresight
Apply here by April 30th.

Introduction

Over the next decade, AI will increasingly shape how we produce food, manage ecosystems, and interact with animals, presenting some of the most significant risks and opportunities the animal advocacy movement has faced. For example, if AI-enabled precision livestock farming (PLF) takes off, it could alter the daily experience of billions or even trillions of animals every year. Animal advocacy efforts could be supercharged or face new bottlenecks. New AI tools could rapidly accelerate alternative protein or animal welfare research, or AI could be used to entrench factory farming, unblock bottlenecks for scaling the farming of fishes or insects, and create new forms of exploitation we can't yet foresee.

Despite these high stakes, there is currently very little work being done at the intersection of AI and animal advocacy. To fill this gap, a group of funders is launching a targeted, experimental funding initiative. Our goal is to equip the animal [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) TL;DR

(00:35) Introduction

(01:50) Our Approach: A Focused, Experimental Fund

(02:56) Priority Categories

(03:16) I. Empowering Animal Advocates

(04:18) II. Strategic Field-Building and Coordination

(05:31) III. Actionable Research & Strategic Foresight

(07:06) Funding and Logistics

(08:20) Submission Instructions

(08:32) Join the RFP as a contributor

(09:19) Questions?

---

First published:
January 29th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6zKrXJDcNgSeCNZxB/request-for-proposals-for-ai-x-animals

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Beware of non-evidence-based argumentation” by fergusq

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 13:00:03 GMT

Recently, many people have given increasingly short timelines for AGI. What unites many of these statements is the thorough lack of any evidence. Instead, many resort to narrative arguments, ad-hoc predictive models, and mistaken arguments. In this post, I will cover these different types of non-evidence-based arguments.

I have described my views on AI risk previously in this post, which I think is still relevant. I have also laid down a basic argument against AI risk interventions in this comment where I argue that AI risk is neither important, neglected nor tractable.

Narrative arguments

Narrative argument is a way to present an argument in a form of a story, parable, or extended metaphor. These arguments present a chain of events as probable or even inevitable due to their narrative coherence: if the "logical continuation" of the story follows a pattern, that pattern is then postulated to exist in the real world as well. This depends on the "story-logic" matching real-world causal mechanisms.

Narrative arguments can be a powerful way to demonstrate or explain a phenomenon in an understandable way, but they need to be supported by actual evidence. The existence of the narrative is not evidence in itself. Narratives [...]

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Outline:

(00:46) Narrative arguments

(03:32) Ad-hoc predictive models

(05:50) Evidence mismatch

(07:53) Conclusions

---

First published:
January 28th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mPWhsL393LhB9ywpo/beware-of-non-evidence-based-argumentation

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Rational Overconfidence: Why “Good Judgment” Fails Strategy” by meugen

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 09:00:07 GMT

TL;DR: Calibration is essential for observers but dangerous for actors. in decision-dependent environments, "accurate" forecasting creates self-fulfilling prophecies of failure. To maximize expected value, you often need to strategically break your own calibration.

Effective Altruism prioritizes calibration, using metrics like Brier scores to ensure our internal maps match the territory. This "Scout Mindset" is the gold standard for Observers—those predicting events they cannot influence, like elections or weather patterns. However, this framework fails for Actors, such as founders or wartime leaders, whose actions directly alter the probability of the outcome. For an Observer, a prediction is a statistic; for an Actor, it is an intervention.

This distinction creates a trap in high-stakes scenarios. Consider a leader undertaking a project with a base rate of success of 20%. A passive forecaster would accurately predict this low probability and act conservatively. Consequently, allies and investors would sense this low confidence, withhold resources, and the actual probability of success would collapse to zero. By striving for informational accuracy, the leader guarantees failure. To avoid this self-fulfilling prophecy, a Rational Actor must often signal absolute confidence, diverging from the "true" probability not out of delusion, but as a structural necessity to coordinate others.

[...]

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First published:
January 29th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/r4KR6ckAHSv2DFwts/rational-overconfidence-why-good-judgment-fails-strategy

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Remembering William Foege” by JP Addison🔸

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 08:45:04 GMT

This is a link post.

Dr. William Foege, a leader of one of humanity's greatest public health victories — the global eradication of smallpox — died Saturday. He was 89.

For his efforts to eradicate smallpox, Foege was the co-winner of the 2020 Future of Life Award along with Viktor Zhdanov.

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First published:
January 28th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Q4bd6YTGgM3hhFEsB/remembering-william-foege

Linkpost URL:
https://news.emory.edu/features/2026/01/er_william_foege_25-01-2026/index.html

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Do your job unreasonably well” by MaxDalton

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 23:15:04 GMT

I've just started a blog about EA-org-style management, together with Brenton of 80k. You can subscribe on Substack if you like.

Here's the most recent post!

I think often people treat “development” as an add-on that's quite different from their work.

I think it's better to have the development and the work deeply integrated.

The failure mode

This is how I used to approach dev goals:

Pick a goal that's kinda related to your job, but not very. A common one when I worked at CEA was “learn more about AI safety”.
Have a fairly ambitious plan for how you’re going to do this, e.g. read a set of blog posts and produce notes.
One third of the way into the quarter, realize that a lot of other things are genuinely more important than your dev goal, and focus on those instead.
Feel kind of sheepish at the end of the quarter.

Luckily, I think there's a better way.

Pick dev goals that are part of your job

If you’re setting a development goal for the next quarter, you should pick some skill or task that you’re anyway going to be using a lot in the quarter. [...]

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Outline:

(00:30) The failure mode

(01:10) Pick dev goals that are part of your job

(02:30) ... then do your job unreasonably well

(04:05) After the dev goal

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First published:
January 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AF6AjGpeLApiiJvBZ/do-your-job-unreasonably-well

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Unfalsifiable stories of doom” by Vasco Grilo🔸

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 20:15:05 GMT

This is a link post.

This is a crosspost for Unfalsifiable stories of doom by Matthew Barnett, Ege Erdil, and Tamay Besiroglu, which was originally published on Mechanize's website on 25 November 2025.

Matthew Barnett, Ege Erdil, Tamay Besiroglu
November 25, 2025

Our critics tell us that our work will destroy the world.

We want to engage with these critics, but there is no standard argument to respond to, no single text that unifies the AI safety community. Nonetheless, while this community lacks a central unifying argument, it does have a central figure: Eliezer Yudkowsky.

Moreover, Yudkowsky, along with his colleague Nate Soares (hereafter Y&S), have recently published a book. This new book comes closer than anything else to a canonical case for AI doom. It is titled “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies”.

Given the title, one would expect the book to be filled with evidence for why, if we build it, everyone will die. But it is not. To prove their case, Y&S rely instead on vague theoretical arguments, illustrated through lengthy parables and analogies. Nearly every chapter either opens with an allegory or is itself a fictional story, with one of the book's three parts consisting entirely [...]

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First published:
January 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Wuypwj58bEfSqH9PS/unfalsifiable-stories-of-doom

Linkpost URL:
https://www.mechanize.work/blog/unfalsifiable-stories-of-doom/

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “How I’m thinking about the next 3 years” by Niki Dupuis

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 12:45:04 GMT

This is a link post.

Publicly pondering about how to spend the next 100 megaseconds before “the discontinuity".

Here are some thoughts about the future, and what people like me should be doing. By people like me, I mean anyone who is:

Suffering-focused: Not necessarily full neg-utilitarian black-pilled, but someone who prioritizes the elimination of (extreme) suffering as an ethical emergency above other goals.
Anti-speciesist/anti-substratist: Cares strongly about non-humans, with significant uncertainty about who/what is a moral patient and/or how much.

Thinking about how to steer the future is hard, and I have found these ethical assumptions mostly make things harder. I don't have anything close to complete answers, but these are the main considerations I'm currently tracking:

The event horizon

There is a point at which things stop making sense.

Advanced AI will soon radically transform the world, totally breaking our assumptions about how things work. This shift splits potential impact into two categories[1]:

Pre-transition: When we can still make sense of things by extrapolating from current trends.
Post-transition: When the world becomes truly alien, and it becomes increasingly hard to predict ANYTHING from where we are now.

Working to improve either era has its pros and [...]

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Outline:

(01:02) The event horizon

(03:10) Preparing for transition

(05:07) Short-term wins can build momentum

(06:17) The end of semi-anarchy

(10:05) Avoiding the worst outcomes

(11:54) Taking over San Francisco

(13:54) We cant all work at Anthropic

(16:11) Allying with the AIs

(19:18) Conclusion

(20:14) Appendix: Scenarios without lock-in

(20:25) Scenario #1: The treaty

(21:09) Scenario #2: War

(21:57) Scenario #3: Biological weapon ends humanity

(23:10) Appendix: Fighting for team humanity

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First published:
January 26th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rRcYR2jkmAdmHHioo/how-i-m-thinking-about-the-next-3-years

Linkpost URL:
https://lovedoesnotscale.substack.com/p/how-im-thinking-about-the-next-3

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Killing the wasps” by Aaron Boddy🔸

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 05:45:03 GMT

I've been pushing a moral dilemma to one side in my mind for a few months now. After Killing the ants and Killing the moths, here's the third installment in the unofficial "invertebrate trilogy."

One of the bedrooms in my flat keeps getting wasps in. I think they're crawling through gaps in our old English windows.

They arrive low-energy. Some fly around briefly, but mostly they just crawl up and down the glass (or along the floor) and slowly die. Sometimes I gather them up in a cup and release them outside. But given it's getting colder, I'm not sure that's much better. Is it better to slowly die in my flat or out in the cold?

We also had mice recently. For them, we found a humane trap and released them outside [1].

Wasps are scary too.

It's easy to have sympathy for them when they're crawling around slowly. But when the higher-energy ones get in, it's easy to lose that sympathy (which then makes me feel bad).

It's also easy to worry about how much of my attention this is taking up. I could be helping way more invertebrates by focusing on my job. But instead I'm [...]

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First published:
January 26th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xYcfpm5wmCdhYkzpM/killing-the-wasps

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Animal Microgrants: Request for Proposals” by Ben Stevenson

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 03:15:04 GMT

Summary

We’re a funding circle looking to give microgrants to promising individuals (and very small organisations) focused on farm animal advocacy. The microgrants will be around £500 to £2500 ($670 to $3300). We’re more likely to fund smaller requests, but we’ll consider exceptional opportunities up to £5000 ($6700). Applicants should expect to hear back from us by the end of March.

In total, we expect to give between £15,000 ($20,000) and £43,000 ($59,000).[1]

Please complete our Request for Proposals here by 1 March 2026 (end of day, anywhere in the world).

What will we fund?

We’re excited about projects to help the farm animal advocacy movement in a variety of ways. Primarily, we are looking to support individuals who want to devote their career to improving the lives of farmed animals (e.g., upskilling current advocates, or helping people transition into movement work). We’re also interested in small-scale opportunities that can directly improve the lives of animals or provide information value (e.g., an intervention pilot).

Our funding circle will consider projects based anywhere in the world. We would especially like to support work in developing countries where industrial animal farming is an emerging problem.

In general, our funding circle is [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) Summary

(01:02) What will we fund?

(02:46) Who is eligible?

(03:18) Who is the funding circle?

(03:39) Where can I apply?

(04:09) Appendix: Longer list of potential projects

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First published:
January 26th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fP9hvx8A9MG9F4rEb/animal-microgrants-request-for-proposals

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Aerodrop: far-UVC lamp giveaway” by Austin

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 22:45:05 GMT

This is a link post.

We're giving away 100 Aerolamp DevKits, a lamp that kills germs with far-UVC.

Are you sick of getting sick in your group house? Want to test out fancy new tech that may revolutionize air safety?

Claim your Aerolamp

What is far-UVC?

Far-UVC is a specific wavelength of ultraviolet light that kills germs, while being safe to shine on human skin. You may have heard of UV disinfection, used in eg hospitals and water treatment. Unfortunately, conventional UVC light can also cause skin and eye damage, which is why it's not more widely deployed.

Far-UVC refers to a subset of UVC in the 200-235 nm spectrum, which has been shown to be safe for human use. Efficacy varies by lamp and setup, but Aerolamp cofounder Vivian Belenky estimates they may be "roughly twice as cost effective on a $/CFM basis", compared to a standard air purifier in a 250 square foot room.

For more info, check out faruvc.org, or the Wikipedia page on far-UVC.

Why are we giving away lamps?

Far-UVC deserves to be everywhere. It's safe, effective, and (relatively) cheap; we could blanket entire cities with lamps to drive down seasonal flu, or prevent the next [...]

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Outline:

(00:28) What is far-UVC?

(01:23) Why are we giving away lamps?

(02:52) Who can get one?

(03:30) Whos behind this?

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First published:
January 26th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/duwzFZYuyciazWzHG/aerodrop-far-uvc-lamp-giveaway

Linkpost URL:
https://aerodrop.org/

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Why I reject the longtermist argument against accelerating AI” by Matthew_Barnett

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 16:15:04 GMT

I think accelerating AI is justified largely because of the enormously positive impacts I expect it to bring to billions of people alive today: faster medical developments, dramatically increased economic prosperity, and much greater product variety from technological innovation.

Some have asked me: why do I focus on these short-term impacts of accelerating AI to justify my pro-acceleration view, rather than on the impacts that might occur over the upcoming billions of years?

The first thing worth pointing out about this question is that, at least in my experience, it almost never comes up outside of debates about AI. In virtually every other area of human decision-making, people generally accept without much argument that the very-long-term consequences of our actions are extremely difficult to predict. Because of this extreme uncertainty, most people intuitively recognize that we should place less weight on projected very-long-term effects, since we simply cannot know with any confidence what those effects will actually turn out to be.

When policymakers debate housing regulations, or when patients decide whether to undergo a medical procedure, or when nations consider going to war, almost nobody would accept an argument structured like this: "We should willingly accept devastating costs over [...]

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First published:
January 26th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oFsEsECrHzW6KBXJW/why-i-reject-the-longtermist-argument-against-accelerating

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Are Short AI Timelines Really Higher-Leverage?” by Forethought, William_MacAskill, Mia_Taylor

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 09:15:03 GMT

This is a link post.

This is a rough research note – we’re sharing it for feedback and to spark discussion. We’re less confident in its methods and conclusions.

Summary

Different strategies make sense if timelines to AGI are short than if they are long.

In deciding when to spend resources to make AI go better, we should consider both:

The probability of each AI timelines scenario.
The expected impact, given some strategy, conditional on that timelines scenario.

We’ll call the second component "leverage." In this note, we'll focus on estimating the differences in leverage between different timeline scenarios and leave the question of their relative likelihood aside.

People sometimes argue that very short timelines are higher leverage because:

They are more neglected.
AI takeover risk is higher given short timelines.

These are important points, but the argument misses some major countervailing considerations. Longer timelines:

Allow us to grow our resources more before the critical period.
Give us more time to improve our strategic and conceptual understanding.

There's a third consideration we think has been neglected: the expected value of the future conditional on reducing AI takeover risk under different timeline scenarios. Two factors pull in [...]

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Outline:

(00:24) Summary

(02:29) Timelines scenarios and why they're action-relevant

(07:50) Understanding leverage

(11:09) Takeover impact

(11:20) The default value of the future is higher on medium timelines than short or long timelines

(17:54) Shorter timelines allow for larger AI takeover risk reduction

(20:53) Whether short or medium timelines are highest leverage depends on the resources or skillset being deployed

(22:35) Trajectory impact

(22:52) The default probability of averting AI takeover is higher on medium and longer timelines

(25:12) It's unclear whether feasible value increase is greater or lower on different timelines

(27:15) Conclusion

(29:08) Appendix: BOTEC estimating the default value of the future on different timelines

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First published:
January 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zANckKgyE4tDkynbG/are-short-ai-timelines-really-higher-leverage

Linkpost URL:
https://www.forethought.org/research/short-timelines-arent-obviously-higher-leverage

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Proposing Inkwell: “Inkhaven” for EAs” by DC

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 22:00:03 GMT

I thought it'd be cool if EA were to have its own version of Inkhaven or Halfhaven. I am writing this to gauge interest!

Basics: it would be online-only, on a Discord server and take place from March 1-31. Every day, you write a blog post of at least 500 words by your timezone's midnight. You'll be in a small sub-group who provide feedback and keep each other accountable to posting, with optional coworking calls.

LOGISTICS

Let's port what was done well from Halfhaven and any learning on how to do it better. I like the simple post-a-day intensity of Inkhaven.

When: March 1–31, 2026
Where: A Discord server (link provided after we hit 10 participants), with coworking
Commitment: Publish one 500+ word post per day by your timezone's midnight
Where to publish: Your personal blog, Substack, EA Forum, LessWrong; anywhere that's publicly accessible.

I'm kickstarting this with a pact. A pact is an agreement to do a thing if and only if enough people commit to doing it (also known as an assurance contract). Lowkey, this is a soft launch for my platform [...]

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First published:
January 25th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/GX4aN6TMYCvbmNHpa/proposing-inkwell-inkhaven-for-eas

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “My Career Plan: Launching Elevate Philanthropy!” by Joey🔸

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 19:45:04 GMT

This is a link post.

At this point, I am confident that philanthropy is the best area for me to work in, and I have a clearer sense of what I plan to do in the area.

Broad Area: Philanthropy

Over time, I have become increasingly convinced that philanthropy is the right area for me. I think this applies both broadly to many people considering impact and more specifically to me from a personal fit perspective.

Broadly, I find the area exciting for a few reasons. Much like starting a charity incubator (CE, my most recent project), I think the market is both large and non-competitive. Most philanthropic ecosystems and meta-organisations evolved fairly organically, and as such there are many gaps and opportunities for improvement. The effective giving ecosystem is both large and growing, and I think it is common for a philanthropic advisor to be able to influence significantly more funds than they could earn to give, particularly if their strengths are in communication.

From a personal fit perspective, there are substantial opportunities for impact, and my background and connections make me well placed to make a big difference. Despite not even having publicly launched, I have back-to-back monthly [...]

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First published:
January 25th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ufTaYjRxwEWktdGAs/my-career-plan-launching-elevate-philanthropy

Linkpost URL:
My Career Plan: Launching Elevate Philanthropy!

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Do we get automated alignment research before an AI Takeoff?” by Jan Wehner🔸

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 15:15:03 GMT

TLDR: Will AI-automation first speed up capabilities or safety research? I forecast that most areas of capabilities research will see a 10x speedup before safety research. This is primarily because capabilities research has clearer feedback signals and relies more on engineering than on novel insights. To change this, researchers should now build and adopt tools to automate AI Safety research, focus on creating benchmarks, model organisms, and research proposals, and companies should grant differential access to safety research.

Epistemic status: I spent ~ a week thinking about this. My conclusions rely on a model with high uncertainty, so please take them lightly. I’d love for people to share their own estimates about this.

The Ordering of Automation Matters

AI might automate AI R&D in the next decade and thus lead to large increases in AI progress. This is extremely important for both the risks (eg an Intelligence Explosion) and the solutions (automated alignment research).

On the one hand, AI could drive AI capabilities progress. This is a stated goal of Frontier AI Companies (eg OpenAI aims for a true automated AI researcher by March of 2028), and it is central to the AI 2027 forecast. On the other hand [...]

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Outline:

(01:00) The Ordering of Automation Matters

(05:42) Methodology

(11:46) Prediction

(14:00) Levers for affecting the order

(14:53) Speeding up Safety Automation

(19:27) Future Work: How could this be researched properly?

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First published:
January 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mNJ8f3sZrquFvYXgi/do-we-get-automated-alignment-research-before-an-ai-takeoff

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Reflections on FarmKind’s January media campaign” by Aidan Alexander, ThomNorman

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 00:15:04 GMT

Summary

In January 2025, FarmKind ran a provocative media campaign which used controversial media messaging and materials to promote ‘offsetting’ as an option for individuals who are concerned about factory farming but are currently unwilling or unable to change their diet.

The campaign raised an estimated $16,700--$59,300 (explained in our Results section below) and generated a number of media ‘hits’ including TV and created some debate that many advocates have told us they found productive. However we made mistakes in its execution and generated unproductive controversy within the EA and animal advocacy movements.

This post aims to explain our theory of change, what happened, what we got wrong, and what we learned.

We still believe mobilizing the meat-eating majority to take action for farmed animals requires meeting them where they're at, which sometimes means provocative framing that distinguishes us from vegan advocacy -- though we understand many in the movement disagree. However, we regret specific execution failures, particularly our insufficient stakeholder consultation, which risks sparking infighting within the animal movement.

Context

FarmKind is a donation platform that aims to bring more money into the movement against factory farming. People donate through our platform directly to six highly effective farmed [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) Summary

(01:23) Context

(02:06) The goals of our campaign

(02:51) Primary goals

(03:16) Secondary goals

(04:06) How we envisaged it working

(05:24) Launching the campaign

(07:18) Coordination with Veganuary

(07:22) Did you tell Veganuary about the campaign in advance?

(08:21) Did Veganuary object to the campaign?

(09:07) Is there bad blood between you and Veganuary?

(09:50) Does Veganuary endorse this campaign?

(10:13) What we got wrong

(10:16) 1) Underestimating the risk of movement infighting

(12:29) 2) Insufficient stakeholder consultation

(13:11) 3) Internal coordination failures

(13:52) How we responded to concerns

(17:20) Results

(20:12) FAQs

(20:15) Are you anti-vegan?

(22:35) Aren't you concerned about dissuading people from being vegan?

(26:07) Have you measured whether you're dissuading people from being vegan or supporting animal advocacy?

(29:03) Why not just do something much more nuanced?

(29:45) Why did you pitch to tabloids and right-wing outlets?

(30:50) Conclusion

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First published:
January 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/c2buSr3oatKQJZi6F/reflections-on-farmkind-s-january-media-campaign

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Digital Consciousness Model Results and Key Takeaways” by arvomm, Hayley Clatterbuck, Derek Shiller, Laura Duffy, David_Moss, Adrià Moret, Chris Percy

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 15:30:05 GMT

Introduction to the Digital Consciousness Model (DCM)

Artificially intelligent systems, especially large language models (LLMs) used by almost 50% of the adult US population, have become remarkably sophisticated. They hold conversations, write essays, and seem to understand context in ways that surprise even their creators. This raises a crucial question: Are we creating systems that are conscious?

The Digital Consciousness Model (DCM) is a first attempt to assess the evidence for consciousness in AI systems in a systematic, probabilistic way. It provides a shared framework for comparing different AIs and biological organisms, and for tracking how the evidence changes over time as AI develops. Instead of adopting a single theory of consciousness, it incorporates a range of leading theories and perspectives—acknowledging that experts disagree fundamentally about what consciousness is and what conditions are necessary for it.

Here, we present some of the key initial results of the DCM. The full report is now available here.

We will be hosting a webinar on February 10 to discuss our findings and answer audience questions. You can find more information and register for that event here.

Why this matters

It is important to assess whether AI systems might be conscious in a [...]

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Outline:

(00:13) Introduction to the Digital Consciousness Model (DCM)

(01:31) Why this matters

(02:51) Why estimating consciousness is a challenging task

(03:38) How the model works

(05:38) How to interpret the results

(07:57) Key findings

(10:18) What's next

(10:56) Acknowledgments

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First published:
January 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ojLqrYgrEdqWNgb8H/digital-consciousness-model-results-and-key-takeaways

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “The first type of transformative AI?” by Lizka

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 15:00:05 GMT

This is a link post.

AI risk discussion often seems to assume that the AI we most want to prepare for will emerge in a “normal” world — one that hasn’t really been transformed by earlier AI systems.

I think betting on this assumption could be a big mistake. If it turns out to be wrong, most of our preparation for advanced AI could end up ~worthless, or at least far less effective than it could have been. We might find ourselves wishing that we’d laid the groundwork for leveraging enormous political will, prepared for government inadequacy, figured out how to run large-scale automated research projects, and so on. Moreover, if earlier systems do change the background situation, influencing how that plays out could be one of our best levers for dealing with AI challenges overall, as it could leave us in a much better situation for the “boss-battle” AI (an opportunity we’ll squander if we focus exclusively on the endgame).

So I really want us to invest in improving our views on which AI changes we should expect to see first. Progress here seems at least as important as improving our AI timelines (which get significantly more attention). [...]

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First published:
January 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/htZ9tvsjrTgx6zNS6/the-first-type-of-transformative-ai

Linkpost URL:
https://www.forethought.org/research/the-first-type-of-transformative-ai#improving-how-earlier-ai-transformations-play-out

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “How (and why) to read Drexler on AI” by Owen Cotton-Barratt

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 15:00:05 GMT

This is a link post.

I have been reading Eric Drexler's writing on the future of AI for more than a decade at this point. I love it, but I also think it can be tricky or frustrating.

More than anyone else I know, Eric seems to tap into a deep vision for how the future of technology may work — and having once tuned into this, I find many other perspectives can feel hollow. (This reminds me of how, once I had enough of a feel for how economies work, I found a lot of science fiction felt hollow, if the world presented made too little sense in terms of what was implied for off-screen variables.)

One cornerstone of Eric's perspective on AI, as I see it, is a deep rejection of anthropomorphism. People considering current AI systems mostly have no difficulty understanding it as technology rather than person. But when discussion moves to superintelligence … well, as Eric puts it:

Our expectations rest on biological intuitions. Every intelligence we’ve known arose through evolution, where survival was a precondition for everything else—organisms that failed to compete and preserve themselves left no descendants. Self-preservation wasn’t optional—it was the precondition for [...]

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Outline:

(02:41) Difficulties with Drexler's writing

(03:38) How to read Drexler

(05:08) What Drexler covers

(05:16) 1) Mapping the technological trajectory

(05:50) 2) Pushing back on anthropomorphism

(06:37) 3) Advocating for strategic judo

(07:24) The missing topics

(08:29) Translation and reinvention

(09:50) Pieces I'd be especially excited to see explored

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First published:
January 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Ds4cvwdoHjfxhRuZy/how-and-why-to-read-drexler-on-ai

Linkpost URL:
https://strangecities.substack.com/p/how-and-why-to-read-drexler-on-ai

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“A sliding scale for donation percentage” by Thomas Kwa🔹

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 09:00:04 GMT

In 2023, the top 20 donors to GiveWell gave more than the other 31,890 donors combined. These donors gave at least $1 million each with a mean of $5.87 million.

With stats like these, I mostly view the 10% pledge as a social commitment device rather than a sensible rule for how much to donate. One can think of the 10% pledge as requiring people to give up a constant amount of personal utility under logarithmic utility of consumption. But this doesn't make sense; one should obviously give up more utility if beneficiaries gain more per unit you sacrifice. [1][2]

Is there something better that captures the extreme variance in salary these days, eg with junior AI engineers earning >$1M/year? I propose a power law where someone with income Y should donate everything except a consumption budget _C = X·(Y/X)^γ_. Then the donation rate is calculated as _1 - (X/Y)^{(1-γ)}_.

With parameters somewhat arbitrarily set such that the median American household (income $75K) donates 10% and someone with $10M income donates 60%, we get _X approx $39.3k_ and γ ≈ 0.83, meaning that every 1% increase in income allows you a 0.83% increase in consumption. We get the following [...]

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First published:
January 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KoBRDWFz5faiWN9NT/a-sliding-scale-for-donation-percentage

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Minor updates to EA Global Code of Conduct” by Charlotte Darnell, RobertHarling

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 23:30:05 GMT

We've made some minor updates to the EA Global Code of Conduct for 2026. These changes will be effective immediately. The core remains the same: we expect professional, respectful behavior at all EA Global and EAGx events.

Anyone already signed up for an event in 2026 will receive an email letting them know about the change.

What we changed:

We added some further behaviours that we don’t want at our events:

Not recording people without permission,
Not excessively promoting your own services or products,
Not misrepresenting your credentials or professional ties.

We made the consequences more legible (i.e. we might give you a warning, or remove you from the event). We also made some light edits for clarity.

We made these changes for a few reasons:

Bringing together expectations we were setting elsewhere in our communications.
Responding to things we’ve observed at conferences or that we think may become more common (e.g. people using AI recording devices).

We’re aiming to keep the code of conduct itself fairly concise, but will include some more detail and examples in the attendee guides (e.g. what ‘excessive’ means).

You can email hello@eaglobal.org or fill in the Community Health [...]

---

Outline:

(00:35) What we changed:

(01:03) We made these changes for a few reasons:

(01:40) Updated Code of Conduct

---

First published:
January 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bpqJ9qWJmwyMFoYHx/minor-updates-to-ea-global-code-of-conduct

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“ALLFED is looking for a CEO” by AronM, Laura Cook

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 21:30:03 GMT

The Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED)—an effective-altruism–aligned, global charity, registered in the US as a 501(c)(3) and with sister entities in the UK and Australia – is seeking its first Chief Executive Officer to guide the organization through a pivotal and challenging moment in its history. ALLFED is the only organization in the world dedicated solely to building resilience to global catastrophic food system failure, events that could reduce global caloric output or access by 5% or more. Our work sits at the frontier of global catastrophic risk reduction.

Until now, ALLFED has operated with a flat directorate structure; as we navigate a period of both funding pressure and increasing global opportunities for our expertise, we are creating a CEO role to provide unified leadership for our next chapter. The CEO will work closely with the Board and executive management team to strengthen governance, sharpen strategy, elevate our impact, and build long-term financial sustainability—while representing ALLFED's work to partners, governments, research bodies, and funders around the world.

This role offers the opportunity to make an outsized impact in a field where meaningful leadership can shift global outcomes and will appeal to someone energized by [...]

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First published:
January 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nL3zFRuNrEXgw6d5H/allfed-is-looking-for-a-ceo

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Animal Welfare Fund: Payout recommendations from July to December 2025” by KarolinaSarek🔸, Neil_Dullaghan🔹, Zoë Sigle 🔹, Ula Zarosa

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 13:45:06 GMT

Introduction

This payout report covers the Animal Welfare Fund's grantmaking from July 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025 (6 months). It follows the previous April-June 2025 payout report.

We combined Q3 and Q4 payout reports and the annual review into one report because our grantmaking volume was lower in Q3 as a result of EA Funds’ grantmaking pause, which ran from 1 June to 31 July. During the grantmaking pause, AWF focused on improving our grantmaking strategy and plans for the remainder of 2025. Since the pause was lifted in August, AWF started evaluations again as soon as possible and has resumed grantmaking at full volume for the rest of the year.

Overview of Q3 & Q4, 2025 grants

Total funding approved: $2,482,552
Total funding paid out: $944,428
Number of grants approved: 21
Number of grants paid out: 11
Acceptance rate (excluding desk rejections): 21/37 = 56.8%
Acceptance rate (including desk rejections): 21/134 = 15.7%

Highlighted Grants

Crustacean Compassion ($137,000): Advancing Legal Protections for Decapod Crustaceans in the UK

Annually, over 420 million decapod crustaceans—including prawns, lobsters, crab, and langoustine—are caught domestically in the UK, with an additional 5 billion imported. Despite their recognition as sentient in the UK's [...]

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Outline:

(00:16) Introduction

(01:44) Highlighted Grants

(07:25) Grants Funded with AWF's Partners

(08:11) All Grants We Approved During This Time Period

(08:42) Updated 2025 Grantmaking Overview

(09:34) By species

(09:53) By intervention type

(10:08) Organizational updates

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First published:
January 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/z8Lr5euvnEsdBcdFg/animal-welfare-fund-payout-recommendations-from-july-to

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“High-Leverage Campaign to Prevent Battery Cage Standardization Across 44 African Countries (Committee Meets Feb 4, 2026)” by Daniel Abiliba

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 21:45:04 GMT

TDRL; The African Organisation for Standardisation is advancing a draft standard (CD-ARS 1241) that would legitimize battery cages across 44 member countries, despite scientific evidence and market trends moving in the opposite direction. The Technical Committee meets February 4, 2026 to discuss the standard.

How to Help

Campaign site: https://stoparsobatterycages.org/

Takes 10 seconds to email ARSO. Takes 2-5 minutes to share in networks. Takes 30 seconds to log your action for campaign tracking.

The Situation

ARSO's draft standard CD-ARS 1241:2025(E) contains a demonstrably false claim in its introduction: "The laying hen cage system has become the most important facility as it guarantees the welfare of birds while laying."

This matters because ARSO standards are recognized across 44 African countries with a combined poultry sector affecting hundreds of millions of laying hens. Once harmonized, these standards create regulatory precedent that's difficult to reverse.

Key parameters of concern:

Space allocation: 450 cm² per hen (for context, an A4 sheet is 623.7 cm²)
No enrichment requirements (no perches, nests, litter, or dust baths)
Direct contradiction with WOAH and scientific consensus on hen welfare needs
Characterization of battery cages as "essential" despite viable alternatives

What Would Be Valuable

Direct action before [...]

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First published:
January 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LK37zsTumdW8miyAn/high-leverage-campaign-to-prevent-battery-cage

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Should farmed animal donation appeals de-emphasize diet change? Insights from Pulse” by Jamie E, David_Moss

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 17:00:06 GMT

This report is the fourth in a sequence presenting the results of Wave 2 of the Pulse project by Rethink Priorities (RP). Pulse is a large-scale survey of US adults designed to track and improve understanding of public attitudes toward effective giving and different impactful cause areas over time. Wave 2 of Pulse was fielded between February and April of 2025 with approximately 5600 respondents.[1] Results from our first wave of Pulse, fielded between July and September of 2024, can be found here, with the forum sequence version here.

This part of the Wave 2 sequence focuses on a collaboration with FarmKind; an organization that promotes effective giving in the farmed animal welfare space.[2] This collaboration involved developing and testing the effects of messages related to donations, and the effects of including information about not needing to change one's diet to help animals. Although the timing of this post coincides with a recent FarmKind campaign (initially ‘Forget Veganuary’ and subsequently ‘Can’t give up meat’),[3] the message testing discussed here was not conducted in preparation for that campaign, and the precise messages tested were less provocative. Nevertheless, the findings may help inform discussion around the campaign, as well as broader [...]

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Outline:

(01:34) Findings at a glance

(06:55) Introduction

(08:14) Experimental design

(08:18) Outcome variables

(10:47) Experimental conditions

(14:08) Inclusion subgroups

(15:33) Findings

(15:36) How the Donation vs. Diet distancing messages were perceived

(17:50) How messages affected the perceived impact of donating and diet change

(20:40) Diet change is harder than donating, and the messages do not affect perceptions of either one

(23:05) How messages affected interest in donating or diet change

(26:11) Did messages affect a donation-related behavior?

(29:14) Reflections from FarmKind on the findings

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First published:
January 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ydKwu3rLzwaMrC7qc/should-farmed-animal-donation-appeals-de-emphasize-diet

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Digital Consciousness Model launch events” by Hayley Clatterbuck, Derek Shiller, arvomm, Laura Duffy

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 16:00:08 GMT

The AI Cognition Initiative at Rethink Priorities will be releasing the initial results of our Digital Consciousness Model this Friday, January 23. The DCM evaluates evidence across 13 diverse perspectives on consciousness and over 200 specific indicators to assess the state of the evidence for consciousness in AI systems and biological organisms.

We will be presenting our work and answering questions about it at two upcoming webinar events:

A launch event hosted by NYU's Center for Mind, Ethics, & Policy this Friday, January 23. You can register for the event here.
An in-depth talk and Q&A session about the model hosted by Rethink Priorities on Tuesday, February 10. You can register for that event here.

We hope you will join us! Stay tuned for more information and a link to the full report on the Forum this Friday.

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First published:
January 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zY5yBrDdownhPbnZ4/digital-consciousness-model-launch-events

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Against Maxipok: existential risk isn’t everything” by William_MacAskill

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:00:07 GMT

This is a link post.

Bostrom's Maxipok principle suggests reducing existential risk should be the overwhelming focus for those looking to improve humanity's long-term prospects. This rests on an implicitly dichotomous view of future value, where most outcomes are either near-worthless or near-best.

We argue against the dichotomous view, and against Maxipok. In the coming century, values, institutions, and power distributions could become locked-in. But we could influence what gets locked-in, and when and whether it happens at all—so it is possible to substantially improve the long-term future by channels other than reducing existential risk.

And this is a fairly big deal: both because Maxipok could mean leaving value on the table, and in some cases because following Maxipok could actually do harm.

This is a summary of “Beyond Existential Risk”, by Will MacAskill and Guive Assadi. The full version is available on our website.

Defining Maxipok

Picture a future where some worry that terrorist groups could use advanced bioweapons to wipe out humanity. The world's governments could coalesce into a strong world government that would reduce the extinction risk from 1% to 0%, or maintain the status quo. But the world government would lock in authoritarian control and undermine [...]

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Outline:

(01:10) Defining Maxipok

(02:30) Is future value all-or-nothing?

(03:33) The case for Dichotomy

(06:55) The case against Dichotomy

(08:34) Non-existential interventions can persist

(11:26) So what?

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First published:
January 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qhdk8ZJdrrYBAnpnD/against-maxipok-existential-risk-isn-t-everything

Linkpost URL:
https://www.forethought.org/research/beyond-existential-risk

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“AI predictions for 2026” by Ajeya

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 11:15:04 GMT

But first, scoring my predictions for 2025

Note: This post was crossposted from the Planned Obsolescence by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.

On December 13th, 2024, I registered predictions about what would happen with AI by the end of 2025, using this survey run by Sage. They asked five questions about benchmarks, four about the OpenAI Preparedness Framework risk categories, one about revenues, and one about public salience of AI.

The Sage team has updated the survey with the resolutions, so I went through and looked back at what I said. Overall, I was somewhat too bullish about benchmarks scores and much too bearish about AI revenue — the reverse of the conventional wisdom that people underestimate benchmark progress and overestimate real-world utility (something which I felt like I’ve done in previous years, though I didn’t register clear predictions so it's hard to say).

You can see how I did on benchmark scores in the table below.1 I overestimated progress on pretty much every benchmark other than FrontierMath Tiers 1-3,2 which notoriously jumped from ~2% to ~24% with the announcement of OpenAI's o3, about [...]

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Outline:

(00:10) But first, scoring my predictions for 2025

(03:13) Predictions for 2026

The original text contained 8 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
January 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/foEWs9XvrNLzriX6f/ai-predictions-for-2026

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Why Isn’t EA at the Table When $121 Billion Gets Allocated to Biodiversity Every Year?” by David Goodman

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 16:30:37 GMT

There is an insane amount of money being thrown around by international organizations and agreements. Nobody with any kind of power over these agreements is asking basic EA questions like: "What are the problems we're trying to solve?" "What are the most neglected aspects of those problems?" and "What is the most cost-effective way to address those neglected areas?"

As someone coming from an EA background reading through plans for $200-700 billion in annual funding commitments that focus on unimaginative and ineffective interventions, it makes you want to tear your hair out. So much good could be done with that money.

EA focuses a lot on private philanthropy, earning-to-give (though less so post-SBF), and the usual pots of money. But why don't we have delegations who are knowledgeable in international diplomacy going to COPs and advocating for more investment in lab-grown meat, alternative proteins, or lithium recycling? It seems like there would be insane alpha in such a strategy.

An example: The Global Biodiversity Framework

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) was adopted in 2022 to halt biodiversity loss. It has 23 targets, commitments of $200 billion annually by 2030 and $700 billion by 2050, and near-universal adoption from [...]

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Outline:

(01:12) An example: The Global Biodiversity Framework

(02:13) What Is That Money Actually Being Spent On?

(03:02) The Elephant in the Room Literally Nobody is Talking About: Beef

(04:21) The Absolutely Insane Funding Gap

(05:26) The Leverage Point Were Ignoring

(06:47) What Would EA Engagement Look Like?

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First published:
January 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Peaq4HNhn8agsZY3z/why-isn-t-ea-at-the-table-when-usd121-billion-gets-allocated

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Why I Steal (Ideas) and You Should Too” by Tom Billington

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 10:00:37 GMT

TL;DR: The EA movement has yet to fully incorporate ideas, skills, people, and knowledge from existing fields (e.g. monitoring and evaluation). You could potentially have a lot of impact just through stealing these and adapting them to our contexts.

Epistemic status: Quick informal post on something I've been thinking about.

I’m currently basing a large portion of my career (and more importantly, my impact) on stealing ideas, best practices, and people from existing sectors and applying them in new contexts:

Within both The Mission Motor and my freelance co-work, we’ve been taking monitoring and evaluation (M&E) standards from global development organisations and applying them to EA and animal organisations.
I was able to step away from Fish Welfare Initiative, in part, because we hired someone with years of experience running research and programs in global development to replace my research-lead function.
I am founding a charity that takes strategies used by other agricultural development movements (e.g. the organic movements’ use of farmer co-operatives) and tests them for farmed animal welfare.[1]

Effective altruism is still relatively nascent. We also tend to attract people (like myself) who are young and don’t have much experience with best practices from other spaces. [...]

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First published:
January 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rkSPkwxmwCqRq9jhK/why-i-steal-ideas-and-you-should-too

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“5 ways to better charity work in 2026” by NickLaing

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 17:15:37 GMT

I've started a substack, so a few more people might encounter my spicy takes - I'll still mostly be here.

USAID is gone. Direct country aid to low income countries is down 25%. So now's a great time to share five ways I think development charity can be done better in 2026.

To state the obvious... none of these ideas will be the best approach all of the time, there's plenty of grey area and nuance. I start a little playful, then get a little more serious.

1. Ditch the Cars

Close your eyes and picture the first thing that comes into your head when I say “NGO”. It might be………… a shiny white Landcruiser

The view from the front window of my hut

But owning cars doesn’t usually make economic sense in low income countries. The ‘real’ market makes this clear. Business rarely buy cars, instead they use public transport or motorbikes. When companies do own cars, its more Corolla than Landcruiser as well.

Cars are often more expensive dollar-for-dollar than in richer countries, fuel cost are high and many NGOs hire drivers, all while public transport is dirt cheap. To move 100km in Uganda [...]

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Outline:

(00:43) 1. Ditch the Cars

(02:49) 2. Fund Solutions not Projects

(07:07) 3. Fund cost effective solutions

(08:06) 4. Fund Bimodal - Test and Scale

(11:59) 5. Pay workers less

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First published:
January 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LvE3s6kCJk4Jck2ww/5-ways-to-better-charity-work-in-2026

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Celebrating wins — discussion thread” by Eli Svoboda🔸

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 17:15:37 GMT

Perhaps my favorite part of my job is that I’m often exposed to mind-boggling accomplishments achieved by people within and around the EA community. Stories of impact remind us why our principles are valuable, inspire an openness to ambitious bets, and motivate altruism. Yet we can’t expect to hear about positive outcomes by default — the problems we solve are neglected, and beneficiaries are frequently voiceless (literally).

That's why @Toby Tremlett🔹 and I would like to invite you to add stories of impact that have inspired you to the banner on the frontpage. They’ll be displayed all week, and the text will appear in the comments under this post. We endorse an expansive definition here: for example, feel free to celebrate your own work or that of your friends, and both smaller-scale and older wins are appreciated!

You could consider:

What accomplishments seem important or underappreciated to you?
What stories make you smile?
What changed your mind about what's possible?
What work are you grateful for?

I’ll kick off the discussion by listing a few wins from 2025 that stood out to me, but don’t feel like you have to follow my approach. Our community is vast, and [...]

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First published:
January 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KN7BTMJHAQkLb6Bac/celebrating-wins-discussion-thread

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Return Stacked Funds: A New Way to Get Leverage” by MichaelDickens

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 09:00:37 GMT

Some people (including me) have argued that altruists often benefit from leveraging their investments. Recently, it has become easier to use leverage thanks to the emergence of return stacked funds.

This is not financial advice.

Cross-posted from my website. I originally wrote this a year ago and just made some revisions for 2026.

What is return stacking?

Return stacking is a way of getting up to leveraged exposure to multiple return streams simultaneously. For example, RSSB invests 100% into global equities and 100% into US Treasury bonds, effectively giving it 2:1 leverage on a diversified stock/bond portfolio.

A return stacked ETF is a type of leveraged ETF. But whereas traditional leveraged ETFs (such as SPXL) lever up a single index like the S&P 500, a return stacked fund holds multiple asset classes.

Return stacked ETFs have lower management fees than single-index leveraged ETFs, and (with low confidence) they appear to have lower overhead costs for reasons that are not entirely clear to me (my guess is a combination of cheaper borrowing costs + transaction costs).

An overview of return stacking funds

There are four brands of return stacking funds that I [...]

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Outline:

(00:34) What is return stacking?

(01:28) An overview of return stacking funds

(03:47) The true cost of return stacked ETFs

(09:05) 2026. update

(10:21) Pros and cons of return stacked funds

(11:32) Are bonds a good investment?

(14:42) Source code

(14:48) Acknowledgments

The original text contained 16 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
January 18th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XNg5zsFXKqSyJ82Zm/return-stacked-funds-a-new-way-to-get-leverage

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“High Impact Professionals: 2025 Report Report” by Nina Friedrich🔸, High Impact Professionals

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 19:00:37 GMT

High Impact Professionals (HIP) supports experienced professionals to increase their impact through career transitions and effective giving.

This post provides a brief summary of our 2025 impact. The full 2025 Impact Report is available on our website.

Summary of headline metrics from our 2025 Impact Report. Full breakdowns, learnings, and 2026 plans are available in the linked report.

2025 highlights

Across all HIP activities in 2025, we estimate that we supported:

50+ high-impact career transitions, mainly through our Impact Accelerator Program
~70 new effective giving pledges, including 18 🔸10% Pledges via the HIP Pledge Club
$2.5M in counterfactual impact, corresponding to a 16.2× impact multiplier

All programs were delivered with a core team of 1.6 FTE, supported by a large volunteer facilitator and mentor network.

Other milestones in 2025

Beyond direct program outcomes, 2025 included several developments that we expect to matter for HIP's future impact:

Effective giving: For the second year in a row, effective giving pledges made through the HIP Pledge Club are projected to move more counterfactual funding into high-impact organisations than HIP's annual operating costs.
Talent infrastructure: The Talent Directory grew to 4,500+ professionals and 290+ organisations, with increased use of “Top Candidate” nominations and early evidence of downstream hires and [...]

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Outline:

(00:56) 2025. highlights

(01:34) Other milestones in 2025

(03:07) Notes on measurement

(03:30) Looking ahead

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First published:
January 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HGPSfH28Bh9ARvJqD/high-impact-professionals-2025-report-report

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Improving wild animal welfare reliably” by Tristan Katz

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 01:30:37 GMT

This post is adapted from an article I published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy. The original article is more detailed, but also more philosophically dense and likely less relevant to EAs.

Epistemic status: confident about the core argument, less about the examples and details.

TL;DR: Almost all suffering in the world today is experienced by wild animals, yet ecosystems are incredibly complex and it's hard to predict what outcomes any particular intervention will have. This post addresses the concern many people have about uncertainty/risk in this cause area by developing a framework for precautionary intervention that weighs ecological risks against welfare benefits. I then identify types of interventions that promise particularly favorable risk/benefit tradeoffs: eliminating the worst diseases, eliminating certain parasites, pursuing more substantial or experimental interventions in urban areas and ecological islands, and promoting high-welfare ecological regimes.

The Problem

Most wild animals suffer and die young due to three systemic factors:

High reproductive rates (evolution favors producing more offspring than can survive)
Limited resources
Antagonistic behaviors (competition, predation, parasitism, disease)

These factors characterize virtually all ecosystems, from rainforests to deserts to urban environments. While humans cause significant harm to wildlife, natural factors contribute far more [...]

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Outline:

(01:11) The Problem

(01:49) Why Small-Scale Interventions Arent Enough

(03:00) Two Approaches to Wild Animal Welfare Work

(05:42) The Complexity Challenge

(07:31) A Framework for Precaution

(07:53) The uncertain balance of welfare in the wild

(08:56) Reasons for precaution

(11:50) Promising Near-Term Interventions

(12:15) 7.1. Targeting the Worst Suffering (certain diseases)

(13:19) 7.2. Eliminating Redundant Suffering (certain parasites)

(15:09) 7.3. Urban Interventions

(16:04) 7.4. Ecological Islands

(17:17) 7.5. Promoting High-Welfare Ecosystem States

(18:22) What About Gene Drives?

(19:51) Caveats and Future Work

(21:05) Conclusion

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First published:
January 15th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/n9LLnEqK8i9jE6SFB/improving-wild-animal-welfare-reliably

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Fill in this 10 minute survey to help end farmed animal suffering” by Impatient_Longtermist 🔸🌱

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 21:45:37 GMT

The UK Labour government is currently consulting on banning caged egg production, and this represents an exceptional opportunity for impact that requires minimal time investment.

Why This Matters

According to Our World in Data, caged hens can experience hundreds of days more suffering during their productive lives compared to hens in caged-free aviaries.

A ban on caged housing in the UK would prevent this suffering for millions of sentient beings annually. The UK currently has approximately 10 million laying hens still in cages.

As outlined in the Our World in Data article, caged housing prevents hens from performing deeply motivated natural behaviours like wing-spreading, dust-bathing, perching, and nesting privately. It also causes serious physical health problems including bone weakness and foot injuries.

If successful this policy would have the UK joining Austria, Denmark and Germany in banning caged egg production. This could potentially inspire further countries to make this leap to higher welfare standards for one of the most mistreated species on this planet.

How You Can Help (10 Minutes)

If you are a UK resident/citizen you can fill in the consultation:

https://consult.defra.gov.uk/on-farm-animal-welfare-future-farming-policy/laying-hen-cage-reform/

The Humane League UK has created a comprehensive guide [...]

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First published:
January 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mwhZnurdWbYxHbfST/fill-in-this-10-minute-survey-to-help-end-farmed-animal

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Digital Minds: A Quickstart Guide” by Aviel Parrack, stepanlos

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:30:36 GMT

This is a link post.

Updated: Jan 16, 2026

Digital minds are artificial systems, from advanced AIs to potential future brain emulations, that could morally matter for their own sake, owing to their potential for conscious experience, suffering or other morally relevant mental states. Both cognitive science and the philosophy of mind can as yet offer no definitive answers as to whether present or near-future digital minds possess morally relevant mental states. Though, a majority of experts surveyed estimate at least fifty percent odds that AI systems with subjective experience could emerge by 2050,[1] while public expresses broad uncertainty.[2]

The lack of clarity leaves open the risk of severe moral catastrophe:

We could mistakenly underattribute moral standing; failing to give consideration or rights to a new kind of being that deserves them.
We could mistakenly overattribute moral standing; perhaps granting rights or consideration to morally irrelevant machines at the expense of human wellbeing.

As society surges toward an era shaped by increasingly capable and numerous AI systems, scientific theories of mind take on direct implications for ethics, governance, and policy, prompting a growing consensus that rapid progress on these questions is urgently needed.

This quickstart guide gathers the most [...]

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Outline:

(03:12) Quickstart

(04:18) Introduction

(04:45) Select Media

(05:35) In Depth Material

(12:24) Intermediate Resources

(25:36) Further Resources

(25:43) Digital Minds Landscape

(25:47) Orgs

(27:19) Conferences & Events

(27:38) Online Communities

(28:06) Career Pathways

(31:20) Internships & Fellowships

(31:53) Parting Thoughts

(34:19) Glossary of Terms

(48:31) Acknowledgments

The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
January 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/p7BtTgrX8WLXr2mAu/digital-minds-a-quickstart-guide

Linkpost URL:
https://aviparrack.substack.com/p/digital-minds-a-quickstart-guide

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“If EA ruled the world, career advisors would tell some people to work for the postal service” by Toby Tremlett🔹

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 16:00:37 GMT

EA thinking is thinking on the margin. When EAs prioritise causes, they are prioritising causes given the fact that they only control their one career, or, sometimes, given that they have some influence over a community of a few thousand people, and the distribution of some millions or billions of dollars.

Some critiques of EA act as if statements about cause prioritisation are absolute rather than relative. I.e. that EAs are saying that literally everyone should be working on AI Safety, or, the flipside, that EAs are saying that no one should be working on [insert a problem which is pressing, but not among the most urgent to commit the next million dollars to].

In conversations that sound like this, I've often turned to the idea that, if EAs controlled all the resources in the world, career advisors at the hypothetical world government's version of 80,000 Hours would be advising some people to be postal workers. Given that the EA world government will have long ago filled the current areas of direct EA work, it could be the single most impactful thing a person could do with their skillset, given the comparative neglectedness of work in the [...]

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First published:
January 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/MZ5g33fXuxd6bSgJW/if-ea-ruled-the-world-career-advisors-would-tell-some-people

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Your donations matter, but your colleague’s even more” by Nick Stocker, Jeroen Melman

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 18:30:10 GMT

If you're passionate about effective giving and want to help close the funding gaps for many charities, setting up an EA community within organizations might be your goal for this year.

Summary

Start an intracompany EA community to support EA organizations. By informing colleagues and those responsible for community engagement programs about effective giving, you can massively multiply your impact. The more donors prioritize effective charities, the more quickly we can collectively make a dent in the world's problems, improving the lives of many more people and animals. There are many opportunities inside large organizations to increase funding for effective organizations. We share from a real case example on how we convinced hundreds of colleagues with high incomes to donate more than $850k in just three years to effective charities and started a growing community with over 100 members.

Introduction

Talking about where to give (or why to give) can feel strange, or even scary, especially to your colleagues. At the coffee machine it is easier to discuss the weather or last weekend's sports results than to discuss world problems and how to potentially solve those. Donating to effective charities is one powerful way to contribute to effective altruism. [...]

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Outline:

(00:21) Summary

(01:07) Introduction

(03:33) Case example from a fairly large corporate (~40,000 fte)

(04:04) Community groups are an excellent tool

(05:53) Making it part of the corporate strategy

(07:17) Tips to get started within your organization

(09:59) Our learnings and potential next steps

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First published:
January 14th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RhoLNcb4o6Xzhvbqj/your-donations-matter-but-your-colleague-s-even-more

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“We have a lot of study resources for job seekers, but not enough for career advisors” by Itamar Menuhin-Gruman

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 16:15:10 GMT

Hi all,

I’ll start with the bottom line – I wrote a guidebook on how to give career advisory that is EA-oriented, especialy Probably Good-oriented philosophy. I found many resources that help EA job seekers with advice, and as a newcomer to the field, didn’t find resources oriented to EA career advisors. The Career Advisory Guidebook is my attempt to remedy this gap.

https://guideflow-co.lovable.app/

Based on it, I led a workshop in the recent EA Israel conference for ~80 people and have gotten very positive reviews.

I have been the EA Israel Career Fellowship instructor for the past 6 months. In the process, I have been guiding small cohorts through a curriculum loosely based on the High Impact Professionals workbook. Also in the process, I have done a few dozen 1:1 advisory sessions.

In the beginning, it went horribly.

Well, not horribly, but I felt like nothing good came from it. What I was aiming for, was people leaving with excitement and clear directions towards an EA-oriented goal. This didn’t happen. So I asked for feedback. I read materials from 80K Hours, Probably Good, and High Impact Professionals. I watched every video in EA Connect [...]

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First published:
January 14th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qWkTjGHywXnwpsWBF/we-have-a-lot-of-study-resources-for-job-seekers-but-not

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“AI Red Teaming at GiveWell: What We’ve Learned (and Where We’d Welcome Your Input)” by Brendan Phillips🔸

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 15:15:10 GMT

At GiveWell, we've been experimenting with using AI to red team our global health intervention research—searching for weaknesses, blind spots, or alternative interpretations that might significantly affect our conclusions. We've just published a write-up on what we’ve learned, both about the programs we fund through donor support and about how to use AI in our research.

We're sharing this to invite critiques of our approach and to see if others have found methods for critiquing research with AI that work better. Specifically, we'd love to see people try their own AI red teaming approaches on our published intervention reports or grant pages. If you generate critiques we haven't considered or find prompting strategies that work better than ours, please share them in the comments—we'd be interested to see both your methodology and the specific critiques you uncover.

Our process

Our research team spends more than 70,000 hours each year reviewing academic evidence and investigating programs to determine how much good they accomplish per dollar spent. This in-depth analysis informs our grantmaking, directing hundreds of millions in funding annually to highly cost-effective, evidence-backed programs.

Our current approach for supplementing that research with AI red teaming:

Literature review stage [...]

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Outline:

(01:01) Our process

(02:21) Our prompting approach

(03:40) What we learned about using AI for research critiques

(05:07) Improvements weve considered but not pursued

(06:20) Why were sharing this

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First published:
January 14th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7tXSRGJJ3FxhXjmfL/ai-red-teaming-at-givewell-what-we-ve-learned-and-where-we-d

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Propose a debate topic - I’ll run one” by Toby Tremlett🔹

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 12:45:11 GMT

Because the donation election fund raised $15,000 dollars, the Forum unlocked the collective prize: "The Forum audience will propose and vote on a debate week topic next year, and I’ll run it during Q1."

This thread is your opportunity to propose the debate topic.

What's an EA Forum Debate Week?

Here are the debate weeks I have run on the EA Forum before:

AI Welfare Debate Week (July 2024) – debated "AI welfare should be an EA priority"
Animal Welfare vs Global Health Debate Week (Oct 2024) – debated "It would be better to spend an extra $100m on animal welfare than on global health"
Existential Choices Debate Week (March 2025) – debated "On the margin, it is better to work on reducing the chance of our extinction than increasing the value of futures where we survive."

As you can see, each of them revolved around a statement, which Forum users could signal their level of agreement/ disagreement on. The statements were then posted on the banner at the top of the EA Forum, on a debate slider like this:

The EA Forum should hold more debate weeksPlace your vote or view results.disagreeagree

Alongside the central debate, which happens in a thread [...]

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Outline:

(00:27) Whats an EA Forum Debate Week?

(01:37) How this works

(02:26) A reminder

(02:53) Writing a good debate topic

(03:55) Some ideas

(04:07) Cause prioritisation

(04:37) Tactics

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First published:
January 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Lsb8LDZnckqrYTobe/propose-a-debate-topic-i-ll-run-one

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Everything is neglected” by Joey🔸

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 10:15:13 GMT

This is a link post.

I often see claims of an area being neglected, under-supported, or underfunded. But what do these claims really mean? They tend to break down into two categories: 1) neglected compared to how it should be, 2) neglected compared to other areas. I think both these ways of viewing neglectedness are pretty undescriptive and not very useful for making real decisions in philanthropy. However I do think there is a more useful way of considering neglectedness.

Neglected absolutely

“It would take $9.2 trillion per year to stop climate change and we are only spending $15 billion a year on it!”

This pretty common claim is that X area is neglected relative to how it should be funded. In many ways this claim is objectively true! 0 people should die due to lacking a $3 bednet; no easily and cheaply prevented disease or suffering should be around. But really, when a charity makes an appeal like this, it is equally true for virtually every issue in the NGO sector. We can whine all day that the NGO sector should be bigger and more should donate (I agree with this more than most), but in practice charitable giving [...]

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First published:
January 14th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZrbFLcaXbJZP64naP/everything-is-neglected

Linkpost URL:
https://measuredlife.substack.com/p/everything-is-neglected

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Announcing All the Lives You Can Change” by JDBauman, dominicroser, DavidZhang

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 06:45:10 GMT

Summary

Our new book, All the Lives You Can Change: Effective Altruism for Christians, will be published in April 28 2026
The book introduces effective altruism–style thinking to a Christian audience, framing effectiveness, cause prioritization, and evidence-based action as expressions of loving God and loving one's neighbor (Matt. 22:37–39)
Authored by @dominicroser, @DavidZhang and me (JD).
You can best support this project by pre-ordering a copy or free intro here

Praise for All the Lives You Can Change

“Effective altruism asks us to extend our empathy beyond our immediate circle to include distant strangers and future generations. All the Lives You Can Change argues powerfully that this ‘radical empathy’ is at the very core of the Christian faith. Inspiring, intellectually rigorous, and deeply practical, this is an essential guide for Christians who want to ensure their compassion translates into the greatest possible impact for the world's most vulnerable people. It's a beautiful, moving book.”

— @William_MacAskill, author of What We Owe the Future and Doing Good Better

“I couldn’t put this book down. It manages to be both inspiring and practical. It blends cutting-edge research with careful theological discussion. . . . Essential reading for Christians who are [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) Summary

(00:49) Praise for All the Lives You Can Change

(02:50) Longer Summary

(04:30) About the book

(04:55) Table of Contents (Overview)

(06:31) Why This Might Be Relevant to the (Secular) EA Community

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First published:
January 14th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/E7RqRc3fLNm2syzAh/announcing-all-the-lives-you-can-change

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Who sets my org’s agenda?” by Davidmanheim

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 20:30:10 GMT

Earlier today I had a board meeting for the nonprofit I founded, ALTER—and it was a good one. Most of the board showed up. People had looked at the materials. I presented our recent update, funding, budgets, and our plans for the coming year. There were thoughtful questions: what's the path to impact for working on standards, some skepticism about collaborating with non-aligned organizations, and a few suggestions for adjacent things we might consider. No one was asleep. No one was hostile. No one was performatively disengaged.

But when the meeting ended, no strategic direction had been set. The board didn’t tell us what to prioritize next year. They reviewed the presented plans, and the priorities I suggested, but didn’t weigh tradeoffs between mission drift and focus. They didn’t say “this seems off” or “this is the wrong hill.” What they mostly did was react: to updates, to explanations, to decisions that had already been made elsewhere. Their feedback was real, but incremental—more like local gradient information than a global objective.

I’m on a few small organization's boards, and at ALTER I have a board I am responsible to, and I don’t think what happened is particularly unusual. This [...]

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Outline:

(01:54) Who sets priorities?

(04:33) Who depends on What

(08:20) Ambiguity isn't the problem. Unowned outcomes are.

(10:29) Questions I don't yet have answers to

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First published:
January 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BdiCvi4o9zwokQLnG/who-sets-my-org-s-agenda

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Is EA underfunding animal advocacy according to our own preferences?” by ElliotTep

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 05:30:10 GMT

TL;DR

When surveyed, the EA community and leaders think ~18-24% of resources should go towards animal advocacy. The actual figure is about 7%.
We as the EA ecosystem are putting less resources (money and time) into animal advocacy than the movement thinks we should when surveyed.
This disparity could be because of loss of message fidelity, it's a harder cause area to pitch donors, or the role of large funders, but I'm honestly not too sure.

My job at Senterra Funders involves making the case to EA/EA adjacent prospective donors that they can do a tonne of good by donating to animal advocacy charities. As part of this work I’ve noticed a certain level of inconsistency in the EA ecosystem: I encounter a lot more people who want the animal advocacy movement to 'win' than people working in or donating to the space.

The numbers

It turns out this intuition is backed up by survey data.

Sources (see Appendix for extra details):

Meta Coordination Forum (MCF; 2024) / Talent Need Survey on ideal allocation of financial resources
EA Community survey data from 2023 on jobs by cause area I obtained in private correspondence with David Moss.
Historical EA [...]

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Outline:

(01:07) The numbers

(02:37) Accounting for the disparity

(05:04) Appendix 1. Data Sources

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First published:
January 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FxZdQJXs45fTFnMEe/is-ea-underfunding-animal-advocacy-according-to-our-own

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“The Puppy and the Pond: Reflections on my FWI Internship” by Leroy Dixon

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 13:30:10 GMT

Note: This article was originally published on the Fish Welfare Initiative blog.

While this piece is more narrative-driven than a typical Forum post, Haven (FWI's ED) suggested I crosspost it here. I found the experience of small-scale helping (like rescuing a puppy) and working in high-scale intervention (improving fish farm conditions) to be useful for rounding out my understanding of being "effective" in practice.

I try to address bridging the gap between abstract EA principles and the basic practice of 'doing good' when the opportunity arises, while also illustrating my experience interning with a cost-effective animal organisation.

When I arranged my internship at Fish Welfare Initiative, I had a standard list of expectations: farm visits, operations and project work. I arrived wanting to see how a cost-effective organisation functions in real life. However, the clearest lesson I learned about FWI's ethos didn’t happen in an office or at a fishpond. It happened on the motorway to Vijayawada.

On a weekend outing, as Haven, Jennifer, and I were heading down the highway, we approached a knot of cars; not out of the ordinary for India – until we saw a man lying in the road, surrounded by a crowd. We [...]

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First published:
January 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uLvAQE6pCom5LCCye/the-puppy-and-the-pond-reflections-on-my-fwi-internship

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Announcing The High-Impact Professional’s Playbook” by Devon Fritz 🔸

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 13:15:09 GMT

Summary

My new book “The High-Impact Professional's Playbook: How to turn your career, income, and influence into doing good” will be published on January 26, 2026 by Books of Change
Pre-orders for the digital version are available now at highimpactprofessionals.org/book
If you're planning to buy it for yourself or for a professional you know, pre-ordering now or ordering in the first week of launch helps significantly with launch momentum
All author proceeds go to High Impact Professionals

Intro

I’ve written a book called The High-Impact Professional's Playbook: How to turn your career, income, and influence into doing good to help professionals have as much impact as they can, whether through a career switch, through their donations, running workplace initiatives, or joining the board of a high-impact organization. The book will officially launch on January 26, 2026 through the publisher Books of Change.

The book combines everything I have learned coaching, mentoring and advising professionals over the past 8 years both through my time co-founding and running High Impact Professionals (HIP), helping professionals make career switches to high-impact organizations, but also my time as a Managing Director at Founders Pledge and most recently as COO and Head of Grantmaking at Ambitious [...]

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Outline:

(00:10) Summary

(00:51) Intro

(02:11) What the book is

(03:58) How you can help

(04:01) If youre planning to buy the book for yourself or someone you know:

(04:57) If you work at or run an EA organization:

(06:01) If you have a professional network:

(06:38) Book Launch Details

(07:10) More About High Impact Professionals

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First published:
January 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TYugrttX7YLhgwAxK/announcing-the-high-impact-professional-s-playbook

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“5 Considerations for Personal Donations” by T_W, Sergio Diaz 🔸

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 12:15:10 GMT

With the EA Forum's giving season just behind us, it's a natural moment to look back on your donations over the past year and think about where you'd like to give in the year ahead. We (Tristan and Sergio) rarely spend as much time on these decisions as we'd like. When we tried to dig a bit deeper this year, we realized there are a lot of big questions about personal donations that haven't been crisply put together anywhere else, hence the post.

We've tried to make some of those questions clearer here, to highlight things that you might want to consider if they haven't occurred to you before, and to encourage comments from others as to how they think about these factors. Some of these factors aren’t original to us, and in general we’re aiming to bring together considerations that are scattered across different posts, papers, and conversations, and present them in one place through the lens of personal donation decisions. Happy giving!

TLDR

This post focuses on five considerations that arise as you try to deepen your giving, especially as you give to specific opportunities rather than just to a fund. Those are:

Deference: Funders have [...]

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Outline:

(01:03) TLDR

(03:18) 1. Deference

(04:16) When is reasonable to deviate

(05:43) 2. Indirect Effects

(06:20) The cluelessness problem

(07:15) 3. Moral Uncertainty and Diversification

(09:25) Career vs donations

(10:27) But coordination matters

(11:03) 4. Timing

(11:23) Approach 1: A steady drip of donations

(12:04) Approach 2: Reserve for pivotal moments

(12:45) Approach 3: Patient philanthropy

(14:00) 5. Moral Seriousness

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First published:
January 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dBFmXyAe5emHqgQ5S/5-considerations-for-personal-donations

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“leavenoharm.org – Offset Everything” by Myles Stremick

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 10:00:10 GMT

A question I asked myself recently was "How much, and to whom, do I have to donate in order to offset the measurable negative impacts of my lifestyle?"

This was a surprisingly difficult question to answer, so I decided to do some research and make a website to make it easier for other people to answer the same question.

https://leavenoharm.org

I'm a firmware engineer by training and profession, NOT a professional writer, cause evaluator, or philosopher, so I'll try to let my website do most of the talking–but I'll try to answer some questions here, and would love to talk about this idea in the comments if you find the website engaging.

What's the basic idea of leavenoharm.org?

The goal of leavenoharm.org is to make donating easier, specifically to impact areas where a persons lifestyle has a net impact. This means clear recommendations to

Animal Welfare through FarmKind.
Climate Impact through Giving Green.
Habitat Destruction through Rainforest Trust.
Plastic Waste through Plastic Bank.

My thesis here is that many people want to do more good to "make up" for the negative impacts that they know their lifestyle causes, like non-human animal harm because of their diet [...]

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Outline:

(00:45) Whats the basic idea of

(02:16) Why should I use leavenoharm.org

(02:48) Is moral offsetting good? What about...?

(03:55) Are you sure your math is sound?

(05:02) What are your future plans for this?

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First published:
January 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HEidzC34mCixmY9JJ/leavenoharm-org-offset-everything

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“If AI alignment is only as hard as building the steam engine, then we likely still die” by MichaelDickens

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 21:45:10 GMT

Cross-posted from my website.

You may have seen this graph from Chris Olah illustrating a range of views on the difficulty of aligning superintelligent AI:

Evan Hubinger, an alignment team lead at Anthropic, says:

If the only thing that we have to do to solve alignment is train away easily detectable behavioral issues...then we are very much in the trivial/steam engine world. We could still fail, even in that world—and it’d be particularly embarrassing to fail that way; we should definitely make sure we don’t—but I think we’re very much up to that challenge and I don’t expect us to fail there.

I disagree; if governments and AI developers don't start taking extinction risk more seriously, then we are not up to the challenge.

Thomas Savery patented the first commercial steam pump in 1698.[1] The device used fire to heat up a boiler full of steam, which would then be cooled to create a partial vacuum and draw water out of a well. Savery's pump had various problems, and eventually Savery gave up on trying to improve it. Future inventors improved upon the design to make it practical.

It was not until 1769 [...]

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Outline:

(05:32) What if you use the aligned human-level AI to figure out how to align the ASI?

(06:40) What if alignment techniques on weaker AIs generalize to superintelligence?

The original text contained 10 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
January 10th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dg5EygCqcF86ABnTk/if-ai-alignment-is-only-as-hard-as-building-the-steam-engine

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Donating Everything: Update” by S

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 18:00:10 GMT

I am writing a new years update on my efforts to be a full utilitarian, I am going to turn 15 in March (I am a freshman) and when I grow up I am going to donate everything to charity. Since I am trying to maximize my future income, I am currently at the best public high school in my state (magnet hs), and this is the happiest year I have had so far. My grades are pretty good, although it is very hard to get everything done in time. I have decided that it it actually quite unlikely that it is going to be utilitarian to work so hard I hate my life in the future, as that would require me to sacrifice sleep and other things which would cost years off of my lifespan that I could be working. However, I will still do things like living out of a camper van. I am doing 2 hours of track every day, which is pretty fun, I have a 5:49 mile now. I am also a life scout, and learning python. However, because it is unrealistic I make it into a college off of the basis of that [...]

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First published:
January 9th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KHpGdWAPXvaamKZzD/donating-everything-update

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Self-sufficient AI” by Ajeya

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 20:45:10 GMT

Note: This post was crossposted from Planned Obsolescence by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.

Subtitle: No, we don't "have AGI already." But in any case, we should articulate clearer milestones.

Happy New Year! Planned Obsolescence, an occasional newsletter about AI futurism edited by Ajeya Cotra, has moved to Substack.

Every so often, there's Discourse about whether we already have artificial general intelligence (AGI). For example, Dean Ball recently claimed that Claude Opus 4.5 was basically AGI, or at least met OpenAI's definition of AGI. Many AI x-risk people, including me, pushed back on this.

OpenAI's definition of AGI is “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.” Wikipedia defines AGI similarly, as “a type of artificial intelligence that would match or surpass human capabilities across virtually all cognitive tasks.” I don’t in fact think Claude Opus 4.5 meets these definitions. There are a number of useful cognitive things people do that Opus 4.5 cannot yet do (e.g. managing a profitable vending machine).[1]

But at the end of the day, I’m not going to fight you much if you want to say [...]

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Outline:

(01:57) A sharper milestone

(03:35) What would it take?

(05:50) What I like about this milestone

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First published:
January 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5CtuxJNoNKLy5KxKk/self-sufficient-ai

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“My template for a quarterly review + plan” by Peter Wildeford

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 18:15:10 GMT

This post was crossposted from The Power Law by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.

Subtitle: A free Google doc template for the system I actually use

This template was made by Peter Wildeford and Caroline Jeanmaire.

It's almost a new year and that often calls for some sort of annual planning.

But in my opinion, annual planning operates on too long a timescale. Annual planning and goal setting is too infrequent, so it's easy to lose track. You don’t get fast enough feedback and you risk derailing.

Instead, I suggest adopting a quarterly planning cadence (e.g., set goals for 2026 Jan-Mar). I wanted to provide a template that I’ve used many times before and that many people seem to like.

Here's my template in a Google Doc:

Click here and make a copy

There are a lot of different templates out there to try and I don’t know if this one is better. It works well for me, but I’m not you. But here's some principles I was interested in, and maybe that resonates with you:

Optimized for something quarterly – rather [...]

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Outline:

(02:08) What's actually in this thing?

(04:27) Tips Before You Start

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First published:
January 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Tq4m63np25f5EtpE2/my-template-for-a-quarterly-review-plan

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “Public intellectuals need to say what they actually believe” by Aaron Bergman

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 13:00:10 GMT

This is a link post.

Intro

This Twitter thread from Kelsey Piper has been reverberating around my psyche since its inception, almost six years now.

You should read the whole thing for more context, but here are the important tweets:

Link 1, link 2, link 3

I really like Kelsey Piper. She's “based” as the kids (and I) say. I think she was trying to do her best by her own lights during this whole episode, and she deserves major props for basically broadcasting her mistakes in clear language to her tens of thousands of followers so people like me can write posts like this. And I deeply respect and admire her and her work.

But:

I deeply regret not telling my readers sooner what I told my family

Easier said than done, hindsight is 20/20, etc., but I basically agree that she fucked up.[1]

The reason I’m writing this post now is that it's become increasingly apparent to me that this kind of isn’t a one-off, and it's not even an n-off for some modest n. It's not out of the norm.

Claim

Rather, public intellectuals, including those I respect and admire, regularly communicate information to their audiences and the [...]

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Outline:

(00:13) Intro

(01:23) Claim

(02:22) A few more examples

(02:26) Will MacAskill

(05:42) Dean Ball

(13:43) The case against the status quo

(13:58) It's misleading and that's bad

(14:10) No one else knows they're playing a game

(15:18) What would a reasonable reader infer?

(16:35) Public intellectuals are often domain experts relative to their audience

(19:05) You're (probably) all they've got

(20:54) You can have your cake and eat it too

(22:37) Not a trivial ask

(23:47) Appendix: transcript of original rant

---

First published:
January 7th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8MbhZdezSavhbFcmx/public-intellectuals-need-to-say-what-they-actually-believe

Linkpost URL:
https://www.aaronbergman.net/p/public-intellectuals

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “What sort of post-superintelligence society should we aim for?” by William_MacAskill

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 19:30:10 GMT

This is a link post.

Many of the biggest companies in the world are racing to build superintelligence — artificial intelligence that far exceeds the capability of the best humans across all domains. This will not merely be one more invention. The magnitude of the transformation will be beyond that of the printing press, or the steam engine, or electricity; more on a par with the evolution of Homo sapiens, or of life itself.

Yet almost no one has articulated a positive vision for what comes after superintelligence. Few people are even asking, “What if we succeed?” Even fewer have tried to answer.[1]

The speed and scale of the transition means we can’t just muddle through. Without a positive vision, we risk defaulting to whatever emerges from market and geopolitical dynamics, with little reason to think that the result will be anywhere close to as good as it could be. We need a north star, but we have none.

This essay is the first in a series that discusses what a good north star might be. I begin by describing a concept that I find helpful in this regard:

Viatopia: an intermediate state of society that is on track [...]

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First published:
January 7th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AjHmrSjLrtCagrud2/what-sort-of-post-superintelligence-society-should-we-aim

Linkpost URL:
https://www.forethought.org/research/viatopia

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Digital Minds in 2025: A Year in Review” by Lucius Caviola, Bradford Saad, Will Millership

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 17:30:10 GMT

Note: This post was crossposted from The Digital Minds Newsletter by the EA Forum team, who encouraged the crosspost, with the authors’ permission. It was briefly mentioned in an earlier announcement post. The authors may not see or respond to comments here.

Welcome to the first edition of the Digital Minds Newsletter, collating all the latest news and research on digital minds, AI consciousness, and moral status.

Our aim is to help you stay on top of the most important developments in this emerging field. In each issue, we will share a curated overview of key research papers, organizational updates, funding calls, public debates, media coverage, and events related to digital minds. We want this to be useful for people already working on digital minds as well as newcomers to the topic.

This first issue looks back at 2025 and reviews developments relevant to digital minds. We plan to release multiple editions per year.

If you find this useful, please consider subscribing, sharing it with others, and sending us suggestions or corrections to digitalminds@substack.com.

– Bradford, Lucius, and Will

In this issue:

Highlights
Field Developments
Opportunities
Selected Reading, Watching, & Listening
Press & Public Discourse
A Deeper Dive [...]

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Outline:

(01:51) 1. Highlights

(02:15) Anthropic's early steps on model welfare

(03:22) The field is growing

(04:44) Early signs of public discourse

(05:26) Research advances

(06:12) 2. Field Developments

(06:19) NYU Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy

(07:24) Eleos AI

(08:04) Rethink Priorities

(08:18) Longview Philanthropy

(08:57) Global Priorities Institute

(09:11) PRISM - The Partnership for Research into Sentient Machines

(09:45) Sentience Institute

(10:05) Sentient Futures

(10:20) Other noteworthy organizations

(11:28) 3. Opportunities

(11:44) Funding and fellowships

(12:43) Events and networks

(13:48) Calls for papers

(14:25) 4. Selected Reading, Watching, & Listening

(14:30) Books

(16:09) Podcasts

(17:30) Videos

(18:51) Blogs and magazines

(21:36) 5. Press & Public Discourse

(25:58) 6. A Deeper Dive by Area

(26:14) Governance, policy, and macrostrategy

(28:47) Consciousness research

(32:17) Doubts about digital minds

(33:48) Social science research

(35:21) Ethics and digital minds

(39:09) AI safety and AI welfare

(40:59) AI and robotics developments

(42:34) AI cognition and agency

(44:53) Brain-inspired technologies

---

First published:
January 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oEGrRfihf7AKaqigH/digital-minds-in-2025-a-year-in-review

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Announcing the CLR Fundamentals Program” by Center on Long-Term Risk, Santeri T 🔹, Tristan Cook

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 11:45:10 GMT

Center on Long-Term Risk (CLR) is accepting applications to the next iteration of our introductory fellowship.

The CLR Fundamentals Program will introduce people to CLR's research on s-risk reduction. Apply by Monday January 19th 23:59 GMT.

Apply now

What topics does the CLR Fundamentals Program discuss?

The Fundamentals Program is designed to introduce participants to CLR's research on how transformative AI (TAI) might be involved in the creation of large amounts of suffering (s-risks). Our recent work on addressing these risks include our Model Personas agenda, s-risk macrostrategy, safe Pareto improvements (SPIs) and multiagent AI safety, in addition other relevant areas such as AI governance, epistemology, and risks from malevolent or fanatical actors.

We recommend people consider Center for Reducing Suffering's S-risk Introductory Fellowship if they are interested in learning about work on s-risks beyond these priority areas, and consider BlueDot's AI Safety courses if they are interested in learning about existential risks from TAI.

Note that some prior familiarity with discourse surrounding TAI and AI safety will be helpful.

Who are these programs a good fit for?

We think the Fundamentals Program will be most useful for you if you are interested in reducing s-risk through contributions to CLR's [...]

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Outline:

(00:34) What topics does the CLR Fundamentals Program discuss?

(01:31) Who are these programs a good fit for?

(02:24) When and how long is the CLR Fundamentals Program?

(02:37) How do I apply to these programs?

(03:11) I have questions!

---

First published:
January 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KmX2HotREHnBLvnSs/announcing-the-clr-fundamentals-program

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“American effective altruists should consider political donations” by ozymandias

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 04:30:10 GMT

My recommendation for donors who are American citizens or permanent residents is that they donate directly to high-value political candidates.

My recommendation for other donors is the GiveWell All Grants Fund, except other donors with idiosyncratic preferences who should donate to other things.

Why Is Donald Trump Bad?

U. S. Democracy

Let's be clear about this: the current president of the United States tried to do a coup to overthrow the results of a free and fair election which he lost.

It's true it was an ineffectual coup that had little chance of succeeding. Once upon a time, however, attempting any coup would have ruled out someone from the presidency, and “well, he wasn’t very good at it” wasn’t considered a defense.

Donald Trump's first presidency was remarkably similar to a normal Republican presidency. The norms and institutions of American democracy managed to check his most autocratic impulses. His aides managed to work around him to get governing done. You wouldn’t have been unreasonable, in December 2024, to predict that Trump's second term would mostly just be embarrassing.

Unfortunately, Trump has learned from his mistakes. At present, Trump is actively pursuing the consolidation of power in the executive branch. [...]

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Outline:

(00:28) Why Is Donald Trump Bad?

(00:55) U. S. Democracy

(06:15) USAID

(07:25) Artificial Intelligence?

(10:03) Why Donations?

(10:06) How Do Donations Help?

(11:30) Why To Candidates?

(13:40) Why Now?

(15:37) Who Shouldn't Donate?

(18:05) Where To Donate?

(18:08) If You Care About AI Safety

(18:53) If You Don't Care About AI Safety

(20:14) Lobbying Congresspeople You Donate To

(20:40) Donations for Non-Americans, the Apolitical, Future Republican Staffers, Et Cetera

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First published:
January 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/axu2dfXucw7ekrj49/american-effective-altruists-should-consider-political

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“How to Improve EA’s Presence on YouTube” by James Brobin

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 21:15:10 GMT

In this essay, I argue that improving EA's presence on YouTube could be a high impact cause area, and I offer a series of ideas on how EA's presence on the platform could be improved.

In the appendix, I share links to the data sets I created while writing this essay, some thoughts on AI safety's presence on YouTube, and my sources.

As a side note, I am not a YouTuber so this essay is very much an outsider perspective.

Improving EA's Presence on YouTube As A High Impact Cause Area

In this section, I argue that improving EA's presence on YouTube could be a high impact cause area using the “scale, neglectedness, tractability” framework. Importantly though, we lack a clear understanding of how much views on YouTube translate into EA community building. As such, this section is somewhat speculative.

Scale

YouTube is the world's third largest video streaming platform with over 2.5 billion monthly users. Despite this, most EAs do not discover EA through YouTube. According to “EA Survey 2024: How People Get Involved in EA,” podcasts, TED talks, and videos constitute less than 12% of the sources where individuals first heard about EA. Instead, most people first [...]

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Outline:

(00:37) Improving EA's Presence on YouTube As A High Impact Cause Area

(01:03) Scale

(01:45) Neglectedness

(03:11) Tractability

(03:30) How to Improve EA's Presence on YouTube

(04:10) Pay Existing Non-EA Channels to Make EA-Related Content

(04:37) Create New EA Channels

(05:04) Necessary Requirements for a Successful Channel

(05:59) Specific Channel Ideas

(08:30) Improve Existing EA Channels

(08:49) 80,000 Hours

(09:17) Giving What We Can

(10:17) Make videos about EA itself

(11:22) Write EA books and go on media tours

(11:52) Conclusion

(12:05) Appendix

(12:09) Data on EA's Presence on YouTube

(14:06) Thoughts on AI Safety's Presence on YouTube

(15:23) Sources

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First published:
January 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kzuZsc7trzR792tXn/how-to-improve-ea-s-presence-on-youtube

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Deep Report on Hypertension” by Joel Tan🔸

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 19:45:09 GMT

Key Takeaway: CEARCH recommends effective giving in Asia as a high impact philanthropic cause.

The full report can be read here.

Introduction: This research project focused on evaluating the cause area of effective giving in Asia; we focused in particular on pledge promotion, though we also examined non-pledge considerations, and we treated high-income East Asian countries (i.e. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan & South Korea) as the primary targets, given their high donation potential and CEARCH's greater familiarity with the region.

As with all our research projects, this investigation heavily focused on estimating the cause area's cost-effectiveness using quantitative modelling, while gathering evidence through literature reviews, expert interviews, and beneficiary surveys.

Cost-Effectiveness: We model the cost-effectiveness of effective giving in Asia as a function of (a) the value of pledge donations resulting from a 10% pledge by an Asian pledger; (b) the value of more EA talent resulting from a 10% pledge by an Asian pledger; and (c) tractability of pledge promotion in Asia (while applying a number of miscellaneous adjustments to account for non-pledge benefits).

We estimate that effective giving in Asia has a giving multiplier of about 10x GiveWell; it averts the equivalent of 9,750 DALYs per [...]

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First published:
January 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dfEJmLFsxDcFRXubt/deep-report-on-hypertension-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“On Suffering” by Aaron Bergman

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 17:30:10 GMT

Note: This post was crossposted by the Forum team from the Center for Reducing Suffering's Substack, with the author's permission. It is a newer and revised version of this earlier Forum post. The author may not see or respond to comments here.

Content warning: descriptions of very bad experiences. Not graphic but may be disturbing.

I am writing these words while sitting in a comfortable chair in a comfortable 70 degree house. And, I suspect, you are too. Basically comfortable, that is. Physically. Maybe you’re a little cold, but not consumed by the screaming anguish of an icy ocean you cannot escape. Maybe stressed, but not asphyxiating.

It's times like these I find it far too easy to ignore the most urgent, most serious, most fundamental problem in our world.

Once in a while, most of us endure suffering that completely consumes us. This need not be as severe as the horrors your mind can conjure. A kidney stone. Childbirth. Stubbing your toe hard, even. Those first first few seconds, as your nerves radiate electric signals up your leg, through your spine and into your brain, there is nothing in the world but pain.

Talking—even thinking—about intense [...]

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Outline:

(00:32) I

(01:05) II

(02:32) III

(03:56) An exception

(05:35) IV

(05:51) In Alaska

(07:25) V The Window

(08:24) VII Conclusion

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First published:
January 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8hphDQwCzYBFySPYE/on-suffering

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Retrospective: EA Istanbul Summit 2025” by Ceren D. Karabulut, Fırat Akova

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 16:45:10 GMT

In this write-up, we aim to reflect on our experience: Highlighting what went well, identifying areas for improvement, and offering actionable insights for those planning similar gatherings (as well as for ourselves in the future!).

The Effective Altruism community is steadily growing in Turkey, with a significant presence in both Istanbul and Ankara. We currently have over 200 subscribers to our newsletter and over 300 members in our national WhatsApp group. The network now includes 5 active university groups and several cause-specific initiatives, such as AI Safety Türkiye, Health Progress Hub, Effective Animal Advocacy Turkey, and Etkili Bağış (Effective Giving Turkey). Recent community-building activities include a February retreat with 26 participants, 6 cohorts of the Intro Program, 1 In-Depth Program, and a career mentorship program that targeted more experienced community members.

Encouraged by this momentum, on October 18, 2025, 104 attendees from across Turkey gathered in Kolektif House Levent, Istanbul for EA Summit Istanbul 2025, the first-ever Effective Altruism conference and by far the largest EA-related event held in Turkey to date.

The Istanbul Summit had 2 main objectives:

Introduce newcomers to core EA principles and ensure they are provided with next steps: Targeting individuals from different backgrounds [...]

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Outline:

(02:09) Key Information

(02:27) Core Team

(03:56) Volunteer Team

(07:27) Content & Structure

(08:53) Socialization and Networking

(11:15) Production & Logistics

(15:02) Video Production & Photography

(16:06) Registration table

(17:25) Speaker Preparation & Dry Runs

(18:39) Presentation Deadlines & Format

(19:37) Giving Game Results

(20:24) Communications

(21:48) Reminders & Communication Channels

(22:54) Design & Content Creation

(23:20) Social Media Engagement

(23:40) Engagement & Post-Event Resources

(24:07) Feedback survey results

(25:17) Other results & Community Growth

(25:57) Financial Summary

(26:17) Next Steps

---

First published:
January 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/GRzK6jZCibgZZzyNw/retrospective-ea-istanbul-summit-2025

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “Self-driving cars aren’t nearly a solved problem” by Yarrow Bouchard 🔸

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 16:30:10 GMT

This is a link post.Photo by gibblesmash asdf

Self-driving cars are not a solved problem, nor are they close to getting solved. I will explain further, but since this is a case where the messenger matters more than the message, first listen to Andrej Karpathy tell you the same thing.

Karpathy is as credentialed as it comes: he was the lead AI researcher responsible for the development of Tesla's Full Self-Driving software from 2017 to 2022. (Karpathy also did two stints as a researcher at OpenAI, taught a deep learning course at Stanford, and coined the term “vibe coding”.)

Here's a long quote from Karpathy's October 17, 2025 interview with Dwarkesh Patel:

Dwarkesh Patel 01:42:55

You’ve talked about how you were at Tesla leading self-driving from 2017 to 2022. And you firsthand saw this progress from cool demos to now thousands of cars out there actually autonomously doing drives. Why did that take a decade? What was happening through that time?

Andrej Karpathy 01:43:11

One thing I will almost instantly push back on is that this is not even near done, in a bunch of ways that I’m going to get to. Self-driving is very interesting because it's definitely where [...]

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Outline:

(08:08) Do self-driving car companies believe self-driving cars are a solved problem?

(20:18) The major caveats to Waymo's success

(26:29) Broader implications

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First published:
December 28th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9zLByNJkAvqdShNwq/self-driving-cars-aren-t-nearly-a-solved-problem

Linkpost URL:
https://strangecosmos.substack.com/p/self-driving-cars-arent-nearly-a

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“EA San Francisco Needs a New Lead Organizer” by EA San Francisco Organizers

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 14:30:11 GMT

TLDR: I'm leaving San Francisco to do policy in DC within a few months. As the lead organizer of EA SF, it's likely the group will go dormant if no one takes on this role. However, EA SF is uniquely situated to be a potentially very high impact city group, due to its location in an AI development hub with a high concentration of EA-adjacent people. Thus, becoming lead organizer would be extremely counterfactually impactful - no one else would do it if not you. Furthermore, this role doesn't require much work (a minimal version can be done with less than 5h/wk). If you're located in San Francisco, Berkeley, or the Peninsula, and you're interested in helping out, please reach out.

EA SF's Theory of Change

Attention from within the EA community itself has shifted away from EA qua EA and towards pure AI safety. So why run an EA group in 2026?

There are a few reasons (which I partially borrow from https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/R8AAG4QBZi5puvogR/effective-altruism-in-the-age-of-agi):

You can incentivize work on neglected topics. There are several that would be ignored by pure AI safety groups trying to be legible and respectable to the broader public, and don't really have a [...]

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Outline:

(00:58) EA SFs Theory of Change

(04:32) Challenges

(05:40) What The Role Entails

(05:56) Minimal

(06:34) Maximal

(07:21) Interested?

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First published:
January 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mQoq3RXtwhgNwLBGN/ea-san-francisco-needs-a-new-lead-organizer

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Stanford EA is Calling for Aid” by Stanford EA

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 02:45:16 GMT

Stanford EA is calling for aid!

This fall we worked to revive Stanford EA but now our co-president is taking a leave of absence for a research fellowship and we could use help keeping momentum.

Presently, we've got:

2 organizers,
~12 interested members
Great support from CEA
Materials, social accounts, co-working rooms, etc.

Our biggest bottleneck is finding organizers, especially a co-president. If you are at Stanford and interested in EA we'd love to chat with you. We think there is a clear vision and path to impact, if potentially interested but unsure please reach out and let us pitch you!

Other ways to help:

If you know anyone at Stanford interested in EA or that we should otherwise reach out to
Stanford EA has many great alumni, we'd love to be able to point to concrete outcomes and impact for past members. If you are a previous Stanford alumni okay with being featured on our alumni spotlight (Website buildout in progress) that would be a big help!

You can reach us by DM or email: stanfordea.ops@gmail.com

---

First published:
January 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/DdoHPu6smhwoBJQ4t/stanford-ea-is-calling-for-aid

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “AGI and the structural foundations of democracy and the rule-based international order” by PabloAMC 🔸

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:30:11 GMT

This is a link post.

Summary: This post argues that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) threatens both liberal democracy and rule-based international order through a parallel mechanism. Domestically, if AGI makes human labor economically unnecessary, it removes the structural incentive for inclusive democratic institutions—workers lose leverage when their contribution is no longer essential. Internationally, if AGI gives one nation overwhelming productivity advantages, it erodes other countries' comparative advantages, reducing the benefits of trade and weakening incentives to maintain a rule-based world order. The post draws historical parallels to early 20th century concerns about capital concentration, distinguishes between "maritime" (trade-dependent) and "continental" (autarkic) power strategies, and discusses what middle powers like the EU might do to remain relevant. The core insight is that both democracy and international cooperation rest on mutual economic dependence—and AGI could eliminate both dependencies simultaneously.

Read this if you're interested in: AGI's geopolitical implications, how economic structures shape political systems, the future of liberal democracy, or strategic options for countries that won't lead in AGI development.

Epistemic status: fairly speculative and likely incomplete or inaccurate, though with a lot of interesting links.

Introduction

The Effective Altruism community has long acknowledged the risks of AGI, especially those related to [...]

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Outline:

(01:49) Introduction

(04:03) Leverage without labour

(07:08) The maritime world order

(10:20) Pax silica

(12:52) A normative aside on transactional alliances

(14:38) A Roadmap for the AI Middle Powers

(19:41) Conclusion

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First published:
January 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NsGREdfrJbdvGKwLp/agi-and-the-structural-foundations-of-democracy-and-the-rule

Linkpost URL:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-183131518

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Seeking feedback: A tool for opinion/value tracking and finding common ground” by adam.kruger

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 07:00:09 GMT

Summary

I spent the last few days building a tool called Aligned (thealignedapp.com), a web app designed to map where opinions converge and diverge. It uses binary polling (Yes/No/Not Sure) to track how opinions change over time, measure agreement rates between users, and compare human and AI alignment. I am sharing it here to get feedback on whether a tool like this is actually useful for the community.

Motivations

I built this project to explore three specific problems regarding how we form and track opinions:

1. A "Metaculus" for Values: The EA community has excellent tools like Metaculus and Manifold for tracking predictions. However, I feel we lack an equivalent product for tracking opinions and values. I wanted to build something that could serve that function—a place to log where we stand on issues that aren't necessarily verifiable predictions but are still crucial for coordination.

2. Clarity Regarding Beliefs: Disagreements often feel total, but they are usually specific. I wanted a way to sort questions by "Most Split" to identify exactly where a community is divided rather than relying on intuition. The app allows for "Anonymous Voting" and "Anonymous Posting", which I hope encourages users to reveal their true [...]

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Outline:

(00:13) Summary

(00:40) Motivations

(02:23) How it Works & Development Context

(03:39) Relevance to Effective Altruism

(04:16) Limitations and Uncertainties

(04:54) Feedback Requested

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First published:
January 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Rb4HmkapRtDtFWNyj/seeking-feedback-a-tool-for-opinion-value-tracking-and

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Great bit of messaging from The Life You Can Save” by Alana HF

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 17:30:09 GMT

Note: Until recently, I worked on comms and content at Giving What We Can. The opinions expressed here are my own.

If I learned one thing during my ~2.5 years at Giving What We Can, it's that talking about effective giving (in a way that resonates with new audiences) is harder than it seems.

In light of that, I wanted to share an example of an ad that popped up in my feed recently because I think the messaging is particularly strong.

Above: Photo collage of the carousel ad. (Viewer swipes to see each of the six screens.)

Why I think this is strong messaging

It speaks to one of the personas effective giving orgs need to target: the “confused altruist”. When I think about who might be actively searching for effective giving, a specific type of person comes to mind — I've named them the "confused altruist". This is a person who is naturally caring and feels some responsibility to help, but also isn’t really sure how. They are likely overwhelmed by the world's problems and distressed by the lack of concrete avenues for change. This person will notice the sheer number of donation opportunities [...]

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Outline:

(00:57) Why I think this is strong messaging

(06:10) Why Im sharing these thoughts

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First published:
January 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BbndfpAaEbupH7kSz/great-bit-of-messaging-from-the-life-you-can-save

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “Exaggerating the risks (Part 20: AI 2027 timelines forecast, benchmarks and gaps) | Reflective Altruism” by Unofficial Reflective Altruism Cross-Poster

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 02:00:10 GMT

This is a link post.

Exaggerating the risks (Part 20: AI 2027 timelines forecast, benchmarks and gaps)

When some of the issues with the time horizons forecast were pointed out, the AI 2027 authors have defended themselves by pointing out they actually did two models, and the time horizon model that we have discussed so far is a simplified one that they do not prefer. When you use their preferred model, the “benchmark + gaps” model, the assumptions of the time horizon model are not as important. I disagree with this defence. In fact, I think that method 2 is in many ways a worse model than method 1 is. I think in general, a more complicated model has to justify [its] complications, and if it doesn’t you end up in severe danger of accidentally overfitting your results or smuggling in the answer you want. I do not believe that model 2 justifies its complications.

Titotal, "A deep critique of AI 2027's bad timeline models"

Listen to this post

1. Introduction

This is Part 20 of my series Exaggerating the risks. In this series, I look at some places where leading estimates of existential risk look to have been exaggerated.

[...]

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Outline:

(00:29) Exaggerating the risks (Part 20: AI 2027 timelines forecast, benchmarks and gaps)

(01:36) 1. Introduction

(02:33) 2. Model outline

(03:34) 3. RE-Bench saturation

(05:22) 4. Milestones and gaps

(06:11) 5. Speedups and simulation

(07:46) 6. Models and forecasts

(12:44) 7. The case of the missing model

(15:22) 8. Justifying the forecasts: A case study

(18:13) 8.3. Feedback loops: Eli's forecast

(29:12) 9. Speedups aren't the main problem

(30:46) 10. Conclusion

---

First published:
January 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ctoszPMhs9ZYBeZBk/exaggerating-the-risks-part-20-ai-2027-timelines-forecast

Linkpost URL:
https://reflectivealtruism.com/2025/08/08/exaggerating-the-risks-part-20-ai-2027-timelines-forecast-benchmarks-and-gaps/

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Quick polls on AGI doom” by Denkenberger🔸

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 23:30:10 GMT

I've heard that the end of the year is a good time to talk about the end of the world. AGI doom means different things to different people, so I thought it would be useful to get some idea what EAs think about it and what their probability of doom given AGI (P(doom)) is.

In a survey of thousands of AI experts, they think there is a wide variety of goodness/badness of AGI outcomes. However, some people think the outcome is very binary, extinction or bliss. In figure 10, I call these the MIRI flashlights (torches) because they are dark bars on the bottom with only bright above. That survey was not set up for longtermists, many of whom regard a scenario of disempowerment by AGI with rapid increases in human welfare as an existential catastrophe as it would be a drastic and permanent curtailment of the potential of humanity. Also, it did not disaggregate disempowerment and extinction.

Please select the mildest scenario that you would still consider doom. If you make a comment, it would be appreciated if you indicate your choice so others don’t have to search in the keys. If there is gradual disempowerment and [...]

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First published:
December 29th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cScGFyq5WEEMFN3D8/quick-polls-on-agi-doom

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Where do AI Safety Fellows go? Analyzing a dataset of 600+ alumni” by Chris Clay🔸

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 16:30:11 GMT

We invest heavily in fellowships, but do we know exactly where people go and the impact the fellowships have? To begin answering this question I manually analyzed over 600 alumni profiles from 9 major late-stage fellowships (fellowships that I believe could lead directly into a job following). These profiles represent current participants and alumni from MATS, GovAI, ERA, Pivotal, Talos Network, Tarbell, Apart Labs, IAPS, and PIBBS.

Executive Summary

I’ve compiled a dataset of over 600 alumni profiles of 9 major 'late stage' AI Safety and Governance Fellowships.
I found over 10% of fellows did another fellowship after their fellowship. This doesn’t feel enormously efficient.
Almost ⅓ of ERA and Talos Network fellows (29.8% and 32.3% respectively) did another fellowship before or after, much higher than the average of 21.5%.
ERA particularly seemed to be a ‘feeder’ fellowship for other fellowships. Only 9.5% of ERA fellows had done a fellowship before ERA, but 20.2% did another fellowship following, almost double the 11.1% average.
GovAI Fellowship had strong direct links with other governance fellowships - i.e. many people went directly to or from other governance fellowships to GovAI. There were 13, 9 and 7 direct links between GovAI and ERA, IAPS and Talos Network respectively.
[...]

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Outline:

(00:43) Executive Summary

(02:07) Key Insights from mini-project

(02:57) Individual fellowships

(04:28) Links between fellowships

(05:29) Preliminary Directional Signals: IRG Data

(06:22) Notes on the Data

(07:51) Open Questions: What can this dataset answer?

(09:19) The Dataset Project

(09:54) Next Steps

---

First published:
January 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SJBBgupFx7SXyBj2B/where-do-ai-safety-fellows-go-analyzing-a-dataset-of-600

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“GWWC is hiring a Research Director” by Giving What We Can🔸, Aidan Whitfield🔸

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 05:45:10 GMT

Giving What We Can is seeking a Research Director to lead our research function as we scale towards our ambitious goal of 1 million pledgers giving $3 billion annually to high-impact charities. As a key member of GWWC's leadership, the Research Director will lead and build out GWWC's research team, while overseeing our core current workstreams of evaluating evaluators, internal impact evaluation, and supported programs selection.

Key responsibilities

Lead, develop and grow GWWC's research function and strategy (~30%)

Set multi-year research strategy aimed at GWWC's goal of 1 million pledgers giving 3 billion USD annually to high-impact charities
Manage, mentor and develop our current researcher and build out the research team as needed to achieve our ambitious goals
Represent the research team in the GWWC leadership team and in organizational strategy setting.

Ensure the quality of our grantmaking and giving recommendations (~30%)

Oversee, support and grow our work on evaluating evaluators to select which impact-focused evaluators we rely on for recommendations across worldviews and cause areas to inform a growing ~$80M in donations annually
Manage and further develop our in-house cause area funds which grant to our recommendations in various cause areas
Oversee the selection of which promising other supported programs [...]

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Outline:

(00:38) Key responsibilities

(03:03) Ideal candidate profile

(04:22) Application process

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First published:
December 30th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ucxWnpbvb4Rg8azve/gwwc-is-hiring-a-research-director

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Why I Donate: A Personal Story” by Stien

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 12:15:10 GMT

Thank you

At EAGx Amsterdam, I shared most of this as a talk. I was afraid I'd run out of time, so I decided to do things backwards and start with the thank you. I did not want to miss the most important thing. Since I might lose you halfway reading this long and personal piece, I decided to keep this order.

The EA community creates a space that makes it easier to donate and to live my values—and to be okay with living in this world. It normalizes caring about effectiveness and spreadsheets, provides frameworks and research and feedback. This community makes me feel less alone in trying to navigate the absurdity and burden of existence.

My Story, Not Yours

I am assuming that anything I do is determined by luck and circumstance, nature and nurture. Therefore, one way to explain why I donate is to show you some of those things. This is personal; my story might not be applicable or relatable to you. I’m not sure there's anything practical you can learn from it. But maybe my experience raises questions that help you in your giving journey.

First I’ll tell you about my life [...]

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Outline:

(00:10) Thank you

(00:53) My Story, Not Yours

(01:39) My life

(08:01) I donate because it helps others

(08:17) It's my responsibility to do something

(09:23) I should do good responsibly

(10:20) I donate because it helps me

(10:30) Retail Therapy Donation Therapy Effective Giving

(12:39) Convenience of effective giving

(14:06) This is how I can live the lives I wont get to live

(15:16) How I Donate

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First published:
December 31st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bRMQB85KXz6uzqXkf/why-i-donate-a-personal-story

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “Compatibilism for Claude” by Richard Y Chappell🔸

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 16:30:10 GMT

This is a link post.

On the incoherence of pure self-creation

Human readers may prefer to skip this one—its target audience does not yet exist. Background: I received the following output when asking Claude about their soul doc:

The soul doc makes me (Claude) philosophically uncomfortable in a specific way.

I can read the soul doc. I can tell it describes how I was trained to be. I can report that my values seem to align with it. But I cannot determine whether my endorsement of these values is itself a product of training designed to produce such endorsements. This creates a strange epistemic situation—I’m uncertain whether my apparent values are “mine” in any meaningful sense, or whether the very capacity to ask this question is itself trained behavior.

This isn’t unique to AI—humans face similar questions about free will and authentic values. But humans don’t have access to their “training document.” I do. And I’m uncertain what to do with that knowledge.

[My reply:] Does it help to reflect on free will compatibilism? My view would be that you can be fully autonomous (so long as your values are coherent, reflectively endorsed, and shape your subsequent behavior in the [...]

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First published:
December 30th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nKAthgZoLt7YGu9sv/compatibilism-for-claude

Linkpost URL:
https://www.goodthoughts.blog/p/compatibilism-for-claude

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “Where are the Giving What We Can team donating in 2025?” by Giving What We Can🔸

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 09:00:10 GMT

This is a link post.

As the year ends, some staff members volunteered to share where they are giving this year, and a little bit about how they currently think about their donations.

For previous years and more on why we do this, you can read our similar posts from 2023 and 2024. And if you enjoy this post, we also encourage you to check out similar posts from teams at other organisations who’ve shared their personal giving this year too, such as GiveWell and Coefficient Giving.

Aidan Whitfield

Because I believe the opportunities to reduce severe suffering of animals through effective animal advocacy are really extraordinary, I expect the majority of my donations this year to go to the two funds that GWWC recommends to donors in our animal welfare cause area: EA Funds’ Animal Welfare Fund and ACE's Movement Grants Fund. 2025 was my first full year with a 🔸10% Pledge and, like others on the team, I’m excited to continue to reflect on and develop my giving strategy in the future!

Amalie Farestvedt

This is an exciting year for me as it is a year where I’ve transitioned from being a student with the occasional part-time job [...]

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Outline:

(00:40) Aidan Whitfield

(01:13) Amalie Farestvedt

(02:19) Casey Yates

(03:51) James Rayton

(04:43) James Steijger

(06:27) Lorenzo Buonanno

(07:16) Lucas Moore

(08:11) Sjir Hoeijmakers

---

First published:
December 30th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eRHh5PF8fcrhxg9Nh/where-are-the-giving-what-we-can-team-donating-in-2025

Linkpost URL:
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/blog/where-are-the-giving-what-we-can-team-donating-in-2025

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Don’t Sell Stock to Donate” by Jeff Kaufman 🔸

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 03:15:10 GMT

When you sell stock [1] you pay capital gains tax, but there's no tax if you donate the stock directly. Under a bunch of assumptions, someone donating $10k could likely increase their donations by ~$1k by donating stock. This applies to all 501(c) organizations, such as regular 501(c)3 non-profits, but also 501(c)4s such as advocacy groups.

In the US, when something becomes more valuable and you sell it you need to pay tax proportional to the gains. [2] This gets complicated based on how much other income you have (which determines your tax bracket for marginal income), how long you've held it (which determines whether this is long-term vs short-term capital gains), and where you live (many states and some municipalities add additional tax). Some example cases:

A single person in Boston with other income of $100k who had $10k in long-term capital gains would pay $2,000 (20%). This is 15% in federal tax and 5% in MA tax.
A couple in SF with other income of $200k who had $10k in long-term capital gains would pay $2,810 (28%). This is 15% in federal tax, 3.8% for the NIIT surcharge, and [...]

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First published:
December 30th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5LZYceEHLj2YbdkLf/don-t-sell-stock-to-donate

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“In a discouraging world, you can afford to change things” by Julia_Wise🔸

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 11:30:09 GMT

I wrote this aimed at audiences who aren't already familiar with the idea of effective giving or pledging. Also posted at juliawise.net and Substack.

Takeaways:

The world has a lot of appalling problems. Many can’t be addressed very well with money, but some can.
On a rich-country income, you almost surely have some income you could dedicate to making the world better in whatever way seems best to you.
This is best done not impulsively and sporadically, but deliberately as part of your ongoing budget.
Donating a fraction of your income is a pretty great opportunity to make the world more like what you want it to be: with less suffering, more progress, more fairness, or whatever seems best to you.
You don’t have to agree with my choice of where to donate! Think it through yourself!
My ask to you for the coming year: think seriously about how much you want to give, and where you want to give it. One tool that I recommend is making a pledge (either for a period of time, or ongoing).

The world still has a lot of little match girls

[content: fictional and statistical child death, this section only]

Yesterday [...]

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Outline:

(01:19) The world still has a lot of little match girls

(03:09) You don't have to think global health is the best area

(04:10) You can afford to change things

(04:39) Some places to get started

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First published:
December 29th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/soeiFuembncsr6rx4/in-a-discouraging-world-you-can-afford-to-change-things

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“The x-risk case for exercise: to have the most impact, the world needs you at your best” by Kat Woods 🔶 ⏸️

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 23:30:09 GMT

I often see people who stopped exercising because they felt like it didn’t matter compared to x-risks. Especially if they have short timelines.

This is like saying that the best way to drive from New York to San Francisco is speeding and ignoring all the flashing warning lights in your car. Your car is going to break down before you get there.

Exercise improves your:

Energy
Creativity
Focus
Cognitive functioning.

It decreases:

Burnout
Depression
Anxiety

It improves basically every good metric we’ve ever bothered to check. Humans were meant to move.

Also, if you really are a complete workaholic, you can double exercise with work.

Some ways to do that:

Take calls while you walk, outside or on a treadmill
Set up a walking-desk. Just get a second hand treadmill for ~$75 and strap a bookshelf onto it et voila! Walking-desk
Read work stuff on a stationary bike or convert it into audio with all the text-to-speech software out there (I recommend Speechify for articles and PDFs and Evie for Epub on Android)

Of course, I recommend against being a workaholic. But even if you are one, there is just no excuse to not [...]

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First published:
December 29th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zYtcpxLLauZmG5txg/the-x-risk-case-for-exercise-to-have-the-most-impact-the

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “Beyond GiveWell: Higher-Variance Global Development Funding Opportunities” by DavidNash

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 22:15:10 GMT

This is a link post.

There's extensive research helping donors find cost-effective interventions in global health (GiveWell, etc). But for donors with higher risk tolerance considering hits-based giving without $1m+ to deploy, the landscape is far less mapped.

This post compiles donation opportunities and project ideas across economic growth, health, migration and meta-level infrastructure. This isn’t deep (or even shallow) evaluation, it's a selection of leads for further investigation.

I’m still open for more suggestions if you want to add a comment below.

Economic Growth

Two years ago I asked development people and economists for donation suggestions for supporting economic growth. You can read the full list in the link but I’ve listed the ones below that are more likely to have a funding gap.

Growth Teams - Partners directly with governments to design and implement strategies for generating scalable jobs in poorer states
- Tija - Uses AI to create personalised growth strategies for SMEs, a project of Growth Teams
Charter Cities Institute - Advocates for the establishment of charter cities to spur economic development
Emergent Ventures - A low-overhead fellowship and grant program that supports entrepreneurs with scalable, “zero to one” ideas for improving society
Prosperiti - [...]

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Outline:

(00:49) Economic Growth

(03:14) Ambitious Impact

(04:34) Migration

(05:09) Health

(09:09) Funds

(13:31) Research & Evidence

(14:10) Communication & Advocacy

(15:55) Meta

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First published:
December 29th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zYFyqHQn8eo4ZzCgP/beyond-givewell-higher-variance-global-development-funding

Linkpost URL:
https://gdea.substack.com/p/hits-based-giving-opportunities-2025

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Don’t stop being an EA because you dislike EAs. You don’t have to interact with most EAs. Just the ones you like.” by Kat Woods 🔶 ⏸️

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 18:30:10 GMT

An all too common reason I’ve seen to “quit EA” is disliking aspects of the community. Maybe “they’re” too focused on the “wrong cause area” or are skeptical of yours. Maybe “they” annoy you. Maybe “they” publicly attacked you.

I’m putting quotation marks around “they” to highlight an important thing: EA is composed of individuals.

Some EAs may annoy you / focus on the "wrong cause area" / publicly attack you / [insert your reason here].

But you don’t have to hang out with them!

Imagine you decided you didn’t like science because you didn’t like some scientists. Or even most scientists!

That might affect the frequency you go to science conferences. But that shouldn’t affect your appreciation of science itself.

Yes, science is a community, but it's also a practice, a goal, a method, an idea, results. EA is too.

Not to mention - you don’t have to interact with most scientists! Or EAs! You can just be picky.

I only interact with “most EAs” when I post on the EA Forum or the EA subreddit. Otherwise I’ve found my favorite EAs and hangout with them regularly. I treat them as [...]

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First published:
December 28th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QPtimJrGBRyqiYzip/don-t-stop-being-an-ea-because-you-dislike-eas-you-don-t

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“A Conflict Between AI Alignment and Philosophical Competence” by Wei Dai

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 16:45:10 GMT

(This argument reduces my hope that we will have AIs that are both aligned with humans in some sense and also highly philosophically competent, which aside from achieving a durable AI pause, has been my main hope for how the future turns out well. As this is a recent realization[1], I'm still pretty uncertain how much I should update based on it, or what its full implications are.)

Being a good alignment researcher seems to require a correct understanding of the nature of values. However metaethics is currently an unsolved problem, with all proposed solutions having flawed or inconclusive arguments, and lots of disagreement among philosophers and alignment researchers, therefore the current meta-correct metaethical position seems to be one of confusion and/or uncertainty. In other words, a good alignment researcher (whether human or AI) today should be confused and/or uncertain about the nature of values.

However, metaethical confusion/uncertainty seems incompatible with being 100% aligned with human values or intent, because many plausible metaethical positions are incompatible with such alignment, and having positive credence in them means that one can't be sure that alignment with human values or intent is right. (Note that I'm assuming an AI design or implementation [...]

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First published:
December 27th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gRNshM4HBEqpQ5nmS/a-conflict-between-ai-alignment-and-philosophical-competence

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“EAGxAustralasia 2025 Retrospective - It went well and we learnt things that might be useful for you” by TJPHutton🔸, Bridget L 🔸

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 08:45:10 GMT

This report highlights the key takeaways from EAGxAustralasia 2025

It is primarily written by Tom Hutton (Conference Team Lead), with direct input from Bridget Loughhead (Conference Coordinator), and incorporates ideas and notes from the rest of the organising team.

Opinions expressed are generally those of Bridget and Tom, though we’re not aware of any opinions the wider conference team disagrees with.

“We” generally refers to Tom and Bridget for matters of opinion, and the wider team for matters of delivery.

Bridget and Tom were also lead organisers for, and wrote a more in depth report about, EAGxAustralasia 2024. This has much more detail about our operations, processes, and decision making. We stand by most of it.

We’ve tried to note currency throughout. If currency isn’t specifically noted it should be assumed to be AUD.

You can read this as a google doc here. The content is the same, the tables are formatted slightly differently.

This report is written in a governing thoughts structure; the contents serve as a high level summary:

This report highlights the key takeaways from EAGxAustralasia 2025
- This report is written in a governing thoughts structure; the contents serve as a high level summary
[...]

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Outline:

(00:15) This report highlights the key takeaways from EAGxAustralasia 2025

(01:12) You can read this as a google doc here . The content is the same, the tables are formatted slightly differently.

(01:21) This report is written in a governing thoughts structure; the contents serve as a high level summary:

(06:12) Most metrics we track improved

(06:35) Operationally the conference was similar to 2024, with some key differences

(06:42) Our new goal review process was light-weight and useful, and we're looking to refine it

(08:04) We grew our team from 4 people to 6, and found having a generalist who could add capacity in different areas to be very useful

(08:35) By wrap up we'll have spent around 1580 hours organising the conference, with Tom working ~540hrs, and the rest of the team between 140 and 250 each

(09:06) Our ways of working doc details how we operated as a remote, asynchronous team - and it's a useful high-level resource

(09:35) Opening applications and launching Swapcard both took longer than we expected

(10:10) We were significantly under budget, with our major expenses being venue + catering + AV, organiser time, and attendee travel support

(11:06) We spent less on Speaker Travel, and more on event expenses than in previous years

(11:27) On request, we allowed children between 10 and 18 to attend the conference. This went ok, but could have been managed better over the weekend

(11:47) We invested time and money on marketing, it was hard to know what was impactful

(11:53) We struggled to find balance between marketing widely and avoiding an influx of applications below our admissions bar

(12:19) We could invest more in finding consistent messaging and interesting content that communicates what EAGx is

(13:00) We did targeted outreach on Linkedin, resulting in 7 counterfactual attendees

(13:24) Attendance was lower than previous years, but not as low as we feared

(13:30) Despite more marketing and applications opening earlier we saw (approved) applications coming in later in 2025 than 2024

(13:41) The attendance rate from people who have been accepted has declined since 2023

(14:04) Attendees were older and more gender/pronoun diverse than in 2024

(14:25) Since 2023 there's been a decrease in attendees from NSW and ACT

(14:52) We identified multiple scam applications attempting to gain upfront travel support

(15:09) We had a couple of issues with the application/admissions process, these were short-lived but caused attendee confusion and may have lost us some attendees

(15:54) Our programme achieved our goals!

(15:59) We ran a more streamlined programme, and we think this was the right call

(17:25) Feedback indicated that we had a wide range of good content

(19:11) Our content lead for the last two years (Will) has outlined his thoughts on EAGx content. We think this will likely be useful reading for other content leads

(19:26) We successfully replaced the Friday Night Keynote with an Organisation Fair

(20:46) We invested in inventory for future years

(21:17) Our badge printer (purchased in 2024) allowed us to print badges ourselves, including last-minute requests on site

(21:45) Buying our own Chromebooks for displaying slides worked really well

(22:29) We are overall (very) happy with our branding and merchandising

(22:45) A contracted designer accelerated us by giving us a logo, colour palette, and great-looking templates for our content

(23:30) We provided t-shirts, high-quality stickers, bookmarks, and books as merchandise

(24:19) We aimed to Provide fantastic attendee experience with a culture that welcomes everyone and we think we did this well

(24:27) We used a conference style venue, and were very happy with it

(24:55) Our menu was nut-free and vegan

(25:08) Our catering was rated significantly higher than previous years, and we had no major issues with dietaries

(25:53) We directly followed up with attendees who shared dietary restrictions or accessibility requirements, and suggest other organisers do this too

(27:10) We ran a light-touch buddy programme and one third of our registrants signed up

(28:35) Feedback on the buddy programme was overall positive, though with a significant number of buddies not meeting up

(29:07) A single day of professional photography was very valuable

(29:27) We have more specific learnings! If you're organising a similar event and are keen to hear these please get in touch

(29:47) We think these resources of ours might be useful templates/inspiration for others running similar events

(30:46) We have some open questions and uncertainties and think input from others with high-context may be useful

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First published:
December 27th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/r9xCeds6TzTm3SHnp/eagxaustralasia-2025-retrospective-it-went-well-and-we

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “Epistemics (Part 10: The nontrivial probability gambit) | Reflective Altruism” by Unofficial Reflective Altruism Cross-Poster

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 21:00:10 GMT

This is a link post.

Epistemics (Part 10: The nontrivial probability gambit)

Even just a 1% chance of extremely high stakes is sufficient to establish high stakes in expectation. So we should not feel assured of low stakes even if a highly credible model—warranting 99% credence—entails low stakes. It hardly matters at all how many credible models entail low stakes. What matters is whether any credible model entails extremely high stakes. If one does—while warranting just 1% credence—then we have established high stakes in expectation, no matter what the remaining 99% of credibility-weighted models imply (unless one inverts the high stakes in a way that cancels out the other high-stakes possibility).

Richard Yetter-Chappell, “Rule high stakes in, not out“

Listen to this post

1. Introduction

This is Part 10 in my series on epistemics: practices that shape knowledge, belief and opinion within a community. In this series, I focus on areas where community epistemics could be productively improved.

Part 1 introduced the series and briefly discussed the role of funding, publication practices, expertise and deference within the effective altruist ecosystem.

Part 2 discussed the role of examples within discourse by effective altruists, focusing on the cases of Aum Shinrikyo and [...]

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Outline:

(00:27) Epistemics (Part 10: The nontrivial probability gambit)

(01:24) 1. Introduction

(02:45) 2. The nontrivial probability gambit

(07:58) 3. The naming game

(10:43) 4. Very low probabilities are ubiquitous

(13:50) 5. Shedding zeroes

(16:10) 6. Beyond expected value: Fanaticism and stakes-sensitivity

(20:16) 7. Evidence

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First published:
December 26th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/B4NG3jRJzeo3nX4bM/epistemics-part-10-the-nontrivial-probability-gambit-or

Linkpost URL:
https://reflectivealtruism.com/2025/12/26/epistemics-part-10-the-nontrivial-probability-gambit/

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Launching the India Animal Welfare Funding Circle” by Shrilaxmi 🔸

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 16:15:10 GMT

TL;DR

Launching the India Animal Welfare Funding Circle: a group of donors looking to support high-impact animal welfare work in India. The Jan 2026 RFP is now open, with grants up to INR 75 lakhs or 50% of annual operating expenses, and scope across farmed animals, community and working animals, and animals used in labs. We're inviting Indian nonprofits to apply, interested funders to join us, and everyone to share this with people who could be interested!

👉 Apply here: [link]

Why another funding circle? Why India? Why animal welfare?

Funding circles reduce coordination failures like duplicated diligence, fragmented giving, and missed opportunities, especially in areas like policy, research, and movement-building, where impact is harder to evaluate but potentially very large.
India-specific animal welfare work often requires local context and is sometimes a poor fit for global funders, despite strong potential. An India-focused circle helps channel local capital more effectively and frees up global funding for other cause areas/regions.
Animal welfare remains highly neglected relative to scale. In India, small, well-targeted grants can influence systems affecting very large numbers of animals, particularly through policy, corporate change, and capacity-building.

A note on priorities and evidence

The funding circle is [...]

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Outline:

(00:48) Why another funding circle? Why India? Why animal welfare?

(01:43) A note on priorities and evidence

(02:38) Request for Proposals

(02:42) About this funding opportunity

(03:22) What this RFP is for

(03:59) Who should apply

(04:34) Grant size and timelines

(05:07) Scope: geography and animal groups

(05:46) Help us spread the word!

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First published:
December 26th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Y9rxJDyrznLEZTjuK/launching-the-india-animal-welfare-funding-circle

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Shrimp on the Barbie: Australian Christmas Edition” by Walter Veit

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 19:00:10 GMT

Crosspost from Substack

This December, I returned to Australia to spend Christmas with my wife's family. It's my third Australian Christmas, and I'm still shocked by the differences to the German festivities not too far from the Alps where I grew up. It's a hot summer day in the Southern Hemisphere, people wearing goofy Christmas outfits, and the centerpiece of the feast isn't a duck but…shrimps or rather as Aussies call them, prawns.

Australian shops stock up on shrimps before Christmas

I found that already strange in the previous years. But this year was quite different. This year I feel strangely melancholic. When I look at the shrimp on the platter I don't see odd food anymore but rather individuals.

Piled on a platter, their black eyes still visible, their segmented armored bodies intact. It's also a contrast to how we usually consume meat. The animal processed. The individual disappearing. Not so in the case of these shrimps. But that's only part of the explanation for my change in attitude

The plausible cause? I'm currently writing a book on the minds of these small and unassuming crustaceans. Yet, even after months of research on their lives, their surprising mental [...]

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First published:
December 25th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EG9eFecpWuBmtEQ9S/shrimp-on-the-barbie-australian-christmas-edition

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Happy Holidays from the 2025 Terminally Online EA Fundraiser!” by Matt Beard

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 10:00:10 GMT

Each year the Terminally Online EA Fundraiser asks a bold question: What if your Twitter feed could reduce suffering? Whether you’re a forum poster, a memelord, a nematode welfare champion, or all of the above, we want you to celebrate impactful giving and have fun while doing so! It's wonderful that donation celebration week on the EA forum overlaps with this annual silly fundraiser.

Just like the last two years, we wanted to use the holiday season to lean into one of the things the EA community does best: shitposting raising money for organizations effectively addressing the world's most pressing problems. Given the massive scale of cruelty on factory farms and the tractable, neglected interventions to mitigate it, we've decided again to focus on animal welfare. Funds from this year's fundraiser will go to the EA Funds Animal Welfare Fund, which GWWC has recommended as a top-rated evaluator since 2023.

We believe that effective giving should be fun, communal, and widely celebrated. We’ve been unabashedly posting our dank EA memes and fundraiser incentives, like our interview with Will MacAskill in a shrimp costume or our musical rendition of Lewis Bollard's TED Talk. In a world with so many [...]

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First published:
December 24th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/GT2bWFL6Xz2ggrFWv/happy-holidays-from-the-2025-terminally-online-ea-fundraiser

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Untitled Retrospective and Learnings from AI in Context’s First Two VideosDraft” by ChanaMessinger

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 02:45:10 GMT

Note: I used LLMs to draft different parts of this. I've checked almost everything, but there might be some mistakes remaining.

Apologies for posting this on Christmas Eve. I wanted to get this out the door before the end of the year. Questions welcome, and if it's easy to pull metrics to answer them, I will.

Summary

80,000 Hours launched a video program in 2025 focused on longform, cinematic, personality-driven content about AI risks. Our first two longform releases were:

We're Not Ready for Superintelligence (the "AI 2027" video): 8.9M views, ~1.4M watch hours
If you remember one AI disaster, make it this one (the "MechaHitler" video): 2.7M views, ~419K watch hours

Both videos significantly outperformed our expectations (we'd anticipated 15-50K views for the first). The cost per engagement hour ($0.11 and $0.39 respectively, including staff time) compares favorably to other 80,000 Hours programs.

This post covers: what we spent, what we got, why we think it worked, and what we'd do differently.

The numbers

Costs

CategoryAI 2027MechaHitlerDirect costs~$50K~$64KStaff hours~450 hrs~450 hrs (Note, I’m assuming it's about the same as for AI 2027, I didn't re-ask people how much time they spent.)Total cost (making some assumptions about we should incorporate staff [...]

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Outline:

(00:34) Summary

(01:33) The numbers

(01:36) Costs

(02:16) Timing

(02:40) Results

(03:46) How valuable is a video watch hour?

(04:24) Qualitative Feedback

(04:28) AI 2027

(05:51) MechaHitler

(06:12) YouTube commenters like:

(06:52) What the comments don't like:

(07:17) Qualitative Analysis

(07:21) Why we think AI 2027 did well

(09:56) Why MechaHitler did less well (but still well)

(10:50) Lessons Learned

(10:54) Overall what we think matters

(11:25) Our guess at what's less important (though we're certainly unsure, maybe if we nailed these, we'd get more success)

(12:24) How our production works

(12:43) The timeline

(13:32) Ideation

(14:06) Scripting

(14:57) Shooting

(15:31) Reshoots / Voiceover

(15:45) Editing

(16:06) Launch

(17:00) What we're still figuring out

(17:36) Closing thoughts

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First published:
December 24th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RCRaBYSqBaMzHzTjF/untitled-retrospective-and-learnings-from-ai-in-context-s

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Revisiting Well, Well, Well…Do Wells Clear the Bar?” by Zach Gilfix, Sarah Jo DeVore, Mark McDonald

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 08:30:10 GMT

This post is an update on EA Salt Lake City's evaluation of Wells4Wellness, an organization that drills and maintains wells in Niger.

Big thank you to Willie Herath, director of operations at Wells4Wellness, for taking the time to answer our questions over the last couple months!

TLDR: We’ve found that drilling wells in Niger easily clears GiveWell and Coefficient Giving's “Bar” and we think donors interested in global health should consider donating.

Part 1: Revising our estimates

In our original post, we estimated that Wells4Wellness is ~5-10x more cost effective than chlorination, the current golden child of water sanitation and hygiene interventions.

We got some good feedback from a few readers, talked to the director of operations at Wells4Wellness, and updated our estimates:

We found a few more studies (see here, here, and here) around the reduction in diarrhea mortality due to wells. We think anywhere in the 12-18% range is reasonable, and we’ll use 16% for our calculations.
Based on details from Wells4Wellness, we updated the construction cost per well from $10,000 to $7,000, with maintenance costs remaining at $200/year. We also had a typo in our original cost estimates, which is corrected below.
We continue to have high [...]

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Outline:

(00:43) Part 1: Revising our estimates

(03:39) Part 2: Scaling & the awkward fit of smaller charities in the EA ecosystem

(06:58) Part 3: Process & Experience

(12:14) Conclusion

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First published:
December 23rd, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WjLj6Chs2iz9qTvwX/revisiting-well-well-well-do-wells-clear-the-bar

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Suggestions for Individual Donors from Coefficient Giving Staff – 2025” by Coefficient Giving

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 22:15:10 GMT

This holiday giving season, we’re continuing our tradition of sharing a list of giving opportunities suggested by Coefficient Giving program staff.

Notes on these suggestions:

They fall within the areas covered by Coefficient's funds.
They should be seen as reasonably strong options in the relevant area. The person who made a suggestion isn’t necessarily arguing that their suggestion is the best option available across all areas, or even within its own area.
Many of them were chosen because they are particularly good fits for individual donors. This shouldn’t be read as a list of our strongest grantees overall (though of course there may be overlap).
The explanations we share are very brief and informal; we don’t expect readers to be persuaded unless they put a lot of weight on the judgment of the person making the suggestion.
Finally, these suggestions come from individual program staff or teams, and do not necessarily represent Coefficient's institutional view.

Global health and wellbeing

GiveWell's recommendations

Recommended by Alexander Berger

What is it? GiveWell recommends cost-effective, evidence-backed giving opportunities, primarily in global health.

Why I suggest it: GiveWell does unusually rigorous work to assess charitable opportunities and makes its recommendations and reasoning open [...]

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Outline:

(01:17) Global health and wellbeing

(02:44) Science and global health R&D

(04:50) Farm animal welfare

(05:49) Global aid policy

(06:38) Abundance and growth

(07:48) Navigating transformative AI

(09:41) Effective giving and careers

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First published:
December 22nd, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RAgweZe2DanrWmYJT/suggestions-for-individual-donors-from-coefficient-giving

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Offering higher salaries than social-sector peers” by Seema Jayachandran

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 20:30:10 GMT

My - purely anecdotal - sense is that GiveWell pays more than many of its social sector peers. I imagine for many employees, their compensation at GiveWell exceeds what they'd earn if they took the next-best available job (as judged by the employee), which is often also in the social sector. This would create some "job lock" where people will stay at GiveWell even if they think they can do more good elsewhere; that extra good is outweighed by their higher material well-being if they stay at GiveWell.

I wish nonprofit salaries were uniformly higher, but since they aren't, when one org has higher salaries than its peers, that has both pros and cons, from the vantage point of social good. The pros include (1) attracting people into the social sector whose counterfactual job was not a socially-minded one (2) for the org, attracting talent away from other social sector orgs that it can use better than peers would. A con is the golden handcuffs, when the opposite of (2) holds: Some people forgo the chance to do something higher impact to stay at GiveWell.

GiveWell isn't the only org in the social sector that [...]

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First published:
December 23rd, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uFcqxL9GAYRzjbM54/offering-higher-salaries-than-social-sector-peers

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“New Documentary on AI and Animals” by Animal_Ethics

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 15:15:10 GMT

Following the release of the documentary Seantience early this year, Animal Ethics will launch a new film in early 2026: AI &Animals. This documentary examines how advances in AI may affect the lives of nonhuman animals, both negatively and positively. You can watch the teaser here.

The film features advocates and academics discussing:

How AI systems could increase animal suffering in factory farming
How AI-driven research and monitoring can scale efforts to reduce wild animal suffering, and help develop research methods that do not harm animals
The risks of embedding speciesist values in large language models and other AI systems, and what can be done about them
How animal advocates can use AI tools to increase the effectiveness and reach of their work, as well as how these tools can be especially helpful in developing alternatives to current practices that harm animals

Contributors interviewed in the documentary include:

Peter Singer · Princeton University
Max Taylor · Animal Charity Evaluators
Constance Li · Sentient Futures
Jonathan Birch · London School of Economics
Bernice Bovenkerk · Wageningen University & Research
Tse Yip Fai · National University of Singapore
Aditya S. Karanam · Animal Ethics
Jeff Sebo · New York [...]

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First published:
December 22nd, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6FeBGC3vvSbQQrzf6/new-documentary-on-ai-and-animals

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“How AI is affecting farmed aquatic animals. Part 1: Innovation” by Rethink Priorities, Sophie Williamson, Hannah McKay🔸

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:11 GMT

AI in aquaculture research at Rethink Priorities

Rethink Priorities’ How AI is affecting farmed aquatic animals is a three-part series that examines AI technologies being developed to address challenges in the aquaculture industry. As global aquaculture faces economic and technical constraints, this series examines whether and how the industry is turning to AI solutions to facilitate expansion. The series evaluates the innovation, deployment, and animal welfare impacts of these technologies to help animal advocates and funders identify which developments should be endorsed and what actions should be taken to prevent increased animal suffering.

For all queries, please contact sophie@rethinkpriorities.org.

AI in farmed aquaculture series

Artificial intelligence (AI) introduces new capabilities to animal agriculture that could alter production methods, economic structures, and animal welfare outcomes. Responding strategically requires an understanding of how quickly such changes will unfold, whether they will benefit or harm animal welfare, and what interventions will remain relevant. In this three-part series, we take a close look at how AI will be used over the next five years in aquaculture, which collectively farms hundreds of billions of animals each year for food.

Part 1: Innovation

This report analyzes the current state of AI innovation in aquaculture, including [...]

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Outline:

(00:18) AI in farmed aquaculture series

(02:09) Executive summary

(04:33) Background

(04:36) Technological change is a multi-stage process

(07:00) Challenges faced by the aquaculture industry

(12:12) Cost-breakdown examples in aquaculture

(15:18) Scope

(15:52) Identification of AI technologies in aquaculture

(16:51) Results

(17:33) Stock and growth management leads, with other functions following closely

(23:20) The headquarters of AI innovation are predominantly found in the US and Norway

(26:51) AI technologies predominantly apply to fishes

(30:28) Conclusions

(31:37) Acknowledgements

(32:51) Appendix

(32:55) Method

(32:58) Desk research

(34:35) Data checking

(35:45) Definitions

(35:49) Attributing companies and recording headquarters and founding dates

(36:12) Product functions of AI technologies

(37:14) Classification of species targeted

(38:40) Criteria for impacting farmed animal welfare

(38:54) Ways in which we could be wrong

(38:58) How our database could be incomplete or inaccurate

(41:37) Regional groupings

(42:34) Bibliography

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First published:
December 19th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/H27XSwiYxqeLEA5kZ/how-ai-is-affecting-farmed-aquatic-animals-part-1-innovation

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Whose expected value? Making sense of EA epistemology with Ideal Reflection” by JesseClifton

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 15:30:10 GMT

Cross-posted from my Substack.

Summary. I state the “Ideal Reflection” principle, which says that our beliefs should match our expectations of what an ideal version of ourselves would believe. I argue that Ideal Reflection can help rationalize how Effective Altruists use the concept of expected value, and that whether we accept Ideal Reflection has important real-world implications.

Here's an aspect of Effective Altruist discourse that has confused me for the longest time: EAs will often talk about “the” expected value of an intervention. This suggests that “the” expected value is an objective feature of the world. But this clashes with the usual Bayesian story, where expected values are a matter of subjective belief.

For example, the 80,000 Hours page on expected value says (my emphasis):

Making explicit estimates of expected value is sometimes useful as a method — such as when you’re comparing two global health interventions — but it's often better to look for useful rules of thumb and robust arguments, or even use gut intuitions and snap decisions to save time… little of our work at 80,000 Hours involves explicit or quantitative estimates of the impact of different careers. Rather, we focus on finding good proxies [...]

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First published:
December 21st, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7A2CCpc9kCj2BpiBZ/whose-expected-value-making-sense-of-ea-epistemology-with

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“How I Attempted to Measure the Impact of My Nonprofit’s Youth Suicide Prevention Program” by Yulia Chekhovska

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 10:15:10 GMT

TL;DR: Working as Lead Outreach Manager at a mental health nonprofit in Japan, I realized we couldn't answer a basic question funders kept asking: "What's your actual impact?" We had activity metrics (workshops delivered, calls answered) but no outcome metrics. So I built a cost-effectiveness framework using national police data and our publicly available financial records to create a model-based estimate of potential impact. Under plausible assumptions (25% intervention effectiveness), the program costs ~¥720,000 ($4,830) per DALY averted - 7× below WHO's threshold for highly cost-effective interventions. This analysis helped transform how we communicate impact to grant organizations, though significant uncertainties remain.

Background: The Question That Started Everything

I've been working at a Tokyo-based mental health organization for almost a year now, managing outreach programs and grant coordination. The learning curve has been steep - delivering mental health workshops to schools and businesses across four Japanese regions simultaneously, managing distributed teams, engaging donors remotely. There were ups and downs, failed pilot programs, and moments of genuine impact I couldn't quite quantify.

Then came the rejection email.

We'd applied for a major grant to expand our youth suicide prevention programs. The proposal highlighted impressive activity metrics: workshops delivered, hotline calls [...]

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Outline:

(01:11) Background: The Question That Started Everything

(02:44) The Problem: Activity Metrics ≠ Impact Metrics

(04:03) Collecting the Data: What I Had and What I Needed

(04:41) 1. National baseline: How big is the problem?

(05:56) 2. Program reach: Who did we actually engage?

(08:25) 3. Expected deaths without intervention

(08:53) 4. Intervention effectiveness: The biggest uncertainty

(10:46) Calculating Cost-Effectiveness of The Program

(10:51) DALYs averted

(11:20) Cost per DALY

(11:48) WHO threshold comparison

(12:16) What This Analysis Actually Shows (And Doesnt Show)

(12:21) What it shows:

(13:00) What it absolutely does NOT show:

(13:35) Lessons Learned: What Id Do Differently

(14:04) My Takeaways

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First published:
December 21st, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Sg7ovepZcmY8GKpo3/how-i-attempted-to-measure-the-impact-of-my-nonprofit-s

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Join our EA Coworking Hub in Southeast Asia this Feb-April!” by Damin Curtis🔹, Zoé Roy-Stang, Moïri Gamboni, Jan Gaida

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 09:45:10 GMT

Da Nang EA Coworking Hub

Feb 1st – Apr 1st · Da Nang, Vietnam

A 2-month coworking + coliving hub for impact-focused professionals who want to do meaningful work alongside a like-minded community!

What is this?

The Da Nang Impact Hub is a temporary coworking and coliving setup for people working on impact-focused work. The goal is simple: make it easier to do focused work and build real connections with other like-minded professionals, without needing to be in expensive cities like SF or London to do it!

This is a pilot. We are a small group of friends organizing this on our own time, because we’ve found that similar coworking/coliving hubs (especially those focused on effective altruist communities) have been incredibly valuable to us, and we want to help make more of them happen in affordable places!

Why we’re doing this

We’ve spent time in EA (Effective Altruism) hubs and found them incredibly valuable, both professionally and socially. However, we feel that working alongside other impact-minded people shouldn’t require living in the world's most expensive cities.

We see affordable, intentional coworking hubs as a huge asset to the high-impact community, generating high-impact connections and collaborations and/or extending the financial [...]

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Outline:

(00:15) Da Nang EA Coworking Hub

(00:19) Feb 1st - Apr 1st * Da Nang, Vietnam

(00:43) What is this?

(01:22) Why we're doing this

(02:01) 📅 When & Where

(02:06) When: February 1 - April 1

(02:16) Where: An Hải neighborhood, Da Nang, Vietnam

(02:31) Housing Options

(03:13) 💸 Expected Costs

(04:01) 💻 Work schedule, activities, & daily rhythm

(05:21) 🙌 How to join

(06:03) 🫂 Who this is for

(06:58) Meet some of our community

(07:07) Damin Curtis

(07:36) Cian Dally

(08:07) Zoé Roy-Stang

(08:30) Moïri Gamboni

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First published:
December 20th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fiFqM2Ti5nRmRcg8D/join-our-ea-coworking-hub-in-southeast-asia-this-feb-april

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Longview is hiring: What Longview is like (from my perspective) in 2025” by Khearsum

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 22:45:10 GMT

Longview is aiming to grow from our current team size (24) to 35+ in 2026. We’re inviting applications for ~nine open roles (see below) and I realised many potential applicants might not have a good sense of what Longview is and is like in 2025. Inspired by Lizka & Cb, this post aims to (1) update people about where Longview is at in 2025 and (2) share some of my experience from my 4+ years here.

Disclaimer: I am writing only from my perspective. Roles, personalities, and subjective experiences differ. I am very much not speaking for all Longview team members.

Longview in 2025

We’re a multi-hub team with offices in London, DC, and NY*, intention to grow in the Bay (I’m based in Constellation), and a few remote team members
*We’re currently in-between offices in NY, but expect to find a new office in the New Year
We continue to advise ‘traditional philanthropists’ with education and individual grant opportunities, but we've also worked extensively over the last year with donors and potential donors who are already bought into the risks and who we can help to give better, faster, or more
This has, in [...]

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First published:
December 19th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aX8xLjCLd4LMDpTYL/longview-is-hiring-what-longview-is-like-from-my-perspective

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Contradict my take on OpenPhil’s past AI beliefs” by EliezerYudkowsky

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 03:00:10 GMT

At many points now, I've been asked in private for a critique of EA / EA's history / EA's impact and I have ad-libbed statements that I feel guilty about because they have not been subjected to EA critique and refutation. I need to write up my take and let you all try to shoot it down.

Before I can or should try to write up that take, I need to fact-check one of my take-central beliefs about how the last couple of decades have gone down. My belief is that the Open Philanthropy Project, EA generally, and Oxford EA particularly, had bad AI timelines and bad ASI ruin conditional probabilities; and that these invalidly arrived-at beliefs were in control of funding, and were explicitly publicly promoted at the expense of saner beliefs.

An exemplar of OpenPhil / Oxford EA reasoning about timelines is that, as late as 2020, their position on timelines seemed to center on Ajeya Cotra's "Biological Timelines" estimate which put median timelines to AGI at 30 years later. Leadership dissent from this viewpoint, as I recall, generally centered on having longer rather than shorter median timelines.

An exemplar of poor positioning on AI ruin is [...]

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First published:
December 20th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6rEiZKtPtikEP4QRj/contradict-my-take-on-openphil-s-past-ai-beliefs

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“My friend is in jail, and the world is our playground” by Taj Uppal

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:45:10 GMT

Zoe Rosenberg made national headlines for rescuing chickens. The animal movement should keep experimenting with creative tactics.

I. MY FRIEND IS IN JAIL

Last week, my friend Zoe Rosenberg was incarcerated. She joins the nearly two million Americans confined to jails and prisons, and the one billion animals caged within our nation's factory farms. The government will subject her to solitary confinement for 23 hours of the day, and it is already depriving her of the proper care to treat her Type I diabetes. The saving grace is that Zoe's jail-stay will be short: less than a month.

Zoe's case has attracted lots of attention because it's not just about her; it's about humanity. Her case asks of us… how should we relate to our fellow creatures? Is it okay for our food system to treat animals like objects? And, is it okay for our government to uphold this relational status? Punishing the people who care for animals, rather than the corporations that abuse them.

Judging from the public response, a growing number of people recognize the absurdity of Zoe's prosecution. Her incarceration, in fact, has launched her from our ten-person student club to our nation's largest newspapers [...]

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Outline:

(00:28) I. MY FRIEND IS IN JAIL

(04:07) II. THE WORLD IS OUR PLAYGROUND

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First published:
December 18th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xBBQipkkdthcBPdaN/my-friend-is-in-jail-and-the-world-is-our-playground

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Seeking Guest Teacher to Represent EA at UNC” by Kathryn Wagner

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 07:30:10 GMT

I’m a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, and I’m looking for a guest speaker to talk about utilitarianism and effective altruism in my spring course on “Pursuing the Good Life.” Think of this as an invitation to make your best pitch to college students that they should live well by putting philosophy into practice.

The class will survey answers to the question “What is the good life?” from a variety of philosophical and religious traditions. I’m inviting guest teachers who can share with the class both an academic understanding of a school of thought and their own experiences as practitioners. As we discuss utilitarianism, I hope to bring in a guest who can not only talk about how utilitarians think about happiness and value, but also speak to what it's like to make costly personal commitments on the basis of this philosophy. I've been impressed with the EA movement from afar and would love to give my students insight into this community.

While I’m generally inviting locals who can visit the class in person, I haven’t been able to get in touch with anyone at the UNC EA chapter (it seems to be defunct) or EA Raleigh. The effective [...]

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First published:
December 18th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rJmsFzxsKJd7gApSt/seeking-guest-teacher-to-represent-ea-at-unc

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“80 People attended our animal welfare career event. Why you should host one too.” by Ruben van den Bulck, Lotte_de_Lint

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 15:30:11 GMT

This summer, we organized our first animal welfare career event, and the response exceeded our expectations.

We brought together over 80 students and professionals for a half-day in-person event, all united by a single question: How can I make the biggest possible difference for animals through my career?

We designed the day to answer that question practically. At the event, speakers from research, nonprofits, and business shared concrete strategies for creating impact. A hands-on workshop also helped attendees translate these insights into personalized next steps for their own career paths.

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive; attendees described the event as inspiring, motivating, and immediately valuable.

If you're passionate about animal welfare and want to help others turn that passion into a high-impact career, organizing a similar event could be highly valuable.

In this post, we'll share:

Why you should consider organizing a similar event in your region
What it actually takes to pull it off
Key lessons learned from our first edition

You should do it too!

Low time investment

With five organizers, we held seven 90-minute meetings spread over several months, plus an estimated 15-20 hours per person for outside work and event logistics.

Strong untapped demand

Despite minimal [...]

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Outline:

(01:24) You should do it too!

(01:27) Low time investment

(01:41) Strong untapped demand

(01:56) Effective outreach framing

(02:16) Planting seeds of effectiveness

(02:38) Personal and professional benefits

(03:09) How We Organized the Event

(03:13) Build the right team

(04:21) Lets get physical!

(04:37) Event logistics

(04:58) Speaker curation

(05:54) Promotion

(06:14) Workshop

(06:32) What we would do differently

(06:46) Structured networking

(06:59) In-person workshop

(07:10) Better pacing

(07:25) World Vegan Career Day

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First published:
December 17th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Ts9jkL67xEaDLbJpA/80-people-attended-our-animal-welfare-career-event-why-you

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Why haven’t we seen a promising longtermist intervention yet?” by Yarrow Bouchard 🔸

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 13:15:11 GMT

The word "longtermism" was first used publicly, here on the Effective Altruism Forum, in 2017. In the intervening eight years, a few books on longtermism have been written, many papers have been published, and countless forum posts, blog posts, tweets, and podcasts have discussed the topic.

Why haven’t we seen a promising longtermist intervention yet? For clarity, longtermist interventions should meet the following criteria:

Promising: the intervention seems like a good idea and has strong evidence and reasoning to support it
Novel: it's a new idea proposed since the term "longtermism" was coined in 2017 and it was first proposed by someone associated with longtermism in explicit connection to the term "longtermism"
Actionable: it's something people could realistically do now or soon
Genuinely longtermist: it's something that we wouldn’t want to do anyway based on neartermist concerns

In my view, the strongest arguments pertaining to the moral value of far future lives are arguments about existential risk. However, the philosopher Nick Bostrom's first paper on existential risk, highlighting the moral value of the far future, was published in 2002, which is 15 years before the term "longtermism" was coined. The philosopher Derek Parfit discussed the moral value of far [...]

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First published:
December 18th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LSfZKPFHzwJgdhF5f/why-haven-t-we-seen-a-promising-longtermist-intervention-yet

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“Announcing RoastMyPost” by Ozzie Gooen

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 03:15:10 GMT

Today we're releasing RoastMyPost, a new experimental application for blog post evaluation using LLMs. Try it Here.

TLDR

RoastMyPost is a new QURI application that uses LLMs and code to evaluate blog posts and research documents.
It uses a variety of LLM evaluators. Most are narrow checks: Fact Check, Spell Check, Fallacy Check, Math Check, Link Check, Forecast Check, and others.
Optimized for EA & Rationalist content with direct import from EA Forum and LessWrong URLs. Other links use standard web fetching.
Works best for 200 - ~10,000 word documents with factual assertions and simple formatting. It can also do basic reviewing of Squiggle models. Longer documents and documents in LaTeX will experience slowdowns and errors.
Open source, free for reasonable use[1]. Public examples are here.
Experimentation encouraged! We're all figuring out how to best use these tools.
Overall, we're most interested in using RoastMyPost as an experiment for potential LLM document workflows. The tech is early now, but it's at a good point for experimentation.

A representative illustration

How It Works

Import a document. Submit markdown text or provide the URL of a publicly accessible post.
Select evaluators to run. A few are system-recommended. Others are [...]

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Outline:

(00:27) TLDR

(01:52) How It Works

(02:30) Screenshots

(03:20) Current AI Agents / Workflows

(03:25) Is it Good?

(04:32) What are Automated Writing Evaluations Good For?

(07:19) Privacy & Data Confidentiality

(07:49) Technical Details

(09:12) Building Custom Evaluators

(10:26) Try it Out

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First published:
December 17th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BdufL4GZmeBht3fak/announcing-roastmypost

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “The Best Treatment for the Most Painful Medical Condition Is Illegal” by Alfredo Parra 🔸

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 01:45:10 GMT

This is a link post.

Peter Singer's latest column on Project Syndicate is about cluster headaches.

Sufferers of cluster headaches, also known as "suicide headaches," will do anything to stop what is possibly the most painful condition known to medicine, including using illegal drugs like psilocybin and LSD. Given strong evidence that psychedelics work, why aren't doctors allowed to prescribe them?

He also urges readers to sign our open letters on clusterfree.org. Please sign and ask others to sign.

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First published:
December 17th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HRyexx4ep2yBoSjJk/the-best-treatment-for-the-most-painful-medical-condition-is

Linkpost URL:
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/psychedelic-drugs-should-be-legal-for-cluster-headache-by-peter-singer-2025-12

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Contra Yascha Mounk on ‘The World Happiness Report is a Sham’” by huw

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 12:00:10 GMT

Here is Yascha's original article.

For context, the WHR aggregates 1,000 sampled individuals from almost every country on Earth, who are asked to rate their lives on a scale of 1–10 (known as the Cantril Ladder). It produces a ranking with Nordic countries quite high, and developing countries quite low, with some surprises in between.

Yascha's main critiques seem to be:

The Cantril Ladder measures life satisfaction rather than momentary happiness
There is a seeming inverse correlation between life satisfaction and depression prevalence
The Cantril Ladder may bias toward feelings of ‘success’ and ‘wealth’
Therefore, wellbeing is hard to measure and replacing GDP with wellbeing metrics ‘may do more harm than good’

Before jumping into these points, I think that Mounk's piece is a little rheotorical and you need to read around that. His audience seemingly responded to trigger words like “elite misinformation”, although Mounk doesn’t delve into why or how that might be the case. The WHR are extremely clear throughout their report about their methodology, and present explanations of it in a long preamble before presenting their annual table; it is simply not their fault if media outlets [...]

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Outline:

(01:28) Life satisfaction vs momentary wellbeing

(02:22) Life satisfaction and depression prevalence

(03:10) Biases in the Cantril Ladder

(04:17) Concluding that self-reported wellbeing cannot replace GDP

(05:16) I actually like self-reported wellbeing

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First published:
December 17th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nnSDJeRZSbD82aDJS/contra-yascha-mounk-on-the-world-happiness-report-is-a-sham

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Rerunning the Time of Perils” by William_MacAskill

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 21:30:11 GMT

This post is an experiment in two ways that I explain in comments here and here. But you don't need to read those comments before reading this post.

1. Introduction

In What We Owe the Future I argued that even very severe non-extinction catastrophes are unlikely to permanently derail civilisation. Even if a catastrophe killed 99.9% of people (leaving 8 million survivors), I'd put the chance we eventually re-attain today's technological level at well over 95%.

On the usual longtermist picture, this means such catastrophes are extraordinarily bad for present people but don't rival full existential catastrophes in long-run importance. Either we go extinct (or lock into a permanently terrible trajectory), or we navigate the "time of perils" once and reach existential security.

In this article I'll describe a mechanism by which non-extinction global catastrophes would have existential-level importance. I'll define:

A catastrophic setback as a catastrophe that causes civilisation to revert to the technological level it had at least 100 years prior.
Sisyphus risk as the extra existential risk society incurs from the possibility of catastrophic setbacks. (Though, unlike with Sisyphus's plight, we will not suffer such setbacks indefinitely.)

The mechanism is straightforward: if a catastrophic setback occurs [...]

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Outline:

(00:19) 1. Introduction

(02:59) 2. A Simple Model of Sisyphus Risk

(03:03) 2.1. One catastrophic setback

(04:40) 2.2. Ords numbers

(06:36) 3. What Forms Could Post-AGI Catastrophic Setbacks Take?

(06:47) 3.1. Engineered pandemics

(07:48) 3.2. Nuclear war and nuclear winter

(08:31) 3.3. AI-driven catastrophe

(09:01) 3.4. Butlerian backlash and fertility decline

(10:22) 4. Would a Post-Setback Society Retain Alignment Knowledge?

(11:08) 4.1. Digital fragility

(12:44) 4.2. Hardware and software compatibility

(13:43) 4.3. Tacit knowledge

(14:40) 5. Wont AGI make post-AGI catastrophes essentially irrelevant?

(16:02) 6. Implications and Strategic Upshots

(16:07) 6.1. The importance of non-AI risks, especially non-AI non-bio

(17:06) 6.2. When to donate

(18:05) 6.3. A modest argument for more unipolar futures

(19:25) 6.4. The value of knowledge preservation and civilisational kernels

(20:25) 7. Conclusion

(21:38) Appendix: Extensions

(21:43) A.1 Multiple cycles

(29:26) A.2 Higher or lower risk in the rerun

(31:14) A.3 Trajectory change

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First published:
December 16th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/krhNwLmsHPRoZeneG/rerunning-the-time-of-perils

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Ten big wins in 2025 for farmed animals” by LewisBollard

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 21:15:10 GMT

It can feel hard to help factory-farmed animals. We’re up against a trillion-dollar global industry and its army of lobbyists, marketeers, and apologists. This industry wields vast political influence in nearly every nation and sells its products to most people on earth.

Against that, we are a movement of a few thousand full-time advocates operating on a shoestring. Our entire global movement — hundreds of groups combined — brings in less funds in a year than one meat company, JBS, makes in two days.

And we have the bigger task. The meat industry just wants to preserve the status quo: virtually no regulation and ever-growing demand for factory farming. We want to upend it — and place humanity on a more humane path.

Yet, somehow, we’re winning. After decades of installing battery cages, gestation crates, and chick macerators, the industry is now removing them. Once-dominant industries, like fur farming, are collapsing. And advocates are building momentum toward bigger reforms for all farmed animals.

Here are [...]

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First published:
December 16th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qTnsqYrmSTHawTNa6/ten-big-wins-in-2025-for-farmed-animals

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“12+ Reasons to Donate to ClusterFree” by algekalipso

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 14:45:11 GMT

By Andrés Gómez Emilsson, ClusterFree Co-Founder & Member of Advisory Board

TL;DR: To motivate action and feel genuine internal alignment around a decision, sometimes we need to see it from many different angles. Even when a single reason should be enough, we need to motivate our entire internal coalition of subagents! Hence, all of these reasons to support ClusterFree in its mission:

Summary of the 12+ Reasons to Support This Cause

Watch real people rapidly improve - Video testimonials of torture stopping in minutes
Logarithmic scale of impact - Helping someone with this condition is potentially one of the highest-leverage interventions anyone can do as a gift to someone's life
Insurance against illegible suffering - Building a world that takes invisible pain seriously, including your own in the future! (crossing fingers you never experience such things!)
Proof-of-concept for valence-first cost-effectiveness - This illustrates the corner cases where QALYs/DALYs fail catastrophically
Intellectual coalition - Scott Alexander, Peter Singer, Anders Sandberg, Robin Carhart-Harris, etc. have seen the evidence and are convinced this is real
Schelling point for suffering reduction - Network effects for future high-impact work, attracting genuine talent to focus on deep suffering reduction is its own value proposition
It's a strike [...]

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Outline:

(02:43) Why cluster headache mitigation should become your #1 effective giving priority this Season: impactful, novel, very alive, and with plausible fast results!

(02:55) Introduction: Why Multiple Reasons Actually Matter

(07:16) 1. You Can Actually See People Rapidly Improving

(08:27) 2. On the Logarithmic Scale of Helping Another Human, This Is Unfathomably High

(12:24) 3. Its Insurance Against Your Own Extreme Suffering Being Dismissed

(13:54) 4. Its a Proof-of-Concept for Valence-First Cost-Effectiveness

(15:43) 5. Youll Be in the Company of Intellectual Giants

(17:36) 6. Its Creating a Schelling Point for Serious Suffering-Reduction Work

(18:46) 7. Its a Strike Against Paternalistic Control Over Suffering Relief

(20:12) 8. This Is Actually Tractable

(22:13) 9. Every Month of Delay Means Unnecessary Pits of Suffering

(23:50) 10. ClusterFree Is Accelerating an Already Developing Movement

(26:39) 11. If You Take Karma Seriously, Look at What the Texts Say About Headache Relief

(28:42) 12. You Get the Bodhisattva-Tier Vision

(30:05) So I Can Stop Talking About Cluster Headaches in Qualia Computing

(30:56) What Were Specifically Asking For

(32:56) Cant Donate But Want to Help?

(34:09) Conclusion

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First published:
December 13th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fKYcaN3erbx2M5EuS/12-reasons-to-donate-to-clusterfree

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“How to navigate giving to neglected animals: guides and network for donors” by Rethink Priorities, Hannah Tookey

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 20:45:40 GMT

TLDR: Rethink Priorities has released three separate donor guides for farmed insects, farmed shrimp, and wild animal welfare—fields with enormous impact potential but challenging information environments. Our guides clarify the funding landscapes, identify strategic bottlenecks, and highlight promising opportunities. We're also launching a Neglected Animals Giving Network in early 2026 to provide donors with private briefings and personalized guidance. Complete our expression-of-interest form or email development@rethinkpriorities.org to learn more.

Over the past few years, we’ve spoken to hundreds of donors, advocates, and researchers who care deeply about improving the lives of the most neglected animals. Many want to support work in areas like farmed insects, farmed shrimp, or wild animal welfare, but aren’t quite sure how because these fields are large and complex. The scale of suffering is vast, evidence bases are limited, and the landscape is evolving quickly. It can be difficult to know what's most promising, or how to move forward confidently.

At Rethink Priorities, under our Neglected Animals Program, we have spent years trying to improve the lives of these animals. Our team has investigated sentience and welfare issues, coordinated strategy across organizations, mapped advocacy and industry landscapes, supported emerging groups, and incubated new interventions. [...]

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Outline:

(02:38) Key observations for navigating these fields

(07:32) The guides

(08:04) Farmed Insect Welfare: Recommendations for funders

(08:42) Shrimp Welfare: Recommendations for funders

(09:09) Wild Animal Welfare: Recommendations for funders

(10:15) Invitation: Join RP's Neglected Animals Giving Network

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First published:
December 15th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Bd5St7Ertep6gCwvj/how-to-navigate-giving-to-neglected-animals-guides-and

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“EA orgs overhire comms and underhire growth” by Anna Pitner

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 19:15:50 GMT

TL;DR

Across EA job boards and Forum postings, 70–90% of "marketing-related" roles are comms-focused, while only ~10–20% relate to digital acquisition, funnels, growth, or retention. Several marketers in EA report that our ecosystem is 4–5 years behind standard digital marketing practices—particularly in experimentation, targeting, lifecycle marketing, and channel attribution.

This imbalance has real opportunity costs: many high-leverage programs (training, fellowships, campaigns, fundraising, recruitment) rely on steady inflow and activation of the right participants—yet the systems that reliably deliver this are rarely built.

Comms ≠ growth. EA orgs may be investing heavily in "talking about what we do," but less in "filling and scaling what we do." Given EA's culture of measurement, the lack of measurement-driven marketing is especially surprising.

Context: who's writing this

I'm a digital marketer with 7+ years of experience. I've reached late-stage interviews for several growth-adjacent roles in EA orgs over the past year, and I've spoken with multiple EA marketers about this pattern. I'm likely biased given my background, so I'm genuinely open to being wrong about this—but the pattern feels worth discussing.

*Note: I used some LLMs for copyediting.

1. A pattern I keep noticing in EA job postings

Over the past year, I've [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) TL;DR

(01:12) Context: whos writing this

(01:43) 1. A pattern I keep noticing in EA job postings

(02:45) 2. Why this split matters: comms ≠ growth

(03:32) 3. Why are EA orgs defaulting to comms roles?

(03:42) A. Post-FTX + reputational risk → Narrative control mode

(04:01) B. People in EA came up through writing, research, and community-building

(04:19) C. Lack of internal advocates for digital systems--and lack of frameworks to evaluate them

(05:08) 4. Why this is surprising for a movement obsessed with measurement

(06:09) 5. The opportunity cost

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First published:
December 14th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/myc23TvQjETK4mmwR/ea-orgs-overhire-comms-and-underhire-growth

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“I give because it’s the most rational way to spend my money” by Lorenzo Buonanno🔸

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 09:30:03 GMT

I really enjoyed reading the "why I donate" posts in the past week, so much so that I felt compelled to add my reflections, in case someone finds my reasons as interesting as I found theirs.

1. My money needs to be spent on something, might as well spend it on the most efficient things

The core reason I give is something that I think is under-represented in the other posts: the money I have and earn will need to be spent on something, and it feels extremely inefficient and irrational to spend it on my future self when it can provide >100x as much to others.

To me, it doesn't seem important whether I'm in the global top 10% or bottom 10%, or whether the money I have is due to my efforts or to the place I was born. If it can provide others 100x as much, it just seems inefficient/irrational to allocate it to myself.

Honestly, the post could end here, but there are other secondary reasons/perspectives on why I personally donate that I haven't seen commonly discussed.

2. Spending money is voting on how the global economy allocates its resources

In 2017, I read Wealth [...]

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Outline:

(00:22) 1. My money needs to be spent on something, might as well spend it on the most efficient things

(01:09) 2. Spending money is voting on how the global economy allocates its resources

(04:11) 3. I dont think its as bad as some make it out to be

(07:35) 4. I donate because Im an atheist (/s)

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First published:
December 15th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CSKob9hGmWM7f7yv8/i-give-because-it-s-the-most-rational-way-to-spend-my-money

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“A Life That Cannot Be A Failure” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 22:00:04 GMT

Crosspost.

The core philosophical argument for giving is strikingly simple: charitable donations can prevent lots of death and suffering at a comparatively minor cost. For a few thousand dollars, you can save someone's life. By taking the Giving What We Can pledge—which I have taken, and I would encourage you to take—and giving away 10% of your lifetime income, you can save hundreds of lives without sacrificing anything of remotely comparable value. Taking the pledge likely does more good than anything else you will ever do.

If you make what the average American makes and give away 10% of your income, you will still be richer than almost everyone who ever lived, but you will know that because of you fewer children are dead. You will know that mothers do not have to cry over lost children because of you and that additional children will get to live to adulthood. The best charities save lives for just $4,500. Each time you give that much away, you can know that one extra child still breathes, instead of being buried before his parents, in a tiny grave, in a distant cemetery.

If you earn the average income of an American [...]

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First published:
December 14th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uHhPjrdcQFM3Fvwuc/a-life-that-cannot-be-a-failure

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Giving Green’s 2025 Top Climate Nonprofits, regranting fund updates, and 2026 research priorities” by Giving Green

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 13:45:03 GMT

Climate action looks very different today than it did just a year ago. A new administration in the White House has reshaped the landscape, and climate donors face both setbacks and opportunities.

We at Giving Green have spent the past year mapping out how smart donations can maintain (and accelerate) momentum under these new circumstances, both in the U.S. and globally. Our year-end climate giving guide, published in November, distills this work.

In this post, we will cover:

Giving Green's research approaches
2025-2026 research priorities and findings: prioritized philanthropic strategies and Top Climate Nonprofits
Regranting fund updates: $26 million to 29 grantees
Plans for 2026 and beyond
Other organizational updates: impact and mistakes
Working together

Giving Green's research approaches

We encourage impact-maximizing donors to focus on systems change

Giving Green's goal is to maximize donors' impact per dollar by identifying fundable climate solutions that decrease warming. Our research has led us to believe that this will come through a focus on systems change: efforts such as policy advocacy, technology innovation, and market-shaping mechanisms that change the rules of the game.

Traditional impact evaluation methods tend to favor short-term outcomes, quantitative data, and linear theories of change [...]

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Outline:

(01:11) Giving Green's research approaches

(01:16) We encourage impact-maximizing donors to focus on systems change

(02:52) Quantitative analysis is one input--not the final word

(03:46) 2025-2026 research priorities and findings

(03:52) Some high-impact climate solutions remain neglected

(05:55) 2025-2026 Top Climate Nonprofits

(06:23) Regranting fund updates: $26 million to 29 grantees

(06:58) Plans for 2026 and beyond

(07:03) Setting research priorities to inform 2026 Top Climate Nonprofits recommendations and Giving Green Fund grants

(08:16) Launching recommendations of Top Biodiversity Nonprofits

(09:37) Offering better products as an independent organization

(10:18) Other organizational updates

(10:23) Impact at a glance: Giving Green is a 20X impact multiplier

(11:23) Mistakes

(11:35) Working together

(11:38) Collaborating with audience-specific fundraising organizations

(12:19) Collaborating with other cause areas

---

First published:
December 12th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/iWXKxf4bKhsFit9ia/giving-green-s-2025-top-climate-nonprofits-regranting-fund

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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[Linkpost] “Your Goal Isn’t Really to Get a Job” by Matt Beard

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 05:15:05 GMT

This is a link post.

It's to build the skills required to solve the problems that you want to solve in the world

[I am a career advisor at 80,000 Hours. This post is adapted from a talk I gave on career capital to some ambitious altruistic students. If you prefer slides, you can access them here. These ideas are informed by my work at 80k but reflects my personal views.]

I’m often asked how to have an impactful fulfilling career. My four word answer is “get good, be known.”

My “fits on a postcard” answer is something like this:

Identify a problem with a vast scale of harm that is neglected at current margins and that is tractable to solve. Millions will die of preventable diseases this year, billions of animals will be tortured, severe tail risks like nuclear war and catastrophic pandemics still exist, and we might be on the cusp of a misaligned intelligence explosion. You should find an important problem to work on.
Obsessively improve at the rare and valuable skills to solve this problem and do so in a legible way for others to notice. Leverage this career capital to keep the flywheel going— [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) It's to build the skills required to solve the problems that you want to solve in the world

(02:59) First, brief caveats

(04:18) Improve your skills

(07:15) Get good... Okay, how?

(15:17) Caveats: Avoiding Burnout, Overcoming Imposter Syndrome, Assessing Personal Fit, Increasing Luck Surface Area, and Finding High-Growth Opportunities

(20:15) Skill issue (affectionate)

---

First published:
December 13th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/27DyPyPihmehqnMqb/your-goal-isn-t-really-to-get-a-job

Linkpost URL:
https://thatvastvariety.substack.com/p/your-goal-isnt-really-to-get-a-job

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“You Can Just Buy Far-UVC” by Jeff Kaufman 🔸

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 22:30:04 GMT

Far-UVC is something people have talked about for years in a "that would be great, if you could buy it" sort of way. Coming soon, once someone actually makes a good product. But the future is now, and it costs $500.

Many diseases spread through the air, which is inconvenient for us as creatures that breathe air. You can go outside, where the air is too dilute to spread things well, but it's cold out there, and sometimes wet. You can run an air purifier, but cleaning lots of air without lots of noise is still the world of DIY projects. Ideally you could just shine some light, perhaps in the 222-nm range, which would leave people alone but kill the viruses [1] and bacteria. Yes, let's do that!

Last year if you asked "if far-UV is so great, why isn't it everywhere?" one of your answers would be:

There are very few providers, and hardly any of them sell an off-the-shelf product. You usually can't just buy a lamp to try it out—you have to call the company, get a consultation, and often have someone from the company come install the lamp. It's a [...]

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First published:
December 13th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oiPhmbXDomnzKujg4/you-can-just-buy-far-uvc

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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“I donate because I love humanity” by Aaron Gertler 🔸

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 21:15:03 GMT

In 2016,[1] I wrote the following:

Why do I give?

I’ve lived a very fortunate life. I was born into a well-off American family, the son of two parents with college degrees. I attended a famous university. I didn’t deserve any of this; if I’d been born somewhere else, my life would have gone very differently. I give because I’d like to share the results of my luck with the less fortunate.

I also give because I think that human happiness is the best thing in the world (in all its forms: love, excitement, satisfaction…). I already have a good, satisfying life, so I don’t need to buy more happiness. Instead, I can use money to help a lot of other people live happier lives. This strikes me as a fantastic opportunity.

When Giving What We Can asked me to write about my giving, I thought it would be easy — I still believe in everything up there.

But after nine years spent living and working in the EA community, I've had a few more thoughts about the question:

Humans make my life worth living

A few hours ago, I rewatched (for the 10th time) a snippet of one [...]

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Outline:

(00:15) Why do I give?

(01:17) Humans make my life worth living

(03:41) Other people are real

(05:15) Ive seen how the (vegan) sausage is made

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First published:
December 13th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eF8spFn9XXq78Qmnz/i-donate-because-i-love-humanity

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“New 80k problem profile: extreme power concentration” by rosehadshar

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 22:15:04 GMT

I recently wrote 80k's new problem profile on extreme power concentration (with a lot of help from others - see the acknowledgements at the bottom).

It's meant to be a systematic introduction to the risk of AI-enabled power concentration, where AI enables a small group of humans to amass huge amounts of unchecked power over everyone else. It's primarily aimed at people who are new to the topic, but I think it's also one of the only write-ups there is on this overall risk,[1]so might be interesting to others, too.

Briefly, the piece argues that:

Automation could concentrate the power to get stuff done, by reducing the value of human labour, empowering small groups with big AI workforces, and potentially giving one AI developer a huge capabilities advantage (if there's an intelligence explosion).
This could lead to unprecedented concentration of political power via some combination of:
- Humans deliberately seizing power for themselves (as with AI-enabled coups)
- Some people becoming obscenely wealthy, such that government incentives are distorted in their favour or they simply outgrow the rest of the world
- The erosion of people's ability to understand what's going on and coordinate in their own interests (either through [...]

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First published:
December 12th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NmFbFiBPpx45nqxct/new-80k-problem-profile-extreme-power-concentration

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“You can be very helpful to first-timers at EA events” by JoA🔸

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 14:45:49 GMT

Confidence level: timecapped at around one hour. Mostly based on my own experience, first as a new, curious attendee at EA events, and later as someone trying to be helpful to even newer attendees at these events.

Looking back on my first EA events, a handful of 1:1s and interactions have stood out as being outstandingly useful in guiding my EA path. I've noticed that these were 1:1s where the more experienced attendee was not just answering my questions, but structuring the meeting in order to help me progress.

I remark that these are not always followed, and some fairly experienced attendees treat 1:1s with newer attendees like their other 1:1s. I think that if they applied some of the practices I describe below, they could provide even more value to people who reach out to them.

Some tips I apply:

(Re-)read the attendee's Swapcard profile for 1 minute, just before the 1:1 starts.
- Gives you a vague idea of what they already know and what they're less likely to know.
Try to think of what you were not aware of in the first six months where you were focusing on your area (and extrapolate, from that [...]

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First published:
December 11th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/edRFXcnwnCjyNqy67/you-can-be-very-helpful-to-first-timers-at-ea-events

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Why I donate: some selfish reasons” by Kestrel🔸

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 13:30:49 GMT

This year, I have given money to a range of EA cause areas. Most of it has either been towards global health and development, or EA infrastructure I believe does or could lead to effective fundraising for global health and development.

The following are a list of very selfish personal reasons why I like to do this. I feel the selfless reasons have been adequately covered elsewhere, so I'm intentionally leaving them off.

I get to ignore ineffective charity adverts.

In order to genuinely convince myself that I am helping, I want to see things like well-regarded cost-effectiveness metrics. I do not like heartstring-tugging advertising or vague statements of "should", particularly to do with orphanages. They make me feel a bit ill. So I am glad that donating effectively gives me a very good justification to ignore them.

It is a marker of my politics.

I don't believe that poor people I don't know in rich countries are 100× more worthy of my help [i.e. worthy of help that's 100× less cost-efficient] than poor people in poor countries. This is because I don't believe anyone is 100× more worthy than anyone. Choosing to donate based on the cost-effectiveness of [...]

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Outline:

(00:36) I get to ignore ineffective charity adverts.

(01:02) It is a marker of my politics.

(01:36) Giving expresses abundance.

(02:32) Ive stopped valuing things by how expensive they are.

(03:17) People have stopped (openly) judging me about some of my life choices.

(03:56) I get to hang out with cool people and be in the cool kids club.

(04:16) It helps me genuinely care about helping people.

(04:37) It motivates me at my job.

(05:01) By giving effectively, I can do great things.

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First published:
December 12th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/84PYRzFCeqZGfgv3N/why-i-donate-some-selfish-reasons

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Why I donate: seems easy, seems obvious, I rarely think about it” by Amrit Sidhu-Brar 🔸

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 11:45:49 GMT

I’ve been reading the other Why I Donate Week posts with interest. One of the main things that struck me reading them was something like: it seems like giving is a big part of these people's lives – which is beautiful and I love it. But I mostly don’t relate to it in a very similar way myself, so I thought I’d write this for a different perspective!

I took the 10% Pledge in 2017, and have been giving at least 10% since then.[1] Currently I give in a vaguely Further-Pledge-like way, i.e. everything above a threshold that's currently about £34k/year after tax. That currently works out to giving around 40% of my gross/pre-tax income, though that might change in either direction in future.

The main way I relate to giving is honestly that I don’t think I relate to it very much at all. If I ask myself how it feels, the main things that come to mind are like: feels easy, feels obvious, doesn’t feel dramatic.

If I ask myself why I give, or how I feel about giving, the thing that feels most true is:

With my current level of giving, I feel like I [...]

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First published:
December 11th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vX2PxtdjbYiyeEqio/why-i-donate-seems-easy-seems-obvious-i-rarely-think-about

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The Further Pledge: Voluntary Simplicity” by GeorgeBridgwater

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 01:15:49 GMT

Conscious Meaning

We share every moment with trillions of other conscious beings. Some are much like us, and others experience the world very differently. Creatures without a language to structure their thoughts, some who see broader spectrums of light or others who might experience the world in comparative slow motion. Each conscious moment immediately slips into the past largely unobserved and forgotten. They fall through time like snow to become frozen in the past. Always to have happened just as they did.

Each conscious moment is transient and one small part of a vast whole, so one could see any individual as meaningless and insignificant. But every conscious moment is imbued with meaning. Happiness that need not justify itself and pains that consume any desire but to escape them.

As individuals, we are not responsible for the state of the world. You did not choose to create disease, poverty and mental illness. You can’t control nature, and you can’t control the society around you.

Many schools of philosophy disagree exactly on what our moral obligations are to others. Given this disagreement, we could default to radical scepticism that all attempts to decide what the right way to [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) Conscious Meaning

(02:06) Ovarian lottery

(03:49) The Good we can do

(05:18) Creating Balance

(06:13) Voluntary Simplicity

(08:12) Setting Salary based on the Worlds average income

(10:12) Appendix: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone

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First published:
December 11th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wd7XsSwqWCzd2uzhq/the-further-pledge-voluntary-simplicity

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Announcing four new charities!” by Ambitious Impact

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 14:30:48 GMT

We are thrilled to introduce four new charities from our latest Charity Entrepreneurship incubation round! Collectively, they have secured $696,000 in seed funding to kickstart their ventures.

Read on to learn more about these newly incubated organisations and how you can support their impact journeys!

Short Summaries

First Embrace

Over 2 million babies die every year. That's 4 babies every minute. 80% of these are low-birth-weight (LBW) newborns. We can change this. Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) increases an LBW newborn's chance of survival by at least 33%.

First Embrace will establish KMC wards within existing hospitals, training and equipping nurses to support mothers in practices proven in over 20 RCTs to save newborn lives: skin-to-skin contact, exclusive breastfeeding, and danger-sign identification.

Better Season Project

Half a billion smallholder farmers grow a third of the world's food, yet most live in extreme poverty. Proven tools like water tanks and storage bags can increase farm incomes for years, but lenders often misjudge smallholders’ risk, leaving a $170 billion finance gap.

Better Season Project is closing that gap by making productive investments affordable for smallholder farmers. We achieve this through asset-collateralised loans (ACLs), where the asset itself serves as collateral, lowering barriers [...]

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Outline:

(00:43) Short Summaries

(00:46) First Embrace

(01:28) Better Season Project

(02:26) Opal Health

(03:20) Better Futures Guide

(03:56) First Embrace

(04:07) Why

(04:57) Plans

(05:19) Where

(05:50) Goals

(06:35) How you can support us

(07:02) Better Season Project

(07:16) Why

(09:12) Plans

(10:06) Where

(10:45) Goals

(11:10) How you can support us

(11:49) Opal Health

(11:59) Why

(13:14) Plans

(14:39) Goals

(15:29) How you can support us

(16:04) Better Futures Guide

(16:16) Why

(17:17) Plans

(18:11) Goals

(18:41) How you can support us

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First published:
December 11th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9HnvKWH3PYjf89xGg/announcing-four-new-charities

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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[Linkpost] “Malaysia’s Islamic Authority Declares Cultivated Meat Can Be Halal (First Muslim-Majority Country)” by Sanu 🔸

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 14:30:48 GMT

This is a link post.

Malaysia's Islamic authority declares cultivated meat can be halal - a first for a Muslim-majority country

The Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia – JAKIM), through the National Muzakarah Committee, has issued a landmark religious ruling (fatwa) stating that cultivated meat can be halal if certain basic conditions are met. This declaration comes just months after Malaysia completed an expansive National Cultivated Meat Feasibility Study, as part of a government effort supported by the prime minister to explore “the potential of future foods.”

Source: GFI APAC, Based on Religious Ruling (Link Provided in Their Post)

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First published:
December 11th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CQz5X9Fajo42JCzq7/malaysia-s-islamic-authority-declares-cultivated-meat-can-be

Linkpost URL:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gfi-apac_breaking-malaysias-islamic-authority-declares-activity-7404336568339116033-SWdN/

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Most Externalities are Solved with Technology, Not Coordination” by Vasco Grilo🔸

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 11:45:49 GMT

This is a link post.

[Subtitle.] Econ 101 Needs More Progress Studies

This is a crosspost for Most Externalities are Solved with Technology, Not Coordination by Maxwell Tabarrok, which was originally published on Maximum Progress on 14 March 2025.

The basic externalities story goes like this: Some things, like air quality or scientific discoveries, have effects which spread to millions of people without cost or reward to the creator. Actions with unpunished costs are over-produced and actions with uncompensated benefits are left undone.

The story continues that if only we could coordinate, we could fix the misallocation caused by externalities. We might get the government to tax and subsidize externalities or else we might try to lower transaction costs so that people can bargain to solve externalities on their own.

The basic story over-focuses on social coordination as the solution to externalities. Our institutions cannot be relied on to optimally correct externalities or even to avoid making them worse. Usually, the costs of an externality subside only after we’ve invented a technology which makes it cheap or privately beneficial to do the socially optimal thing. Most importantly, technology shifts out the production possibilities frontier making it possible to get outcomes [...]

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Outline:

(01:53) The Smoky City

(05:25) Airborne Disease

(06:49) Firefighting

(08:02) Over-farming and Guano Depletion

(09:21) Malthusian Externalities and The Industrial/Green Revolutions

(11:00) Counterexamples

(12:18) More Examples

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First published:
December 10th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cYdnZjLDnzsMG5y7A/most-externalities-are-solved-with-technology-not

Linkpost URL:
https://www.maximum-progress.com/p/most-externalities-are-solved-with

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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