EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

“A huge way you can help pigs in 5-20 minutes (in the US)” by ElliotTep

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 09:30:52 GMT

Thanks to the work of advocates and donors inside and outside of this movement, the Farm Bill draft released by Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman did not include the dangerous Save Our Bacon Act. This was a huge win towards protecting millions of animals from extreme confinement and other cruel farming practices in the US.

The next step is calling or emailing your Senators, telling them to reject any attempt to slip the amendment into the bill, and oppose any Farm Bill that includes it.

You don't need to be an expert on the topic. Senators put a lot of weight on emails and especially phone calls.

How to call your Senators here (via The Humane League)

How to email your Senators here (via Compassion in World Farming)

---

First published:
July 10th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/42WKK8xwo5rLZyKqG/a-huge-way-you-can-help-pigs-in-5-20-minutes-in-the-us

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Announcing the Safe Pareto Improvements (SPI) Fundamentals Program” by Center on Long-Term Risk, Anthony DiGiovanni 🔸, Santeri T 🔹

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 21:30:51 GMT

CLR is excited about safe Pareto improvements (SPIs) as a way to mitigate downsides from conflict between AIs. SPIs are a class of interventions on how agents negotiate that makes them all better off, no matter how they would have negotiated without the SPI.

Among many candidate interventions against AI conflict, SPIs stand out to us as unusually robust — see the introduction of our agenda on the topic. And in discussions with people who’ve thought a lot about conflict risks, we’ve found there's broad support for work on SPIs. For those sympathetic to CLR's general priorities and with relevant skills (see below), we think helping SPIs go well is one of the most impactful career paths.

But work on this area is currently very neglected (~2.5 FTE), and there isn’t yet an on-ramp for people to get up to speed.

To address these gaps, we’re running an SPI Fundamentals Program: an online course for people looking to learn about risks of AI conflict, how SPIs might address them, and open problems in this field. We plan to hire for SPI research roles, and we’re keen for you to apply to the program whether you want [...]

---

Outline:

(02:11) Content

(04:21) Target audience

(06:03) Contact

---

First published:
July 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SACeBpFpctozx9BkQ/announcing-the-safe-pareto-improvements-spi-fundamentals

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“EA in the Lakes 2026 report” by Kestrel🔸

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 14:30:52 GMT

I ran another "EA in the Lakes" event. This basically entailed renting a community hostel (Pardshaw Quaker Centre) in the Lake District, UK, for 3 nights Friday-Monday. I posted some adverts up to attract some EAs looking for a holiday and did not evaluate applications. Here's my report on how it went.

Ennerdale Water (and Crag Fell, my favourite hill)

We followed the same format as last time of keeping morning and evenings open for attendee-contributed sessions (one EA and one non-EA topic in each timeslot), while spending afternoons out walking by / swimming in a lake, Loweswater or Ennerdale. We had a couple of repeat attendees but mostly new people - although several of the new people were there by a personal referral of a previous attendee, which is a function both of where I posted the adverts and also a good sign that the last one had been at the very least enjoyable.

The wild swimming spot at Loweswater

Reflections on Depth-First Networking

Overall I think the event went really well. One of the longer-term EA attendees came up with "depth-first networking" to describe the event format I am trying to cultivate. I basically agree with this trio:

[...]

---

Outline:

(01:11) Reflections on Depth-First Networking

(02:59) Attendee feedback

(04:45) Somewhat spiritual Kes thoughts on event organising:

(07:19) Cost:

(08:36) Other thoughts that may be of practical use to someone running something similar but that don't fit in this narrative:

(13:18) Conclusion

---

First published:
July 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Jucbw7bAw2EitcXcx/ea-in-the-lakes-2026-report

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Yuval Harari: philanthropy principles + 3 AI-focused charities he recommends” by BruceF

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:45:45 GMT

Yuval Harari recently participated in a call to discuss philanthropy for those working in AI.

He produced this handout with some general principles for philanthropy and his three top charities for people working in AI.

They are:

- Karya (ethical data cooperative in India)

- LawZero (developing advanced non-agenic AI)

- AI Futures Project (forecasting AI's future)

I will share this post with his office, so I would guess that he'll see any detailed comments that anyone chooses to share.

---

First published:
July 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Tg9mBTKqScNie8xCR/yuval-harari-philanthropy-principles-3-ai-focused-charities

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

″~85% of Major Hotels Groups and 80% of Restaurant Chains Locations in the Philippines Committed to Cage-Free Eggs” by Whitney Peng

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 09:30:46 GMT

TL;DR

As of Q1 2026, 80% of major restaurant chain locations in the Philippines, including the country's three largest restaurant groups, have committed to sourcing only cage-free eggs, representing 47 brands and over 11,200 outlets nationwide. Note that prior to 2022, no Philippine-based company had a public CF egg policy commitment.
84% of major hotel group locations are also committed, up from just 20% in 2020—at which point every single committed hotel was an international chain.
This shift happened in 4 years, driven almost entirely by targeted corporate engagement by Lever Foundation's locally-based Philippines team.
The country's largest egg producer has gone from 1% to around 10% of egg production being cage-free

"Nearly 80% of Philippine Restaurant Chain Locations Commit to Sourcing Cage-Free Eggs by 2035"—I don't know about you, but I was incredibly surprised when I heard this from my teammates. The Philippines is not a country where you'd typically expect this. It's a low-income country with price-sensitive consumers, limited regulatory pressure on animal welfare, and an egg industry that until recently had little commercial incentive to go cage-free (CF). Yet here we are.

The committed brands include the country's largest and most beloved fast food and cafe chains like Shakey's [...]

---

Outline:

(00:15) TL;DR

(02:10) The Numbers

(04:20) The Market Side

(05:40) The Supply Side

(06:49) The Work Behind the Number

---

First published:
July 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KFxtrXLByPfWBtEmz/85-of-major-hotels-groups-and-80-of-restaurant-chains

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Giving What We Can’s first YouTube Video is out now!” by JustinPortela

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:01:36 GMT

Hello! I'm Justin Portela. I got hired by GWWC to make YouTube videos after AI in Context did such a kickass job.

My channel is using that same cinematic, high-production value beauty to talk about everything in the EA universe that isn't AI.

My first video is out now. It's about an obscure and unknown World Health Organization Meeting in 1955 that helped shape the conditions that have left up to 40 million people dead of malaria in sub-saharan Africa.

I think it's pretty dope. I hope you do too.

What you can do

Watch it, subscribe to it, share it, do anything to help us reach more people. I made this channel to appeal to people who have never heard of EA. I want to be people's first introduction to the principles of EA and effective giving, so the more people that this reaches the better.

Feedback?

If you have thoughts, let me know! Either comment here or email me at Justin.Portela@GivingWhatWeCan.org

---

First published:
July 7th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8XXyGubWDWv2hEa5f/giving-what-we-can-s-first-youtube-video-is-out-now

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Time Sensitive Do Gooding Opportunities” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 14:15:45 GMT

(Crosspost--written in a slightly sillier style than is typical of EA forum posts, but still seemed worth posting).

A lot of my interactions with prominent bloggers involve me appearing in their rooms ex nihilo at odd hours of the night and suggesting they write about something very impactful (e.g. why people should take the Giving What We Can pledge). Yet sometimes when I say this, they say to me, “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.” So here I’m going to tell you about some high-impact opportunities: one to get support for running a local EA group and the other a donation-matching opportunity for effective animal donations. And act now, because offers end soon!

1 Donation matching

A funder is temporarily matching donations to Animal Charity Evaluators’ (ACE) movement grants program. For those unaware, ACE is basically the GiveWell of animal welfare. They do high-quality research to find the best charities in the animal sector. They publicize which charities are effective and give out grants to effective animal charities. You can see some of the grants they’ve [...]

---

Outline:

(00:55) 1. Donation matching

(03:13) 2. Organizer support program

---

First published:
July 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oE8uFWrAKninWtmta/time-sensitive-do-gooding-opportunities

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Contra Bentham’s Bulldog on the Save Our Bacon Act” by GoldenSquash

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 08:15:46 GMT

Bentham's Bulldog has published a series of pieces on the Save Our Bacon Act, urging people to call and email their senators, donate, and spread the word.

Things we agree on

Factory farming and gestation crates are immoral
Fighting the Save Our Bacon Act is highly important for animal welfare.

Disagreements

Bentham's Bulldog has made several factual errors in his posts, and did not correct them when I and others pushed back.

Error #1: Luna Amendment

This is not very important, and the time of importance for it has passed, but Bentham's Bulldog falsely claimed that the Luna Amendment was dead. See this comment, although I won't go into too much detail.

Error #2: Pennies Per Animal

Bentham's Bulldog claimed "And yet even then, they might be drowned out by ghastly agribusinesses who torture pigs to save literally pennies per animal."

The linked tweet, however, says pennies per dollar, not pennies per animal. Here's a quote from the tweet:

Confirmed: "cents on the dollar" is all the pork industry saves by using these inhumane gestation crates and farrowing crates. Here are some estimates from frontier AI models, INCLUDING THE TRANSITION COST amortized over 5 years: grok-4.3: 4 [...]

---

Outline:

(00:20) Things we agree on

(00:33) Disagreements

(00:43) Error #1: Luna Amendment

(01:01) Error #2: Pennies Per Animal

(02:01) Error #3: The AMPA PAC (most important)

(02:58) My Levels of Confidence

(03:32) Conclusion

---

First published:
July 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wxcJyMtijqaDzgtJE/contra-bentham-s-bulldog-on-the-save-our-bacon-act

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“New round of digital minds funding opportunities at Longview” by zdgroff, Longview Philanthropy

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 04:30:45 GMT

This is a linkpost for Request for Proposals: Research and Applied Work on Digital Minds.

I'm glad to announce a request for proposals for research and applied work on digital minds at Longview Philanthropy. We’re seeking applications for project grants, research fellowships, and career development fellowships on the potential consciousness, sentience, moral status, and legal position of AI systems, and on how society might respond. The deadline is Friday July 24, 2026 (extended from July 10).

Much of what we’re looking for is the same as what we were looking for last year, so I’ll direct people to last year's post and then share a few updates that have informed the drafting of the RFP:

This year's RFP lays out somewhat more specific technical research directions we’d like to see:
- Issues around valence and preferences seem especially neglected relative to the question of “are they conscious?” Even in philosophy, there's been far less discussion of what it means to experience something as good or bad, and still less about what this could mean for an AI model. I’d like to see more work here from neuroscientists, ML researchers, and philosophers.
- There's been a lot of progress on [...]

---

First published:
July 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ToC8jpgdwFJGtfw7C/new-round-of-digital-minds-funding-opportunities-at-longview

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The Absorption Problem” by NickAllardice

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:00:45 GMT

I posted this originally on Linkedin and Substack where I write for a more general audience. I think it's highly relevant for here though, and would welcome thoughts, disagreements, builds and implications. I wrote all the substance of this post myself, then used an LLM to refine its expression.

A historic amount of money may be about to flow toward the world's problems, but right now that money can’t be absorbed at the effectiveness and scale this moment demands. That's an unpopular thing to say from a sector where it's fashionable to shake your fist at the wealthy for not giving more away.

There are reasons to be sympathetic to this perspective: we know more about how to do good than ever before and there's more wealth than at any time in human history… and yet the percentage given by the ultra-wealthy hasn’t budged in decades.

But this discourse is damaging and self defeating.

First, giving at an ambitious, sustainable scale will never be unlocked via shaming and scolding.

Second, in the vast majority of cases the social impact sector simply can’t credibly claim to be able to use significantly more money while doing so effectively, efficiently [...]

---

Outline:

(03:40) I. Impact rarely grows proportionally with scale

(07:35) II. Many of the best interventions have a low ceiling on their potential scale

(13:31) III. Speed costs efficiency

(18:41) IV. Organizations break as they scale

(24:32) Let's get real about scalability profiles

---

First published:
July 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uPe8hiHwzM2Yi4nKG/the-absorption-problem

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“AMA: Anthony DiGiovanni, author of the ‘Challenge of Unawareness’ sequence” by Toby Tremlett🔹, Anthony DiGiovanni 🔸

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 18:15:41 GMT

We announced the Cluelessness Critiques Competition two weeks ago.

A lot of you, not only prospective entrants, will have been reading Anthony's sequence where he lays out his unawareness argument, or following the comments on his summary post. I thought that this might be a great time to have Anthony put some time aside to answer your questions.

Although we are calling this an AMA[1], the focus will be on helping people understand the sequence so that they can write the best entries to the competition that they can. Anthony will be choosing the questions he responds to with this in mind.

Anthony will be answering your questions on Thursday the 9th. He cannot guarantee that he will answer every question, so make sure to upvote the questions you’d like to see answered.

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
July 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZTz9BKxCys5DgaHQJ/ama-anthony-digiovanni-author-of-the-challenge-of

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“I’m never satisfied” by Ajeya

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 17:00:42 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.

But we get the job done

I was twenty one when I joined Open Phil,[1] as a zealous young EA who had idolized the organization since I was in high school (back when it was called GiveWell Labs). I worked there for over nine years, leaving about six months ago (shortly after it rebranded as Coefficient Giving). By the time I left, I was kind of a fixture in the organization, and a significant driver of culture and thought within the AI team of 45-ish people. My manager felt that a lot of people on the team would be worried to see me go, and encouraged me to convey that I believed in their work in my goodbye message.

If you read that message, I meant what I said. I do think the kind of ambitious, foresightful philanthropy that OP (ugh fine, cG) does at its best is extremely impactful, and I do think the AI team is really great and has unique strengths.

But before I articulated that, I sat [...]

The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
July 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kMsrxqF5BQcX5FEAr/i-m-never-satisfied

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Maybe do the thing you wish CEA would do” by alejoacelas 🔸

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 12:30:23 GMT

I used AI to fix transcription errors, rerrarange the ideas, and suggest tweaks to the title and some sentences.

Three of the most exciting projects to come out of EA in recent years are, in a vague sense, CEA spinouts:

Kairos is directly a spinout of CEA and now handles most support for university AI safety groups. Basically everyone I've found who knows them is really excited about what they do
NEST is an opinionated ideas-first support network for EA (university) groups. And you can see from Matt's blog the absolutely insane care he has for us.
BlueDot grew out of a group of Cambridge EAs that wanted to make much better introductions to EA topics than what was available out there, and now they're basically trying to solve the talent gap for anything bad AI forever after

My natural next thought, is that maybe some more of the responsibilities currently conceived as “CEA's job” would be better handled by small teams not directly (or only very loosely affiliated with) CEA.

Beyond the previous examples, there's many advantages to small independent teams here:

You can take risks that CEA can't
You can kindle a culture that promotes ambitious [...]

---

First published:
July 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ovSoLXJHNu2LbcsDb/maybe-do-the-thing-you-wish-cea-would-do

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Mabye do the thing you wish CEA would do” by AlejoAcelas🔸

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 12:30:23 GMT

I used AI to fix transcription errors, rerrarange the ideas, and suggest tweaks to the title and some sentences.

Three of the most exciting projects to come out of EA in recent years are, in a vague sense, CEA spinouts:

Kairos is directly a spinout of CEA and now handles most support for university AI safety groups. Basically everyone I've found who knows them is really excited about what they do
NEST is an opinionated ideas-first support network for EA (university) groups. And you can see from Matt's blog the absolutely insane care he has for us.
BlueDot grew out of a group of Cambridge EAs that wanted to make much better introductions to EA topics than what was available out there, and now they're basically trying to solve the talent gap for anything bad AI forever after

Beyond the previous examples, there's many advantages to small independent teams here:

You can take risks that CEA can't
You can kindle a culture that promotes ambitious [...]

---

First published:
July 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ovSoLXJHNu2LbcsDb/mabye-do-the-thing-you-wish-cea-would-do

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“most EAs should probably not be living in high cost-of-living (HCOL) areas most of the time” by matthes

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:00:22 GMT

If you work a job that can mostly be done from anywhere[1], you should ask yourself if you are spending too much money on housing.

I felt prompted to write this post by the recent increased push for EAs to move to the Bay. Multiple people have urged me personally to relocate. Most of them want me to work on AI safety, but the move-to-the-Bay meme is now also strong in animal welfare. I remain unconvinced, although I am always open to visiting if there is something specific for me to do there.

the core case

Significant additional spare money isn’t just great for donating, but it can also make it easier to have an impactful career, as you can afford to:

take more risks (e.g. start a new org that might fail)
spend more time on your job search whenever it's time to find your next step
spend more time upskilling
spend more time and money on your mental and physical health
generally worry less day-to-day about food and other essentials for yourself and your dependents

All of the above have massive benefits for your long-term impact and wellbeing.

Moving to a cheaper area might [...]

---

Outline:

(00:42) the core case

(03:03) example

(04:18) miscellaneous related thoughts

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
July 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9GdimbABhTwXyoCo3/most-eas-should-probably-not-be-living-in-high-cost-of

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“RP is looking for project founders in neglected animal areas” by Rethink Priorities

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 21:01:13 GMT

TLDR; To help the effective animal advocacy movement cost-effectively absorb greater amounts of funding in the near future, we are seeking expressions of interest from people who could found a new organization focused on:

Highly neglected animals: insects, wild animals, shrimp, fish, etc, or
AI and animals: AI alignment and governance for animal welfare, strategic actions considering transformative AI, AI for wild animals, etc.
Tech for animals: welfare tech, precision welfare tech, breeding for welfare, etc.

We are looking for both founders with a specific idea and those motivated to develop or execute on one. Depending on fit, Rethink Priorities can offer 3-6 months of funded runway and various operational set-ups for you to pursue your work, such as a Special Project, hiring you as an Entrepreneur in Residence, or helping you incubate into an independent organization.

To express interest, please fill out the short form (15-20min) here by the end of the day on July 19, 2026.

Background

At Rethink Priorities, we work on some of the most neglected problems in animal welfare: from insect welfare to wild animals to the implications of AI for alternative proteins.

Neglected animals represent the vast majority of the world's [...]

---

Outline:

(01:22) Background

(02:13) Which animal topics are we focused on?

(04:02) Small teams are already getting outsized results

(05:29) Who are we looking for?

(07:09) What we can offer

(08:57) How to respond

(10:13) About Rethink Priorities

---

First published:
July 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TsLvBf9dpmCcp9yrn/rp-is-looking-for-project-founders-in-neglected-animal-areas

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“How AI is Affecting Farmed Aquatic Animals. Part 2: Deployment” by Rethink Priorities, Sophie Williamson, Hannah_🔸

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 09:30:21 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.

Introduction

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 2: Deployment

This report analyzes the current state of AI deployment in aquaculture, examining where AI-aquaculture tools are [...]

---

Outline:

(00:18) Introduction

(00:52) Part 2: Deployment

(02:06) Executive Summary

(04:43) Background

(05:24) Scope

(08:28) Results

(08:31) Three-Quarters of Companies in Our Database Specialize in Aquaculture

(09:26) Europe Leads Company Presence, Followed by Latin America and Southeast Asia

(11:04) Aquaculture AI Flows Predominantly From Northern Europe into Latin America and the Rest of Europe, With Innovation in Southeast Asia Largely Staying Within Southeast Asia

(12:48) Norway and Scotland Are the Two Largest Net Exporters of Aquaculture AI by Absolute Net Flow.

(14:42) Salmon and Shrimp Have the Largest AI Deployment Footprints

(16:56) Salmon

(18:49) Shrimp

(21:46) Experts Suggest Biomass Tools Lead On-Farm AI Deployment in Salmon, While Feed Optimization Dominates in Shrimp

(25:24) The Primary Barrier to AI Adoption is an Unclear Return on Investment

(29:37) Government Action Contributes to Shaping AI Development and Adoption in Aquaculture

(31:48) Experts Predict That AI Tool Uptake Will Increase Rapidly in the Short-Term

(33:55) Conclusions

(35:42) Acknowledgements

(36:53) Appendix

(36:56) Definitions

(37:41) Expert Profiles

(38:09) Claude-Review of Academic Papers on Barriers to Adoption of AI in Aquaculture

(40:03) Ways in Which We Could Be Wrong

(40:10) How Our Database Could Be Incomplete or Inaccurate

(45:20) Regional Groupings

(46:46) Bibliography

The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
June 29th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/i5XMLwHhtLRhSqhM6/how-ai-is-affecting-farmed-aquatic-animals-part-2-deployment

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“What would an animal-aligned AI be aligned to?” by Aidan Kankyoku, Anima International

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 02:45:22 GMT

This is a crosspost from the new Animal Welfare Alignment Newsletter by Anima International. You can subscribe on Substack if you are interested in following these efforts. Audio reading also available on Substack.

The goals of this post are to:

Raise a question I see as crucially important to the goal of aligning AI to animal welfare, and to altruistic values generally; and
Offer a partial solution to that question—one I am not very confident in—so it can be critiqued.

Summary of important claims/arguments:

When we talk about aligning AI to animal welfare (or welfare of digital minds, or even human welfare) different ideas may come to mind, such as “not speciesist” or “wants to end factory farming.” These ideas can be arranged on a spectrum from broad values to specific actions or ways the world should be changed.
Most people thinking about animal welfare alignment agree that we should try to constrain future superintelligent AIs to broad values while deferring to them on more specific actions. But it is not clear where to draw the line between these two.
Current alignment techniques further complicate this by compressing and distorting the lessons we try to teach AIs. [...]

---

Outline:

(01:56) Alignment to what?

(04:20) Does intelligence lead to better moral conclusions?

(06:53) Which questions should we defer to superintelligent AI?

(10:11) Current alignment strategies are imprecise

(12:53) Where does that leave animal welfare alignment?

(13:48) Strategy #1: Train & evaluate a broad distribution of practical decisions

(18:39) Strategy #2: Urgently research unresolved foundational questions

(19:49) Minimum viable values for animal welfare alignment

(20:53) Summary of recommendations

The original text contained 11 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
June 30th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mnLqdvnpKiudivyfv/what-would-an-animal-aligned-ai-be-aligned-to

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Cultivating hope: calibrating the expectations for cultivated meat to end factory farming” by PabloAMC 🔸

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 18:45:22 GMT

Assuming we end factory farming before 2100, which factor will have contributed the most?92 votes so far. Voting closes in 25 days. Place your vote or view results.Alternative proteinsSocial moral changes

Bullet point summary:

Cultivated meat could have a price between $15/kg and $30/kg according to reputable technoeconomic analysis, which we review and explain.
We present an interactive demand-side economic model where we translate that price to market share: https://pabloamc.github.io/Cultivated_meat/interactive.html
Some species, like pork and especially chicken, are tough to replace with cultivated meat. Others, like cows and seafood, are more significantly more tractable. This could be good for shrimp and fish.
Beachhead products exist, in particular foie-gras and high-end fish.
Disruptive innovation economic theory says cultivated meat will have a hard time because there is no pressing problem that mainstream people perceive, but it is feasible in the same way electric cars are disrupting petrol cars.
Some of the main advantages of cultivated meat include significantly addressing vegan attrition rates, by lowering the perceived social or health taxes. Long term, this should make conventional meat less and less socially acceptable: no longer a “necessary evil”.
If electric cars are a good guide, government (or China) support will be [...]

---

Outline:

(05:12) Introduction

(09:43) Technoeconomic analysis

(16:31) My conclusions

(17:37) From price to consumer behaviour

(25:06) Demand and disruption

(30:34) Conclusion

(34:56) Bibliography

(35:02) Appendix: The science of cultivated meat

(36:46) Cell lines

(38:09) Cultivated media

(41:01) Biorreactor

(44:27) Humbird, 2022

(45:38) Negulescu, 2023

(46:55) Pasitka, 2024

---

First published:
June 26th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ED2ag8hYTWf4kmL3x/cultivating-hope-calibrating-the-expectations-for-cultivated

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“The Train to Crazy Town” by Richard Y Chappell🔸

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 12:15:21 GMT

Subtitle: How to Ride Without Losing Your Mind

Five years ago, Ajeya Cotra memorably described Effective Altruist reasoning as a “train to crazy town”—with longtermists in particular staying on the train for longer than their nearterm-focused colleagues. It's not a perfect metaphor, but what I suspect resonates for a lot of people is the sense that EA-style abstract reasoning can push you in directions you may not antecedently want to go (i.e., against your natural sympathies), and there's something potentially alienating or even threatening about that.[1]

Earlier still, back in 2015, Scott Alexander wrote about the dilemma that either we shouldn’t care about non-human animals at all, or they should totally swamp every other moral concern. There's no realistic chance that the correct moral weighting conveniently turns out to be that precise value needed to justify a balanced approach on first-order grounds. His response was to “safeword out” of that whole line of abstract reasoning for the sake of his sanity. I actually think that's a pretty good response, but would like to try to give it a more principled backing—one that turns out to carry a surprising upshot: that moral theories may not be meant to guide us [...]

---

Outline:

(05:46) Moral Uncertainty

(09:42) Comparing Risks

(15:08) Wrapping up

The original text contained 5 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
June 30th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3kFXnGeahhPHy97m6/the-train-to-crazy-town

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Announcing Spring: a Venture Studio and Fund for Animal Welfare Tech” by EitanF

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 09:30:14 GMT

Why building and backing Welfare Tech companies may be one of the most promising things we can do for billions of animals.

I used AI to assist in writing this post, but I’ve rewritten it extensively and endorse it.

Announcing the launch of Spring Innovation Fund, a not-for-profit venture philanthropy studio and fund built specifically for Welfare Tech: technology that improves animal welfare in ways that make commercial sense for producers to adopt.
We think Welfare Tech is unusually promising: neglected, cost-effective, fast-acting, and scalable, with a large amount of low-hanging fruit; and we address some of the leading objections below.
Three ways to get involved: Spring Works (engineers & builders), Spring Studio (ideators & entrepreneurs), and Spring Ventures (companies & investors).

1. Why we built Spring

I’m Eitan, a long-time EA who spent most of a decade working on turning cultivated meat from an idea into a real field, including founding Mission Barns. Now, I’ve teamed up with Milo Runkle — co-founder of the Good Food Institute, New Crop Capital, Joyful Ventures, among other groups — to found Spring Innovation Fund, together with Nate Crosser, who spent years as an agtech and biotech VC.

Welfare Tech is [...]

---

Outline:

(00:12) Why building and backing Welfare Tech companies may be one of the most promising things we can do for billions of animals.

(01:07) 1. Why we built Spring

(04:14) 2. Why Welfare Tech is high-impact

(11:06) 3. Why for-profit companies?

(12:47) 4. Objections

(18:38) 5. Who Spring is for

(20:57) Notes

---

First published:
June 30th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CzJoXj6iwYvaMdkg5/announcing-spring-a-venture-studio-and-fund-for-animal

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“GWWC’s 2025 impact evaluation (executive summary)” by Aidan Whitfield🔸, Giving What We Can🔸

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 16:00:15 GMT

This post presents the executive summary from Giving What We Can's impact evaluation for 2025. At the end of this post we share links to more information, including the full report and working sheet for this evaluation. We look forward to your questions and comments!

Executive summary

Giving What We Can (GWWC) is working towards a world without preventable suffering or existential risk, where everyone is able to flourish. We do this by making effective and significant charitable giving a norm among those who can — primarily through our flagship program: the 🔸10% Pledge, a lifetime commitment to give at least 10% of income to highly effective charities. Annually, our growing community of roughly 20K donors and pledgers records over 80 million dollars USD in charitable donations with GWWC.

As an organisation that advocates for effective giving, we think it is important to hold ourselves to the same standard. This report is our third impact evaluation of this type and examines the cost effectiveness of ourselves as an organisation in 2025.

Our headline findings and estimates:

Our 2025 giving multiplier was 7x — GWWC produced 16 million dollars in value for highly effective charities in 2025, at a [...]

---

Outline:

(00:30) Executive summary

(03:56) Where you can learn more

---

First published:
June 30th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QarcSn67DvYBPuYm3/gwwc-s-2025-impact-evaluation-executive-summary

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Risk-Averse AIs” by Forethought, Elliott Thornley (EJT), William_MacAskill

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 15:30:16 GMT

This is a link post.

Abstract

We make the case for training AIs to be risk-averse in resources — specifically, to treat resources as having diminishing marginal utility. These AIs would (for example) choose $40 for sure over a half-chance of $100 and a half-chance of $0. We argue that risk aversion can preserve AIs’ usefulness in the event that they turn out aligned, and that it provides an extra line of defense in the event that AIs turn out misaligned: misaligned but risk-averse AIs would prefer a higher chance of modest payments to a lower chance of successful rebellion, so in many circumstances we could pay these AIs not to rebel against us. We sketch out some possible methods of training AIs to be risk-averse, and we give reasons to be cautiously optimistic about these methods’ success. The main reasons are that risk aversion is a broad target and easy to reward accurately. Overall, risk aversion seems like a promising line of defense against threats from misaligned AI. Frontier AI companies should consider trying to make their AIs risk-averse.

Introduction

Future AIs might turn out misaligned, pursuing goals that their developers don’t intend. Just to make things concrete, let's [...]

---

Outline:

(00:15) Abstract

(01:20) Introduction

---

First published:
June 24th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZvEp2G5xi8kQMgPxd/risk-averse-ais

Linkpost URL:
https://www.forethought.org/research/risk-averse-ais

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Existential AI safety needs an effective social movement. PauseAI is building it.” by Maxime Fournes, Matilda

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 22:15:15 GMT

This is a link post.

Note: this post is about PauseAI, not PauseAI US, which is a distinct entity with a different leadership team and approach.

This post was written by Matilda da Rui and Maxime Fournes, with significant contributions from Benjamin Schmidt (PauseAI Germany co-lead).

Executive Summary

The existential AI safety community needs to take building a civic and social movement seriously as a core intervention. We believe this is a high-value, badly neglected approach to reducing catastrophic/x-risks from AI because it may significantly enhance the likelihood of governance efforts succeeding at keeping humanity safe. As far as we can tell, only one organisation is building this infrastructure across continents: PauseAI. This post lays out our reasoning and our track record, and makes the case that funding this work is one of the highest value-for-money contributions available to anyone looking to reduce AI risk.

Why don't we already have a pause [...]

---

Outline:

(00:53) Executive Summary

(06:37) Introduction

(09:14) 1. Our theory of change

(09:18) Prologue

(11:27) 1. The shape of the problem as we see it

(14:47) 2. Necessary conditions for reaching a pause

(17:45) 2. Our role towards a global treaty and in the AI safety ecosystem

(17:52) 1. Our niche within the ecosystem

(21:55) 2. Policymakers need strong enough incentives to act

(26:04) 3. The path to a treaty

(31:56) 4. How we can grow fast without breaking

(39:29) 5. Failure modes

(40:31) 3. Our path so far and where we're headed

(41:01) 1. Bootstrap phase (2023-2025)

(45:22) 2. New leadership, professionalisation and federation

(48:19) 3. Recent outputs

(54:48) 4. Support us

(54:51) 1. Fund us if you can

(01:00:10) 2. What you can do if you can't fund us

(01:00:52) Conclusion

(01:02:41) Bibliography

---

First published:
June 26th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dLexMyjhAMmG33KnB/existential-ai-safety-needs-an-effective-social-movement

Linkpost URL:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aoqhszdEWqcFWbnda/existential-ai-safety-needs-an-effective-social-movement

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

″$1M AI x-risk grant round is live on grantmaking.ai - apply for funding, review applicants, or fund projects” by Matt Brooks

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 18:15:14 GMT

TLDR: what is the grant round?

grantmaking.ai is launching a 1 million dollars grant round, distributing 5 thousand dollars to 50 thousand dollars per successful application to people and projects working to reduce x-risk from AI.

Applications will be reviewed by Gavin Leech, Ryan Kidd, and Marcus Abramovitch. We aim to make all funding decisions by July 28th. Applications submitted by July 13th are guaranteed a priority review. You can still apply after July 13th, and we will make our best effort to review late submissions as long as funding remains.

Grant applications will be mostly public, though we allow certain sensitive details to be kept private. Even if you are not applying, we invite you to join the platform to review and comment. We have set aside 100 thousand dollars of the budget to be given to top commenters as regranting budgets, so please share your thoughts and help us pick out awesome projects!

Who are we?

grantmaking.ai was initialized by Anton Makiievskyi, who is funding this round and brought the team together, built by Matt Brooks (lead dev) and Melissa Samworth (ui/ux), and advised by Austin Chen with Manifund handling grant distribution.

Why we’re building this platform [...]

---

Outline:

(00:16) TLDR: what is the grant round?

(01:16) Who are we?

(01:35) Why we're building this platform & launching a grant round

(02:53) What is grantmaking.ai, and who is it for?

(04:13) Grant round details

---

First published:
June 29th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AnMtdJfDym8bGjPB2/usd1m-ai-x-risk-grant-round-is-live-on-grantmaking-ai-apply

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Podcast: Austin and Oli on funding & incubating projects” by Austin

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 16:30:18 GMT

This is a link post.

Oli Habryka of LessWrong and I recently spoke about his plans to improve the AI safety funding ecosystem with a better S-Process platform, and my new incubator for EA/AIS software projects, Surplus (since launched; apply now!)

We also cover: hot takes on different funders; what kinds of founders might succeed in the age of vibecoding; whether to do direct work or go meta; and what we respect and criticize in each other. Watch along here:

I've transcribed the full conversation at https://peruse.sh/ep/austin-chen-and-oliver-habryka-on-funding-incubating-project. (Beware: the AI makes notable edits for readability, sometimes distorting what the speaker meant. If specific phrasing is cruxy, listen to the audio.)

Selected quotes

The cursed game of philanthropy

Oli: "Philanthropy is one of the most cursed games in existence... The default outcome of what happens when rich people try to do philanthropy is that they think about starting a foundation, they imagine hiring someone on the market and ask themselves: who am I going to show up and feel comfortable trusting most of my net worth to? That doesn't make any sense.

And so what they often end up doing is making a family office. The only way to solve this [...]

---

Outline:

(01:01) Selected quotes

(07:00) Chapters

(08:38) Referenced links

(09:08) Full transcript

(09:13) Critiques of SFF's grant process \[0:00\]

(11:32) The SFF application process \[2:26\]

(12:56) The speculation grant freeze for advocacy orgs \[3:40\]

(14:36) A lower-trust, more transparent funding process \[5:04\]

(16:32) How the S-process works \[6:53\]

(20:24) Naming and communicating the value to funders \[10:54\]

(25:49) EA philanthropy and the principal-agent problem: Open Philanthropy, Longview \[15:51\]

(31:18) How much funding is coming \[21:28\]

(32:39) Surplus: the incubator \[22:33\]

(34:52) Why for-profits over nonprofits \[24:37\]

(37:39) The ideal founder profile \[27:11\]

(40:58) Whether writers can found startups in the vibe-coding era \[30:26\]

(42:25) Monetizing public communications projects \[31:45\]

(53:07) Oliver's case for the incubator \[42:09\]

(54:41) On professional grantmakers \[44:04\]

(58:00) Whether infrastructure work is more direct than safety research \[47:36\]

(01:01:47) The case for a better AI safety journal \[51:08\]

(01:04:10) Mutual feedback \[53:17\]

(01:10:10) How to help: LessWrong, Surplus, and the S-process \[1:01:01\]

---

First published:
June 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mFoK2kjauoGxsEFaQ/podcast-austin-and-oli-on-funding-and-incubating-projects

Linkpost URL:
https://manifund.substack.com/p/podcast-austin-and-oli-on-funding

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“How I Got Accepted Into AIM’s Charity Entrepreneurship Program” by Evan LaForge

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 16:00:16 GMT

TL;DR

The best way to increase your odds of being accepted into Ambitious Impact's Charity Entrepreneurship Program is to build the relevant aptitudes for running an impactful charity. I provide some practical tips that I would recommend to anyone considering this career. Basically all of these steps are worth pursuing whether they shift your odds of acceptance or not.

The tips are:

Actually apply for the program
Read the book "How to Launch a High-Impact Nonprofit"
Design personalized aptitude building exercises based on the book
Start something new
Think deeply about what career you are best fit for

Background

I applied for Ambitious Impact's (AIM) Charity Entrepreneurship Program in early 2023 and went through the program in early 2024. Since then, I have launched Access to Medicines Initiative,[1] which saves lives and prevents unintended pregnancies by ensuring contraceptives are consistently available in Nigerian public health facilities.

I have been repeatedly asked at EAGs and other events how to get accepted into the Charity Entrepreneurship Program. I've generally given the same advice, and wanted to make that information more freely available. AIM previously posted about how to increase your odds of acceptance, and despite the post being over 6 [...]

---

Outline:

(00:12) TL;DR

(00:57) Background

(02:13) Tip #1: Apply

(03:44) Tip #2: Read the Book

(05:33) Tip #3: Design Personalized Aptitude Building Exercises

(08:02) Tip #4: Start Things

(09:04) Tip #5: Think Deeply About Your Career Fit

(10:51) Conclusion

---

First published:
June 29th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RozL8gzb2zkbTxY7u/how-i-got-accepted-into-aim-s-charity-entrepreneurship

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“EA Forum Update: Migrating to a new codebase” by Ollie Etherington

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 15:00:15 GMT

Summary: We’re making some big changes to the forum including a brand new post page. If you have any feedback, please let us know directly, or in the comments below.

The problem

The existing EA Forum codebase is relatively old and steeped in technical debt. New features and bug fixes (of which there are many) are slow, hosting is expensive, and server crashes are often time-consuming to fix. CEA also has considerably fewer resources dedicated to the forum than in the past (currently less than one full-time engineer), and we want to ensure the forum can continue to thrive in perpetuity whether or not that continues to be the case.

The forum has been developed alongside LessWrong for the past few years; both used the exact same code until recently, but with different configurations and different development teams. LessWrong completed their own migration last year, which consisted of taking the existing codebase and converting it to NextJS via some extremely large AI generated changes. This seems to have worked out nicely for them, but, for various reasons, we don’t believe that the same solution would have been right for us (that's not to say that I think it was [...]

---

Outline:

(00:23) The problem

(01:30) The solution

(03:51) What this means for you

---

First published:
June 29th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/t62uHkLG6K2xRWP5L/ea-forum-update-migrating-to-a-new-codebase

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The EA Superstructure” by Brian Foerster

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 08:00:07 GMT

Crossposted on Substack.

This recent podcast episode featuring Oliver Habryka and Austin Chen got me thinking about the social and political dimensions of EA. One moment in particular stood out to me.

Habryka: “And so I'm currently expecting that, like, a lot of Anthropic employees will be pretty burned in a year or two. When they are experiencing these dynamics, it becomes very clear that a huge amount of grants are never presented to them because people are worried that they will find them weird. People will see that there's a lot of politics behind the scenes about which grants get put in front of you and stuff like that. People will see that there's a lot of weird reputational management around like, wait, I can't make this grant because another funder would be angry at me, angry at you if you made this grant.”

I think I’m in a poor position to evaluate how true this claim is[1], and I have some nonspecific worries that what Habryka is doing here may be unproductive, but the pointedness of this claim makes it a good example of something I’d like to call the EA superstructure.

Since most EAs have little [...]

---

First published:
June 28th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HqyPEXpJsJS9oSi2J/the-ea-superstructure

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The Alphabet Institute now has a physical facility to host our Effective Altruism and 80,000hrs workshops in Zambia.” by Muloongo Stella Mwanahamuntu

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 09:15:06 GMT

Cavendish University has generously allowed us to use its residential property, which is located near several universities and high schools in Lusaka. Starting 4 July, we will begin hosting weekly workshops for students, graduates and young professionals who are trying to make better decisions about their education, careers and contribution to society.

This is a big milestone for us.

About two years ago, I began my journey as an effective altruist. I was excited, ready to learn, and ready to get to work. I applied for free career guidance, EA-related opportunities and did not get through. I also applied for the charity entrepreneurship charity incubation which did not work out either, and all that was just a humbling experience. I really recommend reading @Experience of a 'generalist' transitioning into AI safety in 2026 because this article needs to be pinned on some "Beginner's Guide to EA Work" board.

The lessons from Effective Altruism and 80,000 Hours made it difficult for me to simply stay quiet and do nothing in my own country so here is update #3 from @I have started a local community in Zambia for students, graduates, and professionals based on the principles outlined in the [...]

---

First published:
June 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dWtDdm976S9KMi4i6/the-alphabet-institute-now-has-a-physical-facility-to-host

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The unreasonable effectiveness of gifting the 80000 Hours book” by hazza

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 06:30:42 GMT

Note: I am not associated with 80000 Hours. I just like the book.

TLDR: if any of your friends would benefit from career advice, giving them the newly released 80000 Hours book may be the most effective thing you can do.

The process

I graduated from university just around the time the 80000 Hours book came out, and I bought 4 copies of the book to give to my friends. This went way better than expected, and I’m writing this because I think more people should do the same.

It's really simple:

Find people in your circle who might benefit from career advice. For example, if they aren’t sure about their career plans, are job-hunting or aren’t feeling fulfilled.
Schedule a time to meet.
Give them the book and tell them how useful it is.

I was a bit hesitant it would be seen as evangelizing, but I’m surprised at how well it went. Most strikingly, I ended up giving a copy to a friend who had accepted a grad job at Jane Street. At first, I was sure that he wouldn’t actually want one - he certainly didn’t seem to need career advice of all people! But [...]

---

Outline:

(00:27) The process

(01:34) Why this might be unusually effective

(03:30) But can't they get a free book anyways?

(04:29) Conclusion

---

First published:
June 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Se5s5WE3o683RKxrw/the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-gifting-the-80000-hours

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Possible mistake EAs are making and shout out to Pause AI UK” by Michelle_Hutchinson

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 22:45:42 GMT

I think right now EAs might be making a significant mistake by paying insufficient attention to the political realm. As EAs we tend to figure out what's most impactful for us to work on and focus hard. That's great! But there are various actions that are ‘non-delegatable’ - the extent to which an individual can do the action is limited (like voting, going to a protest, making hard money contributions to particular campaigns). It might be useful if we were all more in the habit of doing various of these alongside what we’re most focused on. I think more attention is starting to go to this - as evidenced by Jeff's blog post about how he thinks political donations should be his primary method of giving going forward. But I think we probably have a ways to go.

Political actions look better than they used to

I think it's pretty unsurprising that EAs are sceptical of lobbying policy makers as a theory of change. By my lights, it looked decidedly less effective a decade ago. At that point, work on existential risk was very speculative, and mostly needed additional research. It was totally unclear what better legislation would [...]

---

Outline:

(00:56) Political actions look better than they used to

(02:20) An example of making it tractable: PauseAI UK's campaign this week

(03:57) How valuable and achievable is it for us to do more of this?

---

First published:
June 24th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dieuDkXYAveFsX48c/possible-mistake-eas-are-making-and-shout-out-to-pause-ai-uk

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Pluralistic EA Stewardship” by SarahBluhm

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 19:45:42 GMT

What if you ran effective altruism group where, every week, people congregated to contemplate topics such as:

Eradicating malaria
Whether AI should ever have legal rights
What future people will wish we had done today
Whether insects have moral worth
How we can help others while taking care of ourselves

What if your group satisfied a deep need that many young people feel for an impartial, calm, and evidence-oriented environment to explore what “doing good” means? What if people formed deep friendships through your group? What if your group was composed of people who hold each other in high mutual regard despite differences in approaches and beliefs around taking effective altruistic action?

This vision might be called relational community building or pluralistic EA stewardship. In this model, group organizers are gardeners who craft ripe conditions for serious contemplation of ethical ideas and forging ties between individuals who deeply desire a better world. Crucially, the group should be built upon these core tenants:

It's important to help others
All sentient beings are equal
Helping more is better than helping less
Our resources are limited

Key components of a good effective altruism group

Norms and values (tilling the soil): Setting [...]

---

Outline:

(01:26) Key components of a good effective altruism group

(03:36) Encouraging pluralistic groups

---

First published:
June 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kTdMAodJB3mf8EEbg/pluralistic-ea-stewardship

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“AI probably won’t make factory farms obsolete” by Hazo

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 15:45:43 GMT

Bentham's Bulldog recently argued that AI won’t definitely make factory farms obsolete. I agree, but I’d go further and argue that by default AI won’t make factory farms obsolete. However, I think it's possible (though not guaranteed) that AI could make factory farms a lot more humane.

He throws out an 80% of cultivated meat being developed, and a 70% chance of it displacing factory farms contingent on it being developed. In particular, I think 70% is too optimistic.

An 80% chance of cultivated meat being developed contingent on TAI seems reasonable to me, insofar as its possible to forecast such things right now. We currently have no feasible technical roadmap for cultivated meat to be able to create all of the myriad kinds of animal products that people consume today. However, one could plausibly think that TAI means that any technology that's consistent with the laws of physics will become possible. Cultivated meat will be possible in these worlds, and some additional superset of these worlds.

However, I’d put a much lower chance of it being adopted in a significant way. To make a very vibesy forecast, I think there's maybe a 40% chance that cultivated [...]

---

Outline:

(02:11) The worlds in which cultivated meat are possible are also ones in which animal protein is significantly cheaper

(04:42) People will choose whichever they want more, and we have no evidence people will want cultivated meat.

(06:42) Objections

(09:23) AI could make factory farming significantly more humane

---

First published:
June 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YZoBtzuPy8qzJK6z5/ai-probably-won-t-make-factory-farms-obsolete

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Why I Believe Africa Deserves Greater Strategic Attention in Animal Welfare” by Aurelia Adhiambo

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 09:30:43 GMT

Introduction:

I have been reflecting on recent discussions on this platform concerning the future of global development philanthropy, particularly on the argument that the next wave of philanthropy should place greater emphasis on emerging regions and locally led approaches. These discussions led me to consider a related question in animal welfare: if Africa is set to play an increasingly important role in shaping future food systems, what does that imply for animal welfare funding? In this article, I hope to add an African perspective to that conversation.

For additional context, over the last 4.5 years, I have worked as an advisor for the Effective Altruism Animal Welfare Fund and worked closely with animal welfare organizations across Africa through my work with the Open Wing Alliance (where I work as the Senior Africa Lead) and other funders in the movement. These experiences have led me to become increasingly convinced that Africa deserves much greater strategic attention within discussions about the future of animal welfare.

My argument is not primarily one of representation or fairness. It is grounded on the claim that Africa is becoming a key continent where the structure of future animal agriculture is still being formed. If that [...]

---

Outline:

(00:13) Introduction:

(01:35) The Question We Should Be Asking:

(02:27) Africa Is Entering a Period of Transformation:

(04:03) We are at a Critical Juncture:

(04:56) Implications for Animal Welfare Funders:

(07:39) Conclusion

---

First published:
June 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9aRYApFJboCShcJXK/why-i-believe-africa-deserves-greater-strategic-attention-in

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Update: AIM’s Founding to Give Program” by Jacintha Baas, T.K., Ambitious Impact

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 09:15:42 GMT

TLDR: AIM won’t run another round of Founding to Give at this time, but we’d be excited for someone else to run (an amended version) of it

AIM launched the Founding to Give program two years ago to incubate for-profit startups with the goal of creating (1) impact via donations and (2) directly through company activities.

Since then, we have run 2 cohorts for which we had over 3,000 applications, selected 38 founders who all pledged 50% of their exit money to effective charities, and launched 24 startups. We’ve been positively surprised at the level of talent we’ve been able to recruit for a program including many repeat founders who have substantial technical expertise or have raised substantial funding in the past. We have been incredibly impressed with the FTG founders, several of whom have gone on to be selected for top tier accelerators such as Entrepreneur First, Antler, YC, and Techstars.

We think that FTG has shown multiple compelling theories of change, but the best versions of those ToCs would take us quite far outside of AIM's main focus in the effective nonprofit space, and require substantially different models/talent profiles/connections relative to AIM's current comparative [...]

---

Outline:

(02:05) What are the most compelling versions of "for-profit impact incubation?"

(05:31) What's next?

(06:25) To finish

---

First published:
June 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xLYuYwRNDieqxo7AH/update-aim-s-founding-to-give-program

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“New Video from AI in Context: The Fall and Rise of Sam Altman” by ChanaMessinger, Aric Floyd

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 12:45:42 GMT

New Video from AI in Context: The Fall and Rise of Sam Altman

If you want to skip straight to the video, here it is!

AI in Context is excited to be back with our fourth video! For those just hearing from us, we make videos for 80,000 Hours, telling stories about transformative AI. Check out our channel here.

What's in the video?

On November 17, 2023, OpenAI's board announced that Sam Altman was no longer CEO. Chaos ensued: Sam's self-styled government-in-exile, an employee revolt, key board members ousted, and Sam reinstated within a mere five days. At the time, no one knew the full story. We tell you what we know now.

Here's what else you’ll find:

A beat-by-beat of almost everything in the dossier used to get Sam fired, and who contributed the evidence.
An interview with an ex-employee who was there during the firing.
Details that didn't make it into the books or the news coverage, from off the record conversations with people close to OpenAI
The one or two concrete steps you can take if this story leaves you wanting to act.

If that sounds exciting to you, watch the video here!

Behind the [...]

---

Outline:

(00:13) New Video from AI in Context: The Fall and Rise of Sam Altman

(00:40) What's in the video?

(01:38) Behind the scenes

(02:41) Why Sam Altman?

(03:42) How you can get involved

(04:16) Channel updates

---

First published:
June 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/s63H4C94y6DrZMnRR/new-video-from-ai-in-context-the-fall-and-rise-of-sam-altman

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Build a flourishing EA group at the University of Toronto” by Joseph Kostousov

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 11:15:43 GMT

Hey all!

The University of Toronto is really large (>100,000 students) and talent-dense.

We think turning the EA group into a thriving community at U of T is high impact, neglected, and very tractable.

We’re looking for University of Toronto students who are passionate about EA to join the organizing team to kick-start this community in the fall.
We’re currently accepting applications for our virtual summer intro fellowships, where you’ll discuss readings on effective altruism over 8 weeks online, and meet other U of T students who are attending uni with you in the fall.

Currently, the UTEA group runs intro fellowships through the fall and winter semesters, but has no community events beyond that. We think that the community can grow way bigger with more marketing, regular socials, retreats, and talks on high-impact careers.

If you're passionate about effective altruism and would like to help out (we'll be tabling in August), send an email to uoft.effectivealtruism@gmail.com.

---

First published:
June 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/P3Z5ispeMtLybY3Lt/build-a-flourishing-ea-group-at-the-university-of-toronto

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“A note to future effective charity founders: consider zakat compliance from the start” by Kaleem

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 16:00:42 GMT

I used an LLM to help draft this post and it likely contains >10% AI-generated text, but I’ve edited/rewritten it extensively and endorse it.

A quick note aimed at people going through AIM's incubation programme (or otherwise founding new effective charities), though it may be of broader interest.

I think designing for zakat compliance is an underexplored lever, and being intentional about it early could open up a range of interventions and orgs that wouldn't otherwise get considered. These might not be the most cost-effective options relative to current best-in-class charities, but they have two attractive properties: they're potentially more (or at least differently) scalable, and they aren't competing for the same pool of funding. Zakat is restricted funding, so a zakat-compliant org is tapping a largely separate source rather than dividing the existing effective-giving pie.

The catch is that very few effective charities work on interventions, or in the locations and with muslim-super-majority populations, that could feasibly be zakat-compliant. New Incentives, Spiro, Taimaka, and First Embrace are among the plausible candidates (in addition to GiveDirectly who sometimes run zakat-compliant programs). But even where eligibility is conceivable, none of them are actually compliant right now. A [...]

---

First published:
June 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/83wbfrb7JJisc3jFQ/a-note-to-future-effective-charity-founders-consider-zakat

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“A brief list of ways AI safety efforts could be net negative” by Elias Schmied

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 11:30:42 GMT

Here's Holden Karnofsky:

I tend to think it's worse than 51/49. I tend to think we’re always going to be prone to overestimate how robustly good our actions are. And the more we learn about all the galaxy-brained considerations that one should have had in one's head, the more it's going to be like 50+ε%. I think AI safety is a great cause to work in. I’m excited to work in it. I think it's high impact. I am doing my best to do things that I will be proud to have done and hope for the best. But I really do have to live with the possibility that my ultimate impact on the utilons or whatever is going to be negative.

I’m not aware of a good list of downside risks for AI safety broadly[1], so I decided to make one.

This is not intended to be fully comprehensive, these are just the ones that I personally take seriously[2][3]:

AI governance interventions are obviously high-variance: bad regulation can easily make things worse, many interventions could increase the risk of great power conflict, increased political polarization around AI could be really bad, more centralization of power increases authoritarianism [...]

---

First published:
June 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XNc6uNWMXuai4Tnom/a-brief-list-of-ways-ai-safety-efforts-could-be-net-negative

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Having Kids as an EA: What I Wish Someone Had Told Me” by Devon Fritz 🔸

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 21:01:34 GMT

This is a link post.

At every EA conference I go to I end up having long conversations with attendees about my inside-view on what it is like to have kids.

Since I know that a lot of impact-oriented people have questions/interest here, I decided to write up my thoughts in a series of posts that address different angles of how to think about this from my perspective.

First one is linked above - hope you enjoy!

---

First published:
June 18th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/GNZgMASKwnY7JYsB2/having-kids-as-an-ea-what-i-wish-someone-had-told-me

Linkpost URL:
https://impactpro.substack.com/p/having-kids-as-an-ea-what-i-wish

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Coefficient Giving RFP: Global Health and Wellbeing in an Era of Transformative AI” by Coefficient Giving, Deena Mousa

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 18:00:43 GMT

By Deena Mousa, Program Officer, Global Health & Wellbeing Cause Prioritization

AI is progressing rapidly and could have profound implications for the health and wellbeing of people around the world. While global health philanthropy has historically assumed relative continuity with the past, we would like to engage seriously with the potential implications of transformative AI.

This RFP supports rigorous and cost-effective research, policy development, field-building, and implementation focused on improving health and economic outcomes for individuals in measurable ways that are responsive to both the challenges and opportunities that a world transformed by AI might bring. Please see the example projects below.

This RFP is responsive to the possibility that AI reshapes which global health problems are tractable and where the highest-impact opportunities lie. That said, we think the questions core to global health work remain the same: who is helped, by how much, at what cost, and compared to what alternative?

A few examples of what a transformative AI future might look like in terms of R&D and health:

A "compressed 21st century" in biomedicine. AI could compress many decades of biological progress into a few years, delivering cures or effective treatments for a wide range [...]

---

Outline:

(01:15) A few examples of what a transformative AI future might look like in terms of R&D and health:

(02:20) Economic examples:

(03:40) What we're funding

(05:26) How we assess grants

(06:12) How to apply

---

First published:
June 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NAaZTyx54bLYzpZg8/coefficient-giving-rfp-global-health-and-wellbeing-in-an-era

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“QURI is moving into maintenance mode” by Ozzie Gooen

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 21:30:42 GMT

After about seven years, QURI is moving into maintenance mode. This means we’ll ensure that key software (Guesstimate and SquiggleHub) is maintained, but we won’t be developing new software or doing new research.

Background

I started QURI in 2019. At that point I was excited about projects at the intersection of epistemics and software, primarily to be used by impactful researchers. This seemed like a neglected and promising area.

Over the years we developed a small team and worked on a variety of projects. We’ve created multiple tech projects (Foretold, Squiggle, SquiggleHub, RoastMyPost), maintained Guesstimate, and wrote over 90 EA Forum posts. In the background, we’ve collaborated with and consulted for several EA organizations, and done work guiding the nearby forecasting and epistemic space.

The work was challenging, as one might expect. We had a small team. Full-time staff included Nuño Sempere for a few years on research, then Slava Matyuhin on software engineering for Squiggle. For the last year it's mainly been me. I think we were fairly efficient for the team size and budget, but this naturally made it hard to move as quickly as we'd have liked.

Recently I've felt particularly constrained by compute budgets, and [...]

---

First published:
June 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/j3rbCdXg4eCbFf6AD/quri-is-moving-into-maintenance-mode

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Cluelessness: Summary of the argument, why it matters, and counterarguments” by Anthony DiGiovanni 🔸

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 15:00:43 GMT

I’d like to elicit direct, productive critiques of the argument for cluelessness from my sequence on “unawareness”, which I’ll call the unawareness argument.

To that end, this post will:

break down the unawareness argument at a high level;
explain why the EA community should care about this argument; and
summarize the angles for critiquing the argument that I expect to be most productive, and how the sequence responds to existing critiques.

Argument breakdown

Here's a new framing of the unawareness argument (compared to how I present it in the sequence). I expect this framing to help readers disentangle different types of disagreements they might have, corresponding to three different premises of the argument.

Roughly: What would justify preferring action A over B on impartial altruistic grounds? We’d need to “expect” that according to our epistemically idealized self, A has better expected total consequences across the cosmos (normative premise). But if our understanding of these actions’ consequences is too coarse, then we can’t say how our idealized self would compare their expected values (conceptual premise). And our understanding of any given action's cosmos-wide consequences is in fact that coarse (empirical premise). [...]

---

Outline:

(00:42) Argument breakdown

(03:51) Why cluelessness matters

(07:12) Critiques: What I expect to be productive, and what's been said so far

(09:29) Acknowledgments

(09:37) Appendix: Sequence summary annotated with the corresponding premises

The original text contained 43 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
June 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NesgdEY6yPrE9wDap/cluelessness-summary-of-the-argument-why-it-matters-and-1

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Announcing: Cluelessness Critiques Competition” by Toby Tremlett🔹, Will Aldred

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 14:15:45 GMT

TL;DR

We’re hosting an essay competition to elicit responses to Anthony DiGiovanni's sequence, ‘The challenge of unawareness for impartial altruist action guidance’—submit your entries by August 14th.
There will be cash prizes for the best essays and the best comments: 7 thousand dollars in total.
- Additionally, we're offering an outlier prize of up to 50 thousand dollars for a truly exceptional entry: an original solution to cluelessness, or a critique decisive enough to move the debate.
We’re also offering a referral prize of $250 if a winner says you’re responsible for telling them about the competition.

Motivation

When I announced April's Better Futures Highlight Week,[1] I confidently wrote: “To make the future go better, we can either work to avoid near-term catastrophes like human extinction or improve the futures where we survive.”

But what if I was wrong? What if both options are bankrupt, and we have no justified answer as to whether any particular work would make the future better? In his Challenge of Unawareness sequence, Anthony DiGiovanni argues that we are in just this position.

Specifically, he argues that our evidence about the future is so poor that our assessments of impact (explicit expected-value estimates [...]

---

Outline:

(00:12) TL;DR

(00:54) Motivation

(02:12) How the competition works

(02:55) What your entry should look like

(03:49) Option 1: Challenge a premise

(05:19) Option 2: Challenge the inference

(05:33) Option 3: Offer a constructive response

(05:54) Prizes

(05:58) Essay competition

(07:43) Comment competition

(08:09) How will the essays and comments be judged?

(08:40) What comes after the competition?

(09:00) Judges

(09:13) Essay competition

(09:33) Comment competition

(09:50) Disclaimer

(10:44) FAQs

(10:48) Can I use AI?

(11:21) Can I co-author a piece?

(11:31) Can I submit a piece I've already published elsewhere?

(12:03) Will I get feedback on my entry?

(12:31) Does style matter?

---

First published:
June 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2aooibAEDSdreCqrJ/announcing-cluelessness-critiques-competition

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“From job posting to hire: templates, sourcing campaign, and LLM-resistant tasks” by Romain Barbe🔸

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 09:45:42 GMT

This document explains how Mieux Donner ran its 2026 hiring round: how we decided what to hire for, how we built the offer and the process, the results we got, and what we would tell another organisation doing roughly the same. It is meant to be reused. We also advise you to read the chapter on hiring in “How to Launch a High-Impact Nonprofit”.

Mieux Donner is the French effective giving initiative, incubated through Ambitious Impact (AIM) and Giving What We Can in 2024. We were roughly 2FTE, have directed over €1M to high-impact charities at a giving multiplier of 5 to 6 times and are now looking to expand the team.

I used AI to do some analysis on the application (without applicant data) and to correct my speech-to-text.

A note for applicants: This document is written for people running a hiring process, not for people applying to one. Reading it will probably not help you, and we do not really advise it. Knowing how a process is designed could be useful if you are applying to a government body or a high-earner position, but the process we follow is unlikely to resemble any of those. [...]

---

Outline:

(02:04) 2026. at a glance

(02:19) 1. Deciding what to hire for

(02:24) Budget and contract

(02:38) Why we opened four roles to hire two people

(05:03) Choosing what to test for

(05:18) 2. The offer

(05:21) Open or closed round?

(06:39) A public offer, and why

(08:28) Sourcing

(09:44) Salary

(11:38) Referrals

(12:08) 3. The process

(14:20) Defining the weights

(15:30) Rating scale and calibration

(16:52) Designing questions LLMs fail, and benchmarking against them

(17:37) Making the tasks LLM-resistant

(20:15) Emails, handling, tracking

(21:36) Value personalised feedback

(22:35) Minimum scores for progression

(24:04) Biggest gap: delay to process applications and opening length

(25:11) After the process email

(25:42) 4. The 2026 results, and what we learned

(25:48) The funnel

(26:46) What actually predicted who advanced

(27:06) Biographical data: an open question

(27:29) Where the good candidates came from

(29:21) We changed the relative weight of TestGorilla vs tasks

(29:46) What we learned about the interview

(30:10) AI in the application

(30:59) 5. The time it takes

(31:37) 6. What we would improve

(33:09) What we are unsure

(34:39) Reusing this

---

First published:
June 17th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZgBXsLxPAzsy3MBfQ/from-job-posting-to-hire-templates-sourcing-campaign-and-llm

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“A simple argument for trying less hard” by Elias Schmied

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 09:15:42 GMT

People often make arguments against “trying hard” (working very hard, pushing yourself to the brink, being intensely goal-directed, and so on) by pointing to the risks of burnout or of losing some kind of wholesomeness[1].

But there's another, very simple argument against it that I have not seen anyone fully make explicit[2], even though I think it's very important. It goes like this:

We face a lot of uncertainty about the sign of our impact.

Therefore, we should be very vigilant about our epistemics to make sure that we are not having a negative impact in expectation.

But trying hard deeply distorts our epistemics - it makes us more prone to motivated reasoning about what we’re doing, and leaves us with less slack to reflect on it.

Therefore, all else being equal, we should try less hard.

Crucially, this argument applies much more strongly to people working in “longtermist areas” - which other critiques of trying hard generally don’t do. For example, global health EAs whose terminal value is short-term welfare also face uncertainty about the impact of their actions - but much less (especially about the sign) than people trying to improve the long-term future. So [...]

---

Outline:

(01:28) Uncertainty

(03:47) Epistemic distortion

(05:24) Conclusion

---

First published:
June 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LrJmpReG7uptfazpX/a-simple-argument-for-trying-less-hard

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Predictable Updating About Funding In EA” by Sam Anschell

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 01:15:38 GMT

Written in a personal capacity.

I recently came back to SF after finishing my first year of grad school. I already had a sense that new money was coming into EA causes. But being back in the Bay Area has made me feel like this funding increase could be truly flabbergasting. Shamelessly plagiarizing Joe Carlsmith's great blog post, I think that our actions should reflect a strong likelihood of an upcoming step-change in funding for EA causes.

Here is a (stitched together) tl;dr of Joe's post:

Imagine you learn that the quantity of year-over-year EA-style philanthropy will double in each of 2026, 2027, and 2028. This would suggest that eight times as much funding would be directed to EA causes in 2028 relative to 2025. How surprised would you be to end up in this world? What would you do differently if you knew this would happen?

To be clear, I am not confident that the amount of money directed to EA causes will increase this steeply. A huge amount depends on the decisions and wealth fluctuation of a few key donors. However, at this point, I'd be more surprised if the amount of money directed to [...]

---

First published:
June 17th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hnwFvqFLgkSvFfzbQ/predictable-updating-about-funding-in-ea

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Gears for political races” by Hazem🔸

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 13:15:36 GMT

This is a link post.

Crossposting this from LessWrong, with the permission of the author, Tom Smith.

In the past few years, many people around me have tried to convince me that US electoral politics is important. But like many other people in the community, I’ve been suspicious of many of the high-level arguments that I’ve heard. It felt like people were pulling numbers out of poorly-documented models I didn’t have time to examine and citing studies I didn’t have time to read. But I lacked a gears-level model of why and how individual efforts could impact electoral outcomes, and I felt intimidated by all the statistics and skeptical of trusting people adjacent to politics.

In the past year, as I’ve done more research and (more recently) volunteered on the ground to help Alex Bores's campaign in NY-12[1], I’ve developed a gears-level understanding of how electoral politics in the US works.

I now believe that working on US electoral politics is one of the highest impact areas from the general AIS perspective. I feel like I was a fool for not thinking it through sooner. In this post, I’ll share some of the gears I’ve learned that inform this belief [...]

---

Outline:

(01:20) ~2% of open-seat primaries come down to 100 votes or less

(02:52) Talking to voters can net 1/3rd of a vote each hour

(05:35) Getting people to bother voting at all is a good strategy

(06:11) Campaigns are very money-constrained, which costs them time

(10:04) Returns don't really diminish

(11:27) There's lots of opportunities to be clever in ways that make you 50% more effective at canvassing

(11:53) If you're motivated and deeply care, you can greatly outperform the majority of volunteers

(13:25) Yes, when people spend tons to support/oppose a candidate, it has a notable effect

(15:20) Donations > reaching out to friends/warm contacts > canvassing > ~anything else an average person can do

(18:23) People over-fixate on vibes and win vs loss

(20:54) Some interventions feel like they don't work but the numbers say otherwise

(21:45) Seriously, a group of agentic people can be an enormous political force

---

First published:
June 18th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Tv6mC6EMvqu9WXwYn/gears-for-political-races

Linkpost URL:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nSqB3qYP36enJLRq2/gears-for-political-races

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Seat at the Table: new short film on AI (and help me with the next one?)” by SuzyShepherd

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 21:45:35 GMT

This is a link post.

My new short fiction film 'Seat at the Table' is now out on Youtube!

Premise:

When Eva visits her Dad's AI company, she meets Liam, the company's flagship AI system, who she imagines as a polite, precociously-smart kid. But with the company's co-founder claiming Liam 7 is too dangerous to release, Eva starts to wonder if her Dad can really control what he's created.

Would love to hear your thoughts on the film. It's targeted at people who know fairly little about AI, to get them quickly up to speed on where we’re at right now and what this technology actually is. The main points I was trying to get across were:

It's grown, not built
It's fascinating[1]
It's deceptive
The people making it are scared of it
The people making it are trapped in race dynamics
It's getting smarter, fast

If there are people you wish understood these things better, I’d love for you to show this film to them and, if possible, report back on their response. It's always hard to gauge what effect a film is having, especially on people with low AI context, and I’ve found the anecdotal reports about [...]

---

Outline:

(01:30) The next idea

(02:25) How you can help

---

First published:
June 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dPDcLsKHmMAn4hxjj/seat-at-the-table-new-short-film-on-ai-and-help-me-with-the

Linkpost URL:
https://youtu.be/qHpnWiBHHaU?si=hCoCl06nB5zTrx-p

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Timelines to what? A proposal” by tlevin

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 19:15:36 GMT

This is a link post.

This post was crossposted from Multiplier with the author's permission, by the Forum team. The author may not see comments.

Subtitle: Why you might want to DIAL in to short timelines

People in the AI field love to talk about “timelines.” Sophisticated people in the AI field love to ask: “timelines to what?” Automation of AI R&D? (By which metric?) AI that far surpasses humans at nearly all cognitive tasks, or “TEDAI”? Artificial general intelligence? Something more ambitious?

Those answers are each about what AI can do. In this post, I argue that in timelines discussions, we should ask not what AI can do, but what we can do to shape AI outcomes.

More precisely:

The default answer to “timelines to what?” should be “when the most important decisions will get made”[1];
We should think of those decisions as having a distribution, not a deadline;
Your own decisions related to that distribution need to account for how your leverage varies in different timelines.

In other words, the key timeline is the DIAL (Decision Importance, Adjusted for Leverage) Distribution.

The distribution of decision importance

Let's say you’re considering the social impact implications of a career [...]

---

First published:
June 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4Jq3enMAcgu2kbmsN/timelines-to-what-a-proposal

Linkpost URL:
https://multipliercg.substack.com/p/timelines-to-what-a-proposal

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Introducing A Beginner’s Guide to Digital Minds” by Lucius Caviola, Mitch Alexander, Will Millership

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 18:00:35 GMT

We’ve launched A Beginner's Guide to Digital Minds (digitalminds.guide), a website for people who want an introduction to AI consciousness, AI welfare, and the broader implications of the possibility that AI systems could matter morally.

The guide provides an overview of the questions motivating digital minds research, including: What are digital minds? Could AI systems be conscious? How might they work? Could they matter morally? And given the uncertainty, how should we treat them, govern them, and coexist with them?

The website also offers practical guidance on how to get started, a curated collection of resources, events, and opportunities, including online courses, fellowships, workshops, conferences, jobs, and grants, and an overview of the growing digital minds ecosystem. It also links to the Digital Minds Newsletter (digitalminds.news), which we launched in December 2025. The field is highly interdisciplinary, and whether your background is in AI, philosophy, policy, law, social science, communications, or something else entirely, we hope the guide helps you find ways to engage with it.

The digital minds/AI welfare field is still at an early stage and lacks much of the infrastructure that more established research areas take for granted. We think this is changing rapidly, and we [...]

---

First published:
June 17th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZsahSGgSuAmwb98wx/introducing-a-beginner-s-guide-to-digital-minds

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Launch a biosecurity group on your campus” by sharmaayushmaan

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 09:01:25 GMT

Disclaimer: Although I work on the Groups Team at CEA, I’m offering this in a personal capacity, and this post does not constitute an endorsement or service offered by CEA.

TL;DR: I'm offering personal mentorship to anyone serious about starting a biosecurity group at a top university. I work on CEA's Groups team (whilst also being an Epidemiology student at Oxford) and spend most of my time supporting people launching new groups. I think biosec-specific university groups are especially high-leverage right now, and I want to make it easier for more of them to exist.

Why university biosecurity groups

Biosecurity is talent-constrained, especially for more experienced grad students/seniors who might have high entrepreneurial fit to start new orgs or own a particular part of the ecosystem. Funders I've spoken to consistently say they could deploy more money if they had the people, especially generalists who can start new orgs. It's relatively clear that the bottleneck for the community is in talented, agentic people who can start their own initiatives.

AI safety had a version of this problem five or six years ago, and university groups turned out to be one of the most effective interventions for fixing it. [...]

---

Outline:

(00:49) Why university biosecurity groups

(03:08) Why I'm offering this

(03:46) Apply

---

First published:
June 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fxjhZs347DnAHukDC/launch-a-biosecurity-group-on-your-campus

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“What 21,000 WhatsApp messages reveal about AI utility in extreme poverty contexts” by GiveDirectly

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 07:15:35 GMT

Disclosure: I work at GiveDirectly. This is a linkpost summarizing findings from a pilot we ran in Rwanda. I used AI to assist in writing this post, and it's likely that >30% is AI-generated text.

View our blog and watch a video of recipients using AI here:

https://www.givedirectly.org/the-robots-work-at-night

Last year, GiveDirectly tested whether unrestricted access to an AI chatbot could complement cash transfers for recipients living in extreme poverty. Alongside our usual ~$1,000 one-time transfers in rural Rwanda, we offered 832 recipients access to a ChatGPT-powered chatbot via WhatsApp - a platform most already used - with no restrictions on what they could ask.

What we expected

We anticipated questions about the GiveDirectly program, help planning how to spend transfers, and basic business advice. People did use it for all of those things.

What actually happened

The more revealing pattern was how quickly recipients moved beyond program-specific questions. Across 21,000 inbound messages between November 2025 and April 2026, people used the chatbot the way people use AI everywhere: for family conflicts, sick children, market prices, and questions they couldn't easily take to anyone else. A few examples, translated verbatim from Kinyarwanda:

"I have conflicts with the [...]

---

First published:
June 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pzFa3GGWfYLPNEGpq/what-21-000-whatsapp-messages-reveal-about-ai-utility-in

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“How bad would it be if GPS satellites were shot down?” by Jackson Wagner

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 16:30:39 GMT

Losing GPS isn’t an X-risk, but would create a huge disaster on the scale of Covid-19 or bigger.

Hi! From 2020 - 2023 I was one of the early employees at Xona Space Systems, a company working on essentially a next-generation version of GPS. I ended up learning a lot about how GPS works and what it's used for, and (due to my personal interest in effective altruism) ended up doing some research into what would happen if today's GPS systems suddenly failed. This post is the product of that research. I discuss:

What could kill GPS: it would be a tempting early target in a war between superpowers, or it could possibly be taken down by superhuman AI's cyber-hacking capabilities. On the bright side, it's probably safe from even very large solar storms.
If GPS was destroyed, how bad would this be? I describe all the major areas in civilian life that would be disrupted (mostly summarizing some government reports).
Then I try to crunch some very rough, vague numbers. It looks like losing GPS would (by itself) be an economic hit to the USA perhaps equivalent to a few billion dollars a day. On a very [...]

---

Outline:

(03:05) "Whoa, GPS comes from space?? I thought it was just a thing in my car..."

(05:56) To be clear, there are multiple satellite-navigation constellations

(09:02) What could kill GPS?

(10:34) Great-power war

(13:18) Hacking by superhuman AI???

(15:02) An unprecedented solar storm, maybe

(18:03) Other stuff

(19:40) What would break in the aftermath of losing GPS?

(21:49) Impact on the cell network & smartphones

(23:08) Impact on the power grid

(25:20) Impact on maritime industries

(26:41) Impact on travel and logistics

(29:03) Impacts on other industries

(30:46) Reckoning an overall cost per day

(36:15) Hard to say, but this feels approximately Covid-19-scale-ish

(38:30) How long would an outage last?

(39:36) Remember: you're still at war with China, or Russia, or AI, or possibly the Sun!

---

First published:
June 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/a2P7y5sEHFiNNHLt6/how-bad-would-it-be-if-gps-satellites-were-shot-down

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“A frontier AI company should shut down” by MichaelDickens

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 16:15:39 GMT

Cross-posted from my website.

Prior discussion: niplav's shortform (2025); Planning for Extreme AI Risks (2025) by Joshua Clymer

A frontier AI company (any one, I don't care which) should close shop and make an announcement along the lines of:

Powerful AI could end the human race. We are too worried that we don't know how to make this technology safe. We have decided to shut down because we don't want to be responsible for building the thing that kills us all.

A common refrain among safety-conscious AI developers: "it doesn't matter if we stop building dangerous AI, because someone else will just build it instead." Is that really true, though? If a multi-hundred-billion-dollar company comes out and says "We've concluded that our product is horribly dangerous, nobody knows how to make it safe, and there's too high a risk that it leads to human extinction", this won't raise any eyebrows? This has no chance of spurring policy-makers into action?

Shutting down would make people say, holy shit, they are serious about this extinction risk thing. Shutting down sends a strong signal to governments that they should pay serious attention to AI x-risk.

It [...]

The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
June 15th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xeekqhAyzmihdFBuj/a-frontier-ai-company-should-shut-down

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“How Africa Can (and Must) Skip the 30-Year Animal Welfare EvolutionUntitled Draft” by Jacob Ayang, Cheslyn Ceaser

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 17:30:18 GMT

TLDR: The animal welfare movement in Africa has made significant progress over the last 5 years, but due to increasing commercialisation of animals on the continent and foreign interest in animal agriculture, now more than ever, it needs to accelerate. Our retrospective look at Europe's trajectory shows that reform did not stem from a gradual shift in attitudes. Instead, it was sparked by interconnected events over about 20 to 30 years. Events like public health and food safety crises involving animals fueled advocacy groups. These events led to policy wins and a change in the retail market. We think Africa can compress this timeline to 5–10 years by: actively and strategically pushing for institutional and policy recognition now rather than waiting for organic growth in public demand, capitalizing on non-animal welfare framing, recruiting mid-to-late career professionals now while focusing on education of early-to-mid career professionals, and, building strategic partnerships with universities, government agencies, and industry bodies to embed welfare into curricula, regulation, and market standards.

Introduction

In our work, we routinely reflect on the status and ongoing development of Africa's animal welfare movement. In this, we have seen how small actions can lead to big wins for animals across [...]

---

Outline:

(01:22) Introduction

(04:26) Where the Analogy Holds, and Where It Breaks Down

(07:17) How the Change Started in Europe

(11:32) How Africa Can Skip This

(21:06) Conclusion

(21:58) Acknowledgment

---

First published:
June 15th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/f8bAPi4xKwMFzE9fn/how-africa-can-and-must-skip-the-30-year-animal-welfare-1

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Reasons To Be Skeptical Of RP’s Moral Weights Project” by James Brobin

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 18:15:18 GMT

In Rethink Priorities' (2021-2022) Moral Weights Project, they attempted to compare the welfare ranges of different farmed animals (which basically means comparing how many suffering shrimp are equal to one suffering chicken.) This project is the most comprehensive attempt at doing inter-species welfare comparisons to date, and it makes a very valuable contribution to the field.

That said, I think that many EAs have excessive confidence in these welfare ranges.[1] As such, in this post, I'm going to explain the project's basic methodology and some reasons to be skeptical of it.

Note: I am not a biologist. Others have written about this before, but I thought I would make this post since I've been thinking about the topic, and I think this view is worth re-iterating.

Welfare Range Estimates Chart

For reference, this chart is the welfare ranges being discussed:

The Basic Methodology

To create these moral weights, they calculated welfare ranges using three models:

The Equality Model
1. According to this model, all species have equal welfare ranges. (So, a chicken and a pig's most intense experiences would be equal in intensity.)
The Neurophysiological Model
1. According to this model, an animal's welfare range can be determined [...]

---

Outline:

(00:58) Welfare Range Estimates Chart

(01:19) The Basic Methodology

(02:46) Reasons to Be Skeptical

(06:22) Conclusion

---

First published:
June 9th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/e2hTH2sAWT4ByBe63/reasons-to-be-skeptical-of-rp-s-moral-weights-project

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “The Quest To Find The Next Big Communicators In AI Safety” by Akshyae Singh

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:45:10 GMT

This is a link post.

In September 2025, I'd become increasingly convinced that a fieldbuilding program for content creators could solve a long-standing bottleneck of expanding reach and trust beyond the AI safety and EA bubble.

I had graduated from UCLA a few months earlier when I came across the AI-2027 report which had a significant impact on me. I rejected my six-figure tech consulting offer, left my place in LA, and moved to the first place I could find in the Bay Area to contribute to AI Safety. Contrary to my expectations, only a small subset of people were working towards what seemed to be far more important than building yet another AI B2B SaaS.

I wanted to change this. The power of a good external-facing comms effort is underrated. AI in Context, If Anyone Builds It Everyone Dies, Rob Miles is the first interaction with AI Safety for many, including mine. It has the power to empower mainstream audiences to act by creating trust and relatability, and meeting them where they’re at- social media. Moreover, I felt that I had the right background to do this- my experience as an activist, ex-founder building products for clients Google & [...]

---

Outline:

(02:29) The Fellowship

(06:24) Other Features of the program (with pics!)

(09:39) What we learnt

(11:01) Looking Ahead

(12:15) How to Get Involved

(13:34) How to Get Involved

(13:44) Early bird Applications are OPEN! APPLY

(13:57) Join the Team

(14:20) Partner with us

(14:39) Consider Donating

---

First published:
June 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6i4HmdjGWhX7nzwt3/the-quest-to-find-the-next-big-communicators-in-ai-safety

Linkpost URL:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ALBdBRas7G3kdbPSq/the-quest-to-find-the-next-big-communicators-in-ai-safety

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Scale Scale Scale, Govt. Govt. Govt: 3 concerns” by NickLaing

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 05:01:06 GMT

This is a link post.

I was recently at “Skoll”, the biggest NGO/social entrepreneurship conference. From one conversation to the next, two topics popped up over and over……. and over

1. Scale, Scale, Scale
2. Scale through Government, Government, Government

We at OneDay Health grapple with these questions: how then Shall we scale? And shall we through Government? Right now we operate 88 one-nurse health centers which save lives in remote rural healthcare black holes. Our one nurse in one room model can get good primary care to people cheap and fast. But to get good healthcare to everyone, we’ll need to do more than “grow”, but “scale”.

If we continue to launch more health centers every year through donor money, we’ll do plenty of good but can only grow our impact in a linear-ish way. From 100 to 150 to 200 health centers. Each year we’ll have to increase our donations and budget to increase our impact. Even if we succeed we’ll never reach tens of millions of people. So what is this “scale” business and how could we get there? Kevin Starr has outlined two key principles of scale.

1. “Scale is about exponential [...]

---

Outline:

(02:14) Three Concerns about Scale through Government

(02:55) Not the only way

(05:21) Should governments pay for the best interventions?

(05:57) Morally Dodgy

(07:10) Its really hard

(08:39) Poor Taxpayers not Excess Western Money now pay for the impact

---

First published:
June 10th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wakWGb5qgiyvZyQQe/scale-scale-scale-govt-govt-govt-3-concerns

Linkpost URL:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-201440232

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Building Ideas-First EA” by Mjreard

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 22:45:10 GMT

TLDR: Sarah Bluhm and I are funding and mentoring ideas-first (as opposed to, e.g., careers-first) EA community builders. If you’re at one of these universities or know someone who is, we want to talk to you, especially this subset:

University of Toronto
University of Michigan
UCLA
USC
NYU
Columbia
Claremont Colleges (Claremont McKenna, Scripps, Harvey Mudd, Pomona, Pitzer)
Stanford
Harvard
MIT
Cornell
Georgetown
Northwestern

**Contact us here or at contact@nest-ea.org**

The Network for EA Support & Training (NEST)

We (Matt Reardon and Sarah Bluhm) founded NEST, whose mission is to build vibrant in-person EA communities by teaching organizers the craft of communicating EA ideas with courage and authenticity.

I (Matt) am a former lawyer and 80k advisor who blogs, tweets, and podcasts about EA. Sarah worked on CEA's university groups team and has a background in bioengineering.

NEST's philosophy is that EA communities should be platforms for individuals to form their own views on the central questions of Effective Altruism: what are the most important issues in the world, why those issues, and what should I do about them?

This contrasts with approaches to community building that act as recruiting funnels for specific organizations or fields. We think [...]

---

Outline:

(00:56) The Network for EA Support & Training (NEST)

(02:19) University groups

(03:44) What we provide

(05:46) The next step

---

First published:
June 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8pSppMFeQAeg4Pn8E/building-ideas-first-ea-1

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Call for mentors: Sentient Futures Project Incubator” by Sentient Futures, Jay Luong, Constance Li, Sam Chapman, Brody McManus

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 20:30:09 GMT

Apply now

Deadline: July 8, 2026

Tentative program dates: August 15 – October 30

Know someone doing serious work on AI, animals, or the long-term future of sentient beings?

That someone might be you.

As a mentor, you can:

Bring your own project idea and get matched with motivated fellows (think: short-term research assistant)
Shape the next generation of researchers and practitioners in this space
Join a growing network of 40+ mentors pushing the frontiers of nonhuman welfare

What's involved:

Weekly 30-60 min call + light async support
10 weeks, fully remote

Apply by July 8 or visit here to learn more.

Feel free to share with anyone who'd be a good fit!

---

Outline:

(00:32) Know someone doing serious work on AI, animals, or the long-term future of sentient beings?

(01:10) Apply by July 8 or visit here to learn more.

---

First published:
June 10th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hALtL8H5P5opscswe/call-for-mentors-sentient-futures-project-incubator

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Are top existential risk estimates 50,000 times too high? An optimizer’s curse model and analysis” by titotal

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 20:15:10 GMT

This is a link post.

Thanks to Arepo, David Thorstadt, Zeshen, and Michael st Jules for looking over this article. Disclaimer: I am not a subject matter expert and this is not a rigorous scientific article. This post is entirely human-written.

Introduction

In a previous article, I wrote a general introduction to the optimizer's curse, the phenomenon where a combination of random errors and ranking of causes results in the overestimation of top causes and a biasing of results towards uncertain causes. In that article, I mainly focussed on areas such as global health charities, where estimates or errors can be derived from the results of reasonably strong empirical evidence such as randomised control trials.

In this post, I want to explore how the optimizer's curse might affect tasks that are in the domain of extreme uncertainty. Specifically, I will try and model how the curse could manifest in the ranking of estimates of existential risk, a subject where empirical evidence is thin and experts disagree by orders of magnitude.

A standard way of ranking existential threats is to take a bunch of threats that have been raised as potentially deadly to humanity, and then for each one of them [...]

---

Outline:

(08:09) Part 1: Building a model

(25:19) Part 2: Interrogating the model

(40:15) Part 3: Objections

(57:26) Summary and Conclusion:

---

First published:
June 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mEJKkkjQydM68EQTP/are-top-existential-risk-estimates-50-000-times-too-high-an

Linkpost URL:
https://titotal.substack.com/p/are-top-existential-risk-estimates

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Incumbents Might Be Replaced During AI Takeoff, Including in Animal Agriculture” by Hazo

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:30:10 GMT

I used an LLM to help draft this post and it likely contains >10% AI-generated text, but I’ve edited/rewritten it extensively and endorse it.

TL;DR

It's unclear how much the intelligence explosion will directly affect agriculture, because it's one of the least cognitive-labor-intensive industries. But the industrial explosion that may follow could make even animal agriculture susceptible to disruptive innovation (possibly the only time in history that's true). This suggests that during AI-takeoff current incumbents could be replaced by AI-native startups. Given this, advocates should weigh influencing current companies less, take AI-native ag startups (and disrupting the industry themselves) seriously, and treat "AI-pilled" alternative protein as a distinct strategy.

Disruptive Innovation

We're possibly at the early stages of an intelligence explosion, which many believe will radically change the economy. How exactly the transition will work is less clear.

There are two broad possibilities: one is that current companies (e.g. Tyson in the context of animal agriculture) will navigate the AI-transition, adopt new technologies, become AI-native in the relevant ways, and continue to dominate their respective industries in the future. The other is that a separate AI-native startup will directly compete against incumbents via disruption innovation.

Disruptive innovation, as [...]

---

Outline:

(00:21) TL;DR

(01:01) Disruptive Innovation

(05:12) AI-pilled agriculture

(09:15) Practical Ramifications

---

First published:
June 9th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/25JqQX8bBgG3gZY9n/incumbents-might-be-replaced-during-ai-takeoff-including-in

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“A New Course” by Center for Reducing Suffering

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 07:00:11 GMT

Suffering-focused ethics (SFE) is a family of moral views that gives special priority to reducing suffering. As you might know, we at the Center for Reducing Suffering find SFE deeply compelling—it is, after all, the backbone of our work. Part of our mission is to research and build a field around SFE. Unfortunately, SFE remains highly neglected in both academia and broader moral discourse. We are hoping to fill this gap.

Discussions of ethics often focus on a range of concerns and moral traditions. The questions raised are both interesting and deeply important. Yet comparatively little attention is devoted to examining the moral significance of suffering itself and asking whether it deserves some kind of special priority.

The lack of attention given to SFE and its core claims means that it remains underexamined, limiting our understanding of it. It also allows misconceptions to fester, distorting its meaning. For instance, people may equate SFE with negative utilitarianism, assume it is necessarily pessimistic or nihilistic, or believe it must have absurd implications.

We believe that SFE is too important to be neglected in this way. We think these ideas deserve serious examination, open discussion, and careful reflection. Our new Intro to [...]

---

First published:
June 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Gn9RBsTs3kCieAcHb/a-new-course

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Critique: There are not enough “realistic” topics in EA” by jackchang110

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 15:45:10 GMT

Statement: I'm far from an EA or AI expert, these are all opinions from an 19 years old EA laypeople (which may be biased or owefully wrong). Welcome to give me any critique in the comments(rather than just downvoting me).

I think compared to the abstract philosophical problems(which of course are useful), there are far not enough discussions on the EA Forum of some relaistic topics, for example:

1.Compare earn to give vs direct work

This is one of the most important topic(war) in EA, but very few try to calculate it. And a lot of people can't explain the reason well why they hold the opinion"Even for an avergae people, doing direct work is better than earn to give 50 thousand dollars-100 thousand dollars a year". Some people thinks that there are some PR 90+ talented people that are unfunded. In this case, unless you're better than these people, you should do earn to give 50 thousand dollars-100 thousand dollars, I'm not saying this claim is right, but if this holds true, this would dramtically change people strategy on career planning. Yet, very few posts compare EtG vs direct work.

2.The limitations of nationality and the importance of [...]

---

First published:
June 10th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HiyNc8qiGEa4E9Kq7/critique-there-are-not-enough-realistic-topics-in-ea

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Experience of a ‘generalist’ transitioning into AI safety in 2026” by Emily Marais

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 23:45:20 GMT

I'm a freelance web designer and developer who has been concerned about AI and prioritising a transition into AI safety since late 2025. This post is a summary of my experience so far, as a possibly useful addition to the conversation around the need for generalists in AI safety. My hope is that this post can highlight some of the pain points experienced as a 'generalist' trying to work in this field.

A brief summary of why I'm in this transition at all: In late 2025, I was concerned about how AI was changing my field (web design and development). I guess that the algorithm picked up on this, and recommended me AI in Context's video about AI 2027. I was immediately gripped by the existential risks mentioned. I did some more reading around AI safety, found myself in the EA funnel, and signed up for the Intro to EA course. By the end of it, I was sure that I wanted to focus on AI safety, due to the possibility of lock-in scenarios and extreme power concentration, among other concerns.

My first action was to start volunteering with AI safety orgs - I reached out to AISafety.com and [...]

---

First published:
June 9th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/enecQaYfieyzn9ou9/experience-of-a-generalist-transitioning-into-ai-safety-in

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Good-tasting alt meat is a scientific problem we can solve: $10M RFP for Alternative Protein R&D” by Coefficient Giving, abhi_kumar

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:45:25 GMT

By Abhi Kumar, Associate Program Officer in Farm Animal Welfare

Over 100 billion animals are farmed and slaughtered for food every year. At Coefficient Giving, we think one of the highest-leverage, long-term ways to reduce that number is to fund the development of meat alternatives that are good enough for people to adopt. Since 2016, we've allocated several million dollars toward the development of better and cheaper alternatives to animal products. We now see an opportunity to go deeper on a set of specific, neglected scientific problems related to taste. This Request for Proposals (RFP) is our attempt to accelerate progress, with up to $10 million available.

Why taste, and why now

Alternative proteins have the potential to reduce animal suffering at enormous scale — but only if consumers actually opt to eat them. Right now, they're not. Plant-based meat household penetration peaked at 20% in 2021 and has since fallen to 13%. One of the primary reasons is taste: 51% of first-time triers say they wouldn't buy plant-based meat again because the taste didn't resemble animal meat, and among lapsed consumers, 36% say better taste and texture would bring them back — the single most-cited factor. At [...]

---

Outline:

(00:58) Why taste, and why now

(06:11) Who should apply

(07:13) How to apply

---

First published:
June 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bDqdfMXe6YuYnwMDA/good-tasting-alt-meat-is-a-scientific-problem-we-can-solve

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

″(Big reveal) Introducing myself as a new host of the 80,000 Hours Podcast!” by Zershaaneh Qureshi

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:30:25 GMT

Hi everyone!

Over the last six months or so, those of you who listen to the 80,000 Hours Podcast might occasionally have heard an unfamiliar voice asking questions to our guests. The person behind that unfamiliar voice is me, Zershaaneh!

I'm not saying I'm also Banksy, but I'm not not saying that. There are parallels.

As a new host of the show, I’m eager to get thoughts about guests to interview, new formats to experiment with, and ways to improve. Feel free to message me on this forum! (But please be nice.)

I’ve only done a couple of episodes so far, but there's plenty more to come.

A bit about me:

I studied Maths and Philosophy at the University of Oxford.
I then spent a busy three years working in the global water industry, doing a mixture of consulting, research, and events stuff. I was mostly focused on the surprisingly dramatic world of desalination, and I learned a lot about brine.
I transitioned into working on AI risks in late 2023, initially spending a year researching timelines to transformative AI (publishing stuff like this), and then joining 80,000 Hours as a researcher and writer. If you’re subscribed to the 80k newsletter [...]

---

First published:
June 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aJwpHBs9BHopw4BMh/big-reveal-introducing-myself-as-a-new-host-of-the-80-000

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“The Psychological Challenges of High-Impact Work - please participate in our survey!” by spencerg

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 12:00:05 GMT

At Clearer Thinking, we're running a collaboration survey about the psychological challenges of various kinds related to working on high-impact problems (e.g., existential risk, AI safety, climate change, animal welfare, global health, bio/nuclear safety, and other topics), and what people find helpful in dealing with those challenges.

We are interested in hearing from you whether you currently work on impact-focused problems like these, or no longer do but have done so in the past.

We'll share what we learn with the community in the hopes that it will improve understanding and support for people doing this kind of work.

Your responses are fully anonymous. You can do the survey in about 5 minutes (if you skip optional sections) or in about 10-15 minutes (if you respond to every question).

Here's the link to participate:

https://www.guidedtrack.com/programs/d4hx9m7/run

Thanks very much!

---

First published:
June 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/L8zx34zY27pi88tLG/the-psychological-challenges-of-high-impact-work-please

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Growth Research, a Methods Site, and SADs 2.0 (AIM Research Update)” by Morgan Fairless, Filip_Murar, vicky_cox, Ambitious Impact

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:00:07 GMT

We're looking at livelihoods research again (contribute ideas or reach out to support the team with your expertise), sharing our new methods site, and releasing updated SADs guidance.

Looking at livelihoods and growth again

We last conducted research into livelihoods and growth in 2024, leading to the launch of great projects including Lead Research for Action, Better Futures Guide, and other upcoming projects.

We will be working on finding more ideas in this space, trying to focus on more exploratory plays with leverage to influence growth agendas in LMICs. We are especially excited to look further into energy transitions, artificial intelligence for development, remittances, migration, and infrastructure.

You can read our house view on livelihoods and growth here.

Contribute ideas to our initial brainstorm through this form
Could you support our research? Reach out to me with your CV and a blurb if you have experience in this sector and want to support our agenda in some capacity (which may include full time fellowships).

A new site

In an effort to make our work more transparent, we have uploaded our methodological guidance and live house views to a giftbook site. In there, you will [...]

---

Outline:

(00:29) Looking at livelihoods and growth again

(01:25) A new site

(01:56) Suffering-adjusted Days revamp

---

First published:
June 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oqo7oPEqBoufHHzeN/growth-research-a-methods-site-and-sads-2-0-aim-research

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“What 100 Lives Is” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 21:45:05 GMT

Crosspost.

The best charities save lives for a few thousand dollars. If you earn $100,000 per year and give away 10%, you can save about 100 people over the course of your life. I think we generally aren’t good at visualizing what's really at stake. So here is me attempting vaguely to grok 100 lives.

Ted Bundy killed around 30 people. So by saving 100 lives, you’ll save more lives than Ted Bundy killed. You’ll save more lives than if you prevented all of his killings.

100 lives is twenty-five families of four. It's four families of ten.

It's about 1% of annual U.S. gun homicides.

It's a hundred extra children who get to live to adulthood, rather than being snuffed out in childhood by a horrible disease, in agony and terror. That's several kindergarten classes. An amount of child death prevented equivalent to stopping many school shootings. Pick some kindergartener you know—imagine that you could prevent them and everyone in the two neighboring classes from dying. That is how much death you personally can prevent.

Imagine your mother, father, and brother dying. Multiply that by 33. Add one. That's 100 deaths.

100 lives is about the number [...]

---

First published:
June 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YXBGC73TJLrTirxoL/what-100-lives-is

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“SecureBio Detection is Hiring Software Engineers” by Jeff Kaufman 🔸

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 12:45:03 GMT

I'm leading a non-profit team building a pathogen-agnostic early-warning system. As AI systems become increasingly capable substitutes for expert human biologist expertise, the risk that someone could engineer a pathogen to spread widely before detection is going up. We've made great progress and we're now running the world's largest metagenomic biosurveillance network, but there's still a huge amount that needs doing: we're hiring!

We're processing >50B read pairs of wastewater and nasal swab data each week (more than anyone else!) and will be more than doubling this in the next year. At the same time, we need to bring our end to end time down from ~12hr to ~2hr (massively parallel problem, should be possible to get <1hr).

This means we're looking for people who know how to build and scale processing systems and infra, and don't need a bio background:

Software Engineer, High-Performance Pipelines: Engineering our metagenomic detection pipelines for speed, scalability, and reliability. (job description, ~L4-L5 equiv at Google, $165-190k)
Senior Cloud Infrastructure Engineer: Own our AWS infra, which enables everything above (job description, ~L5-L6 equiv at Google, $195-220k)

For both of these we're looking for people to work with us in-person in Kendall Sq (Cambridge [...]

---

First published:
June 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bYxFAZ9LE4Djx9NX4/securebio-detection-is-hiring-software-engineers

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Coming Around To Political Donations” by Jeff Kaufman 🔸

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 07:15:04 GMT

Five years ago I read a post on the EA Forum arguing that "election campaign contributions might be a way in which you can have a substantial impact as a small donor". It struck me as weird but plausible: a combination that you see a lot of on the Forum.

A few months later I read another post, a case for Carrick Flynn in particular. It made a lot of sense, but while I don't remember my specific reservations I do remember not being convinced initially. After a lot of talking with Julia and others, however, this campaign did seem like a really promising opportunity. Six days later we made the donation:

We hadn't donated to a political campaign since college, but Julia was impressed with this candidate's work on pandemic preparedness, which is an area we've both thought was important for a long time. In general, we prefer to donate through funds because they are able to put a lot more time and attention into identifying excellent donation opportunities, but campaign finance rules mean this model doesn't work for political donations.

Flynn lost, and not for lack of funding. People took away a range of lessons (see the [...]

---

First published:
June 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YYNH5uvmmaEKi4h2m/coming-around-to-political-donations

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“One Year of PauseAI UK” by Joseph Miller, PauseAI UK

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 01:00:05 GMT

About one year ago, I started spending most of my time organising PauseAI UK. At that time our largest protest had seen fewer than 50 attendees, no prominent politicians or scientists were associated with PauseAI, and I largely ran the UK chapter by myself.

In the past year PauseAI UK has delivered two conferences, written an open letter signed by 63 UK politicians, arranged a conference in the European Parliament, and co-organised the largest AI protest in the world. We now have a strong team, with Matilda da Rui joining as Deputy Director and several highly dedicated volunteers taking on substantial responsibility and launching their own local groups around the UK.

I'm proud of our track record and excited about the trajectory we are on. As AI capabilities improve exponentially, the number of people aware of the risks and motivated to take action increases commensurately. I believe we can harness this energy and turn it into real impact that actually improves humanity's chance of a positive future.

Track Record

June 2025 – PauseCon London

We delivered the first PauseAI conference, PauseCon, on behalf of PauseAI Global, bringing together around 60 volunteers from around the world for the first time [...]

---

Outline:

(01:14) Track Record

(01:17) June 2025 - PauseCon London

(02:09) August 2025 - Open Letter to Demis Hassabis

(03:00) September 2025 - Book launch party

(03:28) October 2025 - Documentary Screening in Parliament

(04:01) December 2025 - Westminster Hall Debate

(04:32) February 2026 - PauseCon Brussels

(06:00) February 2026 - March for AI Safety

(07:00) Theory of Change and Strategy

(07:04) Creating the political momentum for a pause

(07:47) Our mission

(09:52) Positive outcomes for PauseAI UK

(10:17) Scenario 1: PauseAI as a special interest group

(11:52) Scenario 2: PauseAI as a mass movement

(12:51) High-level strategy

(12:55) Brand and messaging

(15:29) Why the UK?

(16:31) Growth

(19:00) Short-term plans

(21:27) Funding

---

First published:
June 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BpzBacaPFFnnAPdbK/one-year-of-pauseai-uk

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Global pandemic prevention: how disease spreads across borders and the three countries determining pandemic outcomes” by Denkenberger🔸, Ross_Tieman

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 10:00:04 GMT

This post covers key insights for pandemic risk reduction from our Risk Analysis paper, which was awarded ‘Best Paper of 2025’

Global pandemics, such as the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, and most recently, COVID-19, have brought hardship and loss: from global famine to loss of life, from deepening inequality to overwhelming health systems, and more.

An important lesson arises: the more prepared we are against a pandemic, the better we can protect the lives of millions.

Historically, pandemics usually arose through animal-to-human interaction. In the present day, a new origin source for pandemic potential pathogens (PPP) has emerged from human interaction with PPP in laboratory settings (for example, in vaccine development). This represents a new type of risk with different characteristics (e.g., geographic distribution) and potential for harm.

Alongside laboratory origin sources, increased global travel (especially via air networks) facilitates the rapid spread of pathogens, further increasing potential for harm. Even if a particular country is unlikely to give rise to a new emerging infectious disease or be the source of a lab leak, it might be strongly connected to other countries that do face such risks.

But infectious diseases don’t affect only our physical and mental [...]

---

Outline:

(03:24) Methodology

(04:45) Results

(07:24) Limitations

(08:44) Going forward

---

First published:
June 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/arwZWyZrKoFBeDErX/global-pandemic-prevention-how-disease-spreads-across

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“animal welfare has an evidence problem” by matthes

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 23:30:06 GMT

Why I stopped donating to animal welfare charities but feel more motivated than ever to redirect money and talent to the cause.

I have wanted to write this post for a while. It is an uncomfortable thing to bring up. Many people in the animal welfare space are working really hard, and this post might leave some feeling defeated. But I think this is one of the most important things to talk about in animal welfare right now. My intention is not to be a downer or create infighting. Instead, I hope this post inspires lots of people to tackle this major neglected problem.

key takeaways

Even some of the most prominent animal welfare interventions have surprisingly weak evidence behind them. In some cases, the available evidence even suggests that the intervention may be causing harm.
Specifically
- We have very limited data on electrical shrimp stunning that doesn't support a confident conclusion as to whether it's good or bad.
- We have mixed evidence on whether transitioning egg producers to cage-free improves welfare overall.
- We have evidence that the substitution effect of alternative proteins is weak, at best.
Significant additional funding and talent should be allocated to raise [...]

---

Outline:

(00:44) key takeaways

(01:45) introduction

(02:29) three salient animal welfare interventions and their evidence bases

(03:17) shrimp stunning and slaughter

(11:01) cage-free

(20:29) alternative proteins

(21:47) this is a field-wide problem

(22:18) my recommendations to funders

(22:22) animal welfare should not be de-funded

(23:36) we should be taking ownership of the entire evidence pipeline

(24:49) when bet making doesn't make sense

(25:38) conclusion

---

First published:
June 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/svjqgyFuFQ34qSgmw/animal-welfare-has-an-evidence-problem

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Lab Leaks, Black Holes, and Eggs: Epistemic Case Study Competition” by Oliver Sourbut, Josh Jacobson

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 18:00:04 GMT

This is a link post.

FLF is running a competition to find the best workflows and methodologies for using AI to produce reliable, trustworthy knowledge bases, grounded in real-world cases. We’re open-minded on the types of submissions we receive and on how they address the problem. We’ve set aside approximately 200 thousand dollars for prizes. Winning submissions may receive a prize from 5 thousand dollars-50 thousand dollars and if submissions warrant, multiple 50 thousand dollars prizes are possible. Winners may be offered opportunities for further funded work.

You can express interest right away to receive commentary, information, and updates — whether you’d like to participate or are just interested in the outcomes of the competition.

The heights of human epistemic investigation are impressive and valuable, but rare and difficult to reach — see our abridged collection of strong examples.[1] The limiting factor is rarely exquisite insight (though this helps!), and more often diligence, a curious and open mindset, and the time and effort needed to do the thorough work investigating background on a topic: activities AI is well placed to assist with.

Existing AI-assisted knowledge base work demonstrates real pieces of this — agent memory (e.g., Claude Code's memory and [...]

---

Outline:

(02:44) What we're looking for

(04:05) Ingestion

(04:47) Structure

(05:35) Assessment

(06:33) What a good entry looks like

(10:39) Prize structure

(12:10) Interested in participating or following along?

(12:27) Why we're doing this

(13:11) We're excited to see what you build.

(13:26) The case studies

(13:29) COVID

(15:34) Black holes

(16:33) Eggs

---

First published:
June 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kP8TGXggDcaPhdjqn/lab-leaks-black-holes-and-eggs-epistemic-case-study

Linkpost URL:
https://flf.org/epistack-competition/

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Society Explained: a new tool for efficiently exploring >100 theories of society” by spencerg

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 11:45:29 GMT

There are many competing theories of how society does and should function, from Karl Marx and Adam Smith to Steven Pinker and Eliezer Yudkowsky. Which of these theories are correct (or which elements of them are) may matter a lot if we're seeking to change society for the better.

However, these theories are often hard to understand - you may need to read an entire book (or dozens of articles) to feel like you get the key claims of a single theory. At Clearer Thinking, we just launched a new tool called Society Explained to make understanding key ideas from these theories much faster and easier.

The way it works is that you simply pick from over 100 thinkers, and then get to see the key causal claims that they are making laid out in a visual diagram format, with explanations alongside that make it easy to understand what the key elements are and how they connect together. If you're curious to try it, click here (it's free).

---

First published:
June 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PNADjwhywMqr5F82K/society-explained-a-new-tool-for-efficiently-exploring

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Learnings from a ‘viral’ Linkedin post: What AI Safety means to talent outside the ecosystem.” by Jen baik

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 22:30:26 GMT

On Friday, May 22, after a field-building itch, I posted a 'Plea to the Laid-off' on LinkedIn, leveraging my voice as a former Googler. With tremendous support from the community, I got 27 inbound calls in 24 hours & received a small Rapid Grant from BlueDot to fund the post as a Linkedin ad for 12 days.

Note: While I’ve been funded by Coefficient Giving for my EA SF efforts, this specific project was on my own accord and outside my grant period.

Some stats from the article (as of June 2, 12 days post)

2.2 thousand views
423 social engagements (269 reactions)
118k Impressions (# of times content appears in front of a user's screen)
105 saves & 8 sends
120 followers gained (and about that many connection requests)

Actual engagement

27 inbound calls
13 airtable intake submissions (after closing my calendar after Day 1)
~10 Linkedin messages w/ varying degrees of engagement
BlueDot/80k/AI in Context Re-directs: ?
- Lesson: Link tracking is your friend

Sankey of airtable and real-time coaching calls

I categorized people into various stages:

1 - No background of AIS
1.5 - Adjacent background (but not quite GCR/AIS) incl. Trust & [...]

---

Outline:

(02:29) Expectations vs Reality

(03:53) Observation 1: What even IS AI Safety?

(05:16) Observation 2: Paradox of Choice - AIS resource guides are too much for a low-context individual to navigate.

(06:25) Outcomes & Impact

(08:08) Some conclusions, hypotheses, and questions I don't have answers to:

---

First published:
June 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EhLhrrEEG6Jo9kYJv/learnings-from-a-viral-linkedin-post-what-ai-safety-means-to

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “The Singularity is a Veil of Ignorance” by Ben Morrell

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 07:45:26 GMT

This is a link post.

This is a crosspost from the Forward Pass substack with the author's permission.

What should you expect your life to look like in the future? Almost everybody is overconfident about what their life will look like in the next 30 years. For most people this is due to an underappreciation of the transformative potential of AI, but for others it's due to an underappreciation of how unique their current positions are.

For anything, the greater change you anticipate, the more you should widen your range of possibilities to expect. When walking in a random direction, a good guess for how your surroundings will look tomorrow is what they look like today. But if you’re flying a plane in a random direction, where you are today tells you very little about what your surroundings will look like tomorrow. A better estimate would be the average of what surroundings look like everywhere on Earth. Visually, this looks like a smearing out of our expectations about the future.

Similarly, the more change we expect from AI (and we should expect a lot), the more we should expect our lives to resemble the average baseline of a life [...]

---

Outline:

(02:20) How should we be more uncertain about the future?

(02:25) Income

(04:53) Geopolitics

(06:07) Further widening

(07:25) A fog over the future

(08:09) A Veil of Ignorance

---

First published:
May 30th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gzrw7wttzucP2bq6Z/the-singularity-is-a-veil-of-ignorance

Linkpost URL:
https://theforwardpass.substack.com/p/the-singularity-as-a-veil-of-ignorance

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“The Most Important Decision For Animals in American History” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 03:00:26 GMT

Crosspost.

(I think this is one of the most important things I’ve written, so I’d appreciate if you could like, share, and restack it. And if you know what's at stake, and just want to know what to do, skip to the end).

What's at stake

Sometimes, the operations of factory farms are so wicked that if they were described in a work of fiction, you’d think it was a cartoonish caricature of evil. Perhaps there is no better example of this than gestation crates. Pregnant mother pigs are penned up in tiny crates without enough room to turn around, for many months. Their feces piles up around them, so that these animals with amazing senses of smell must inhale shit all day. They have no source of enjoyment, no ability to live any kind of real life—all they can do is bite the bars of the cage and pine for a freedom that will never come.

Why would the farms do this? What could be the point of this cruelty? The main reason is that the industry saves on food costs when their animals don’t move around as much. If you’re kept in a cage where you can’t [...]

---

Outline:

(00:25) What's at stake

(07:47) What can be done

---

First published:
June 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Bcydy5nNv7kZgcA8H/the-most-important-decision-for-animals-in-american-history

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Sixteen schemes for AI safety” by Austin

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 00:00:26 GMT

This is a link post.

These days, I often run across whippersnappers excited to do something for AI safety — but aren’t quite sure what. One of the fun things about the Future Fund era were the big lists of project ideas; as we enter a new era of crazy money sloshing around, it might be time to bring back the lists!

Note that these ideas range from “very confident this is good” to “completely harebrained”; I’m not telling you which are which.

If you’re excited for ideas like these, consider joining Surplus, our upcoming software incubator: https://manifund.org/surplus

Jobs, jobs, jobs

Already, the top problem for most AI safety orgs is hiring good people. Vast torrents of funding will only exacerbate the imbalance between available money and people to hire. So now is a great time to figure out how to discover new talent & match people to jobs.

1. Triplebyte for AI safety jobs

Triplebyte would interview a tech candidate once, then forward the results to a bunch of different companies. This would reduce the O(MN) problem in hiring between M orgs and N people to O(M+N), saving applicants and interviewers time. Most obviously, you could just do this [...]

---

Outline:

(00:44) Jobs, jobs, jobs

(01:06) 1. Triplebyte for AI safety jobs

(01:55) 2. Database of every single AI safety person

(02:48) 3. Intro AI safety megaconference

(03:50) 4. Unionize the lab employees

(05:22) 5. Safety scorecards to inform job applicants

(06:11) 6. Help people move to US (and maybe Bay Area specifically)

(06:47) Cargo-culting from academia

(07:13) 7. AI Safety Nobel Prize

(08:27) 8. University of AI Safety

(09:09) 9. Good AI safety research journal

(09:33) 10. Legit, academic AI safety conference

(10:07) Products I would consume

(10:22) 11. Turn the AI 2027 TTX into a mass market product

(11:29) 12. "Lighthaven/Constellation/Mox in DC"

(11:37) 13. Common application for AI safety funding

(11:57) 14. Givewell for AI safety

(12:21) 15. In-depth profiles of AI safety leaders

(13:16) 16. "what-is-agi.com"

(14:16) Questions to generate project ideas

(16:11) Other notes and advice

---

First published:
June 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EvfQ8Dy5ewXGTnEyv/sixteen-schemes-for-ai-safety

Linkpost URL:
https://manifund.substack.com/p/sixteen-schemes-for-ai-safety

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“An Ahold-sized opportunity to accelerate cage-free in Asia right now” by Giovanni Fabris

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:00:26 GMT

TLDR: The Open Wing Alliance (OWA) just launched a global cage-free campaign against the largest Korean food multinational, CJ Group. Thanks to a once-in-a-generation alignment of factors, any action you take to support this campaign is likely to have an unusually high expected value, easily as high as the recent Ahold Delhaize campaign.

I'm the Data and Insights Lead at The Humane League. Here's the case.

Why Korea, why now

South Korea is making a generational infrastructure decision. A September 2027 ban on the smallest (500cm2) battery cages means the Korean egg industry is in the process of investing millions into new housing systems. That means either slightly larger cages or aviary systems. Those decisions are being made as I write, and the window will close in the next approximately equals 6-9 months (as new farms take several months).

The conditions for a cage-free transition are an order of magnitude more favourable than anything I've seen in an Asian market. Cage-free retail egg sales in Korea have tripled since 2022 despite a 58% price premium and no commitments from the top retailers - a level of consumer willingness to pay unmatched anywhere in Asia and possibly the world. Some [...]

---

Outline:

(00:39) Why Korea, why now

(02:25) Why CJ

(03:21) Why the expected value is enormous

---

First published:
June 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tk4phm3ASHuhtXgtM/an-ahold-sized-opportunity-to-accelerate-cage-free-in-asia

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“A chance to support large-scale mosquito eradication in the USA (closes June 5)” by Aaron Gertler 🔸

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 17:30:25 GMT

I used AI in this post. >30% is AI-generated text (everything that appears in quote blocks).

Google's Debug Project has been releasing mosquitos infected with bacteria that stop them from breeding in the wild, as a way of reducing mosquito populations.

This is a promising strategy for fighting mosquito-borne disease; Google's particular approach doesn't target malaria, but it has been shown to reduce rates of dengue fever (and similar approaches with gene drives can address malaria; the linked organization has been supported heavily by Coefficient Giving).

The Debug Project wants to try their approach with a new species of mosquito, and they've requested permission from the EPA. If they get it, they plan to release up to 64 million mosquitos across Florida and California.

Public comments are open through June 5. Predictably, they've been mostly negative so far, because the optics of "releasing millions of infected mosquitos" are poor. (The number might be ~100%, because I read 15 comments and all 15 were negative.)

However, past releases in places like Colombia and Fresno, California show that this project is likely to be highly effective. And I'd guess that the more projects like this happen, the more it will [...]

---

First published:
May 31st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/MSEJXCXuiHaJDcekT/a-chance-to-support-large-scale-mosquito-eradication-in-the

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Why I’m Skeptical of Air Filters for Infection Prevention” by Alastair Fraser-Urquhart

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 15:15:25 GMT

Air Filters for Infection

Air filters are often proposed as a simple, scalable way to reduce the spread of respiratory infections. The underlying logic is simple - respiratory pathogens can be transmitted through the air in aerosol form, and air filters are capable of removing these particles before they are inhaled and go on to cause infection. This has led to sustained interest in air filtration as a non-pharmaceutical intervention to prevent the spread of respiratory disease.

I’ve spent a significant portion of my time at 1Day Sooner researching interventions for indoor air quality. Throughout that time, I’ve become increasingly bearish about the utility of air filters for preventing respiratory infection. I argue that, because respiratory infections are driven by short-range exposure to highly concentrated emissions and because empirical findings also fail to find a link between filters and infectious disease, air filters are unlikely to work well in a wide variety of settings and situations.

Summary

The theoretical argument that air filters significantly prevent the spread of infectious disease is weak. Much infectious disease transmission occurs over short times and distances, which air filters fail to disrupt.
Evidence for the real-world effectiveness of filters is confined to [...]

---

Outline:

(00:11) Air Filters for Infection

(01:11) Summary

(01:48) Real-world studies

(05:32) CAFACS (Clean Air For Aged Care Study)

(09:33) AFRI-c

(10:43) Theoretical basis for filtration

(13:36) Conclusion

---

First published:
May 28th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/phtZxxPyP9tizQQaF/why-i-m-skeptical-of-air-filters-for-infection-prevention

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Philanthropy Needs Ambitious Projects Immediately” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 06:00:26 GMT

Crosspost.

Billions of dollars in philanthropic funding is coming down the pipeline, and we’re not ready for it.

Nan Ransohoff recently released a hugely important piece titled The third wave of American philanthropy. In the relatively near future, three philanthropic behemoths will have a huge influx of liquid cash: the OpenAI foundation, Anthropic's founders, and Anthropic employees.

A fairly conservative estimate puts the amount of charitable spending this would open up at around 50 billion dollars per year. This is about 1/2000th the annual GDP of Earth. US charitable giving is about 600 billion dollars per year—so this will increase total US charitable giving by about 8%. Crucially, many of these donors are interested in sponsoring high-impact charitable projects. Ransohoff notes:

50 billion dollars/year could fully fund the annual budgets of the following organizations:

6 Gates Foundations (~9 billion dollars/yr), or
67 Coefficient Givings (~1 billion dollars/yr), or
100 GiveWells (~500 million dollars/yr), or
333 Arc Institutes (~150 million dollars/yr), or
5000 Institutes for Progress (~10 million dollars/yr)

Obviously, there are many effective organizations beyond those listed here. But the takeaway is that we are orders of magnitude off from having the great organizations needed to absorb [...]

---

First published:
June 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PjnRtq8intQdeeDfA/philanthropy-needs-ambitious-projects-immediately

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“How We’re Searching for the Best Ways to Help in 2026” by GiveWell

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 18:45:31 GMT

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

This year, our research team is focused on two primary goals. The first is to scale our capabilities so we’re able to move much more donor funding to highly cost-effective programs in the next few years. The second is to grant at least $500 million to the best opportunities we can find this year to save and improve lives.

Over the past several years, GiveWell has doubled the size of our research team to deepen and broaden our search for highly impactful programs. Our 60 researchers are now distributed among 11 subteams that cover a number of global health and development cause areas, as well as core research needs.

Below you’ll find a summary of the key approaches each subteam is using this year to find new opportunities to help people in need as much as we can.

Malaria

People: Marinella Capriati, Zoe Hartman

Malaria, which is caused by a parasite transmitted when people are bitten by infected mosquitoes, is a leading cause of death globally, especially for young children in Africa, who make up around 70% of the approximately 600,000 malaria deaths [...]

---

Outline:

(01:04) Malaria

(01:48) Antimalarial Medicines

(03:55) Malaria Vector Control

(05:44) Malaria Cross-Cutting Research

(07:31) Nutrition

(10:12) Vaccination

(12:25) Water

(15:23) Livelihoods

(17:37) New Areas

(19:57) Cross-Cutting Research

(22:34) Research Support and Operations

(22:55) Research Operations

(23:52) Commons

---

First published:
June 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LotTxJF3PiHw6iLDq/how-we-re-searching-for-the-best-ways-to-help-in-2026

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“College students: You should run a virtual summer EA Intro Fellowship ASAP. Here’s how!” by SarahBluhm

Sat, 30 May 2026 17:45:28 GMT

TL;DR: You should run a virtual summer Intro Program if you're in college. It's an easy way to boost an existing group or (re)start one. Most of the resources you need are already available, and I am here to help with planning or advice, even if you've never done any community building before!

Princeton EA already received over 130 sign-ups for their virtual summer 2026 Intro Fellowship – with 10 facilitators running 14 cohorts! Harvard, Brown, MIT, and other schools are testing the same model, and you should too!

First, some background: One year ago, in the summer of 2025, Yale EA advertised a Summer Introductory Fellowship. The results were highly promising. They started off the year noticeably stronger than many other EA groups, with regular attendance at weekly meetings, and a few summer participants joining the board early on.

Now, more schools are testing summer fellowships. I am extremely excited about this opportunity and think all university students should be too. Your group can get a huge head start by being organized enough to do it. Incoming freshmen are eager to make friends and don't have any existing ties to particular clubs on campus, which means you have [...]

---

First published:
May 29th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kjh88tgtqhYWuFmau/college-students-you-should-run-a-virtual-summer-ea-intro

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“My disagreements with CEA’s approach to stewarding EA” by hbesceli

Thu, 28 May 2026 21:00:17 GMT

[Cross posted from my substack]

In their EA Forum post last year, CEA described their ‘principles-first approach to stewardship of the EA community’.

I'm a big fan of principles-first stewardship in principle. I think EA needs a steward, and I think that stewardship should be organised around EA's core principles.

But I think CEA's particular growth-centric approach to principles-first stewardship is stewarding EA in the wrong direction.

I think that: The key question for principles-first stewardship should be "Is EA a place that embodies and nurtures EA principles?" I think there are serious reasons to worry that it isn't such a place - that EA has become more ideological and less truth-seeking over time, and that growth focused approaches to community building like CEAs are a big part of the reason why.

A summary of my main points:

It seems to me that EA is dying. I’m less concerned here about growth metrics, and more concerned about the health of EA as a community and a moral/ intellectual project. It seems to me that EA is losing its question-nature, and also has become something that people are less and less willing to stand behind or participate [...]

---

Outline:

(04:16) It seems to me that EA is dying

(05:05) EA as a question

(06:26) EA as a community

(07:30) Various posts which inform my conception of EA death

(08:42) Growth is not "Community Building 101"

(10:20) The growth funnel model is in tension with open truth-seeking

(10:25) Targeting high impact careers and donations

(13:04) Selection effects

(15:20) Growth is only good if EA is functioning well

(17:23) EA community building doesn't serve the people who embody EA most deeply

(20:01) FTX was a trust problem, not just a brand problem

(22:14) CEA's brand strategy is in tension with open truth-seeking

(24:33) What principles-first stewardship could look like

---

First published:
May 28th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xsffhcHoexJgH4h4X/my-disagreements-with-cea-s-approach-to-stewarding-ea

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Profit for Good 390 page Research Compilation” by Brad West🔸

Thu, 28 May 2026 17:00:17 GMT

I have linked below my recent version of my research compilation on Profit for Good businesses and the Charitable Ownership Advantage thesis. I have spent several hundred, if not over a thousand hours, compiling the evidence supporting the thesis that, given our modern economy in which ownership is typically practically separate from business management and governance, Profit for Good businesses should outperform conventionally owned businesses due to non-zero preferences by stakeholders such as consumers and employees, who affect business performance. I have pasted below the Introduction and Executive Summary to this compilation, but even if you would only like to read that (which is probably enough for most people), I would encourage you to read it through the below hyperlink, given that there were some issues with the images (graphs, tables, etc.) being copied over. I note that although I reviewed the sources and iterated extensively regarding drafting the compilation, AI was used extensively in virtually all parts of the process, including drafting.

Link to the entire Research Compilation

Profit for Good

and the Charitable

Ownership Advantage

Brad West

Project COA

May 2026

Table of Contents

Executive Summary............................................................................................................................ 1

Section 1: Stakeholder Preferences...................................................................................... 34

1.1 Consumer Preferences...................................................................................................... [...]

---

Outline:

(01:08) Link to the entire Research Compilation

(01:24) List of Exhibits

(01:28) Executive Summary

(01:58) Section 1: Stakeholder Preferences

(02:19) Section 4: Charitable Ownership Advantage

(02:39) Section 6: Preference and Charitable Commitment Concentration

(03:09) Section 7: Trust and Awareness Infrastructure

(03:22) Section 8: Stress Tests

(03:34) Section 9A: The First Proof Portfolio

(04:37) Section 9B: Sector Strategy and Financial Projections

(05:01) How to Read This Compilation

(09:35) Profit for Good and the Charitable Ownership Advantage

(17:39) The case in one page

(20:50) Key terms

(25:36) 1. Headline findings and action agenda

(37:22) From first acquisitions to category scaling

(38:16) The strategic asymmetry

(41:21) 2. What we know, what we are testing, what would change our mind

(41:27) What is well-supported

(44:37) What remains empirical

(46:17) What would update the thesis

(51:53) What would falsify or redirect the thesis

(52:47) 3. Recommendations: build the proof object and choice infrastructure

(53:31) Two projects

(56:32) Capital architecture

(58:10) Best-fit roles by funder type

(59:22) 4. The strategic moment

(01:04:01) Section-by-Section Synthesis

(01:04:30) §1.1 -- Consumer Preferences

(01:06:13) §1.2 -- Employee Preferences

(01:07:58) §1.3 -- Supplier and Partner Preferences

(01:09:57) §1.4 -- Media and Marketing Advantages

(01:11:56) §1.5 -- Capital Provider Preferences

(01:14:06) §1.6 -- Other Stakeholder Preferences (B2B, Government, Community)

(01:16:22) §2.0 -- Direct PFG Evidence

(01:19:01) §3.0 -- Global Expansion Opportunity

(01:21:21) §4.0 -- Charitable Ownership Advantage: Parity, Redeployability, and Deployment as Strategic Choice

(01:24:02) §5.0 -- The Awareness-Trust Activation Dynamic

(01:26:34) §6.0 -- Preference and Charitable Commitment Concentration

(01:30:08) §7.0 -- Trust and Awareness Infrastructure

(01:33:32) §8.0 -- Stress Tests

(01:36:38) §9A -- Capital Deployment: The First Proof Portfolio

(01:39:40) §9B -- Sector Strategy and Financial Projections

(01:44:36) §10 -- Synthesis and Recommendations

---

First published:
May 28th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CJJjhvsRafGFn6S6v/profit-for-good-390-page-research-compilation

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Are Mythos’ Cyber Capabilities Overstated? - Yes and No” by Muhan Luo🔸

Thu, 28 May 2026 15:15:16 GMT

TL;DR: Anthropic restricted access to Claude Mythos Preview, citing a major leap in vulnerability discovery and exploitation capability. I review the 3 most common arguments from skeptics: (1) AISLE Security's paper showing cheaper models can identify the same bugs as Mythos, (2) benchmark comparisons showing GPT-5.5 performs comparably, and (3) Mythos finding only one low-severity bug in the cURL project.

On most cyber capabilities: the skeptics are right. Mythos isn’t dramatically ahead of GPT-5.5, and GPT-5.5 is more cost-efficient for most use cases.
On vulnerability discovery and exploitation capabilities specifically: the skeptics are wrong, or at least overreaching. AISLE Security's results don’t replicate when models are tested under similar conditions (Ex: Semgrep's experiment), and benchmarks designed to actually measure vulnerability discovery and exploitation skills (XBOW AI, ExploitBench) show Mythos substantially ahead.
The cURL result is real but not decisive: Firefox and Palo Alto Networks have reported the opposite pattern. More data is needed before we can draw a definitive conclusion.

(For context, my background is in penetration testing and bug bounty hunting, mostly specializing in web security, secure code review, and cloud security.)

AI has been measurably accelerating vulnerability research. The volume of reported software vulnerabilities continues to [...]

---

Outline:

(04:04) #1 AISLE Security's Paper

(10:10) #2 Mythos vs. GPT 5.5 Benchmark Performance

(17:07) #3 Only 1 Vulnerability Found in cURL

(20:12) Conclusion

---

First published:
May 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8yztpbjuPkyXsmA6n/are-mythos-cyber-capabilities-overstated-yes-and-no

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Announcing the Africa Jobs Fund” by Benh713

Wed, 27 May 2026 13:30:16 GMT

We intend to mobilise 100 million dollars of philanthropic capital towards export manufacturing and international labour mobility to double the lifetime incomes of 250,000 low-income people in Africa (creating 10m DCYs).

(This launch article is cross-posted, with some edits, from our Substack.)

We are launching the Africa Jobs Fund to dramatically boost incomes for low-income Africans through access to high-productivity jobs. We will catalyse world-class entrepreneurs to build high-impact, scalable companies in two sectors: export manufacturing and international labour mobility.

We intend to mobilise $100 million towards international labour mobility and export manufacturing. Based on our cost-effectiveness analysis, this funding should enable us to double the lifetime incomes of at least 250,000 low-income people in Africa. To start, we are raising 15 million dollars of philanthropic funding to build at least 20 high-impact companies. We also hope to shift global development work towards focusing on what really matters in the long run: increasing incomes through high-productivity jobs.

The fund is housed within Renaissance Philanthropy; a nonprofit organization building a brighter future for all through the time-bound, thesis-driven philanthropic funds. We are already working on venture-building our first set of companies.

In some respects, the model is quite similar to [...]

---

Outline:

(02:17) Why?

(02:20) Poverty in Africa is a huge challenge

(03:02) Higher incomes solve (almost) everything

(04:03) The two pillars

(04:27) International labour mobility

(07:50) Export manufacturing

(11:05) Our model

(12:56) Why not the existing models?

(13:00) Why not build VC startups?

(14:47) Why not build 'highly-effective' non-profit programmes?

(17:45) Who we are

(19:14) What happens next

---

First published:
May 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ubeWJC8rMGGMtYdWF/announcing-the-africa-jobs-fund

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Does disaster frequency follow power laws? It’s complicated” by titotal

Wed, 27 May 2026 12:30:16 GMT

This is a link post.

Disclaimer: This is a huge topic, and I’m barely scratching the surface here. I’m not an expert on these subjects, and am mostly trying to summarise the work of experts in an accessible way. All writing is my own.

Introduction:

One of my chief complaints about the field of existential risk prevention is that it often relies on estimates that are not well-grounded in empirical evidence. But I want to be clear that some empirical data on threats to humanity does exist and can be analysed in statistically meaningful ways. Obviously we don’t have any data on the incidence of global human extinction, but we do have data for other measures of danger, like earthquake magnitude, tornado speed, deaths from terrorism, and many others.

Furthermore, in many cases these threats appear to closely follow statistical patterns. The most commonly attributed statistical pattern is something called a power law distribution. If you’ve heard of the “80-20” rule, or the Pareto distribution, these are referring to power laws. The list of phenomenon which have been attributed to power law behaviour is frankly ridiculous. Here is a non-exhaustive list of topics we will mention in this post:

[...]

---

First published:
May 26th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ovkHXerR8z2Qjyf9o/does-disaster-frequency-follow-power-laws-it-s-complicated

Linkpost URL:
https://titotal.substack.com/p/does-disaster-frequency-follow-power

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Donating 80% While It Still Counts” by Jeff Kaufman 🔸

Tue, 26 May 2026 13:30:22 GMT

Julia and I had been giving half since 2014, but in 2025 we drew on our savings to donate 81%. It looks to us like we're in a critical window for keeping the introduction of very powerful AI systems from being disastrous, and we want to do what we can while we still can.

Here's what that looks like in the context of our overall spending:

We've been prioritizing donations for a long time, but it feels very different now because of the AI boom. Some of this is that people who've made money in the boom will likely be giving more soon, and so money spent now can help set up organizations to spend future money more effectively. But more importantly, this is a key window of opportunity: transformative AI is coming very quickly, for better or worse. We want to push hard for "better".

If you compare to previous years (2024, 2022, 2020, 2018, 2016, 2014), we're donating a lot less than we used to in absolute terms:

Until mid-2022 I was working at a big tech company, optimizing to maximize donations, and now I'm at a non-profit. This means we're giving a larger fraction, but of [...]

---

Outline:

(04:07) Evaluating Predictions

(06:14) Making New Predictions

(08:11) Details

---

First published:
May 26th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CmpfM8dubqsqEQic7/donating-80-while-it-still-counts

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Beyond the GiveWell Podcast: Fortify Health’s Lessons from Scaling” by Tony Senanayake

Tue, 26 May 2026 12:45:22 GMT

TL;DR

GiveWell has published a podcast, looking back on their investments in iron fortification and their 8.2 million dollars grant to Fortify Health in 2021. When the grant was made, the projected cost-effectiveness was 5x cash transfers we delivered and estimated 12x. We want to share what this looked like from the inside.
Over three years, our team scaled from reaching fewer than half a million people to more than 20 million, while roadblocks in our government engagement strategy forced a pivot.
This post is about what we learned over the last 3+ years of scaling a public health intervention, the mistakes we made and the learnings we hope will be useful for funders, implementers and supporters.
We are seeking approximately $1 million over the next two years to unlock the government channel, where we believe the next order of magnitude of impact lies. We would welcome your support.

1. Background

GiveWell has just published a podcast discussing their thinking about iron fortification and our work at Fortify Health. In it they discuss their lookback on their 2021, 8.2 million dollars grant to Fortify Health along with their decision to continue their support of our work with [...]

---

Outline:

(00:12) TL;DR

(01:11) 1. Background

(03:00) 2. About Fortify Health

(03:04) 2.1. The problem

(04:03) 2.2. Our solution

(05:22) 2.3. What we are building toward

(06:29) 3. Private Miller Partnerships - from .5 to 20 Million people reached

(07:17) 3.1. What drove the improvement: within our control

(08:43) 3.2. What drove the improvement: outside our control

(09:51) 4. Our government partnership story

(11:47) 5. What we learned

(11:51) Theme 1: Build the foundations before the pressure arrives

(13:52) Theme 2: Know what to measure, and be honest when you cannot

(16:51) Theme 3: Scale and sustainability are not the same

(19:28) Theme 4: It's hard to know when to pivot your strategy

(22:53) 6. Transferable Lessons for Others

(22:58) For implementers

(23:51) For funders and supporters

(24:52) For those considering working in this space

(25:29) 7. Help us support millions more people

---

First published:
May 25th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fgD8PjAfraA4CjKNg/beyond-the-givewell-podcast-fortify-health-s-lessons-from

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Rethink Priorities is hiring.” by Bob Fischer, Rethink Priorities

Tue, 26 May 2026 07:00:22 GMT

Rethink Priorities just opened three positions:

Researcher, Worldview Investigations Team
Researcher, AI Cognition Initiative (Technical Focus)
Researcher, AI Cognition Initiative (Economics Focus)

We're excited to expand our team and we look forward to reviewing your application.

---

First published:
May 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vu5RnPnbfG3KWgakB/rethink-priorities-is-hiring

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “A personal letter on transformative AI” by George Rosenfeld

Tue, 26 May 2026 04:45:21 GMT

This is a link post.

I've spent the last couple of years working on AI risk at Coefficient Giving, but it's only in the last few months that I’ve started to feel more viscerally that transformative AI is likely to happen and potentially very soon. To be honest, it probably took me longer than it should have.

This shift has been a really difficult emotional experience and I've been struggling at times. I imagine others reading this Forum might relate, I’m sorry if so.

Last month, I went home to spend Passover with my family, and I realized I needed to say something. It's just getting too real to sit with people I love and have normal conversations without mentioning how drastically and how quickly I think things could change for all of us. So I wrote them a letter describing where I think things could be headed.

CG has now published it on our Substack. It's written for a general audience (well, specifically my family), not for people already deep in these topics. I thought I’d share it here in case it's useful, whether you’re new to these ideas or have been working in the field for a while [...]

---

First published:
May 25th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Kqn3AgamiJW68trZr/a-personal-letter-on-transformative-ai

Linkpost URL:
https://multipliercg.substack.com/p/a-personal-letter-on-transformative

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“A Plea to the Laid-off, from an ex-Googler” by Jen baik

Mon, 25 May 2026 12:45:21 GMT

The following is a Linkedin post I'm hoping to make to the recently laid-off tech industry in hopes that it makes the AI Safety transition more convincing and palatable.

Please support by commenting or reposting on Friday, May 22 10AM PST | 6PM UTC. Feel free to add me on Linkedin (the 1st hour is most critical). I'll also update with the live link when it posts.

I am receptive to feedback, namely:

not over-promising a 'easy' career transition into ai safety
messaging thats most tractable for impact

Hey there,

In light of the recent Meta Tech Layoffs, first, I'm sorry that this happened to you. Another one of life's shit that is thrown at us. A time to put on some armor and roll with the punches headed for your head. There are no words.

I'm Jen. Last year, I left my job at Google. Many of you will start applying headfirst into similar roles at other companies, maybe that growing AI startup where your job feels secure in this new economy.

I am here to ask you to consider an additional industry in your search: AI Safety.

With all the excitement around AI and its [...]

---

Outline:

(00:43) I am here to ask you to consider an additional industry in your search: AI Safety.

(01:38) How you can add the AI Safety field to your job search

(01:43) 1) Spend time getting oriented and upskilling

(02:39) 2) Figure out what your role could be (Guide)

(03:39) 3) Apply in parallel, not instead

(04:01) 4) If you get traction, there are endless ways to go deeper.

(04:36) Case Studies of Real People who pivoted from Tech to AI Safety

---

First published:
May 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7MEZzqQZtf9fQc24T/a-plea-to-the-laid-off-from-an-ex-googler

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Stewardship in EA’s Most Important Era” by Sam Anschell

Sat, 23 May 2026 06:45:22 GMT

After reading Abraham Rowe's reflections around the new money in EA, I found myself wishing there were more concrete ideas for how we can make the most of the enormous opportunity ahead. I often hear stewardship discussed in the context of managing money or leading institutions. I think one neglected lever for stewarding the future of the EA movement is offering and asking for help. Below are four ways we might do this:

Sharing impactful roles and career resources with friends:

If you have a high-integrity friend who takes pride in doing great work, I encourage you to reach out to them about applying to impactful roles, even if they don’t identify as an EA.

Many of my co-workers joined Coefficient Giving because of its reputation as a great place to work and because it was a place they could help others — not because they had tons of prior EA context. Their contributions at the org are invaluable, and CG would not be able to do nearly as much if only “hardcore EAs” applied. [1]

There are more job opportunities now than ever before at EA orgs.[2] Some orgs, particularly in AI safety, are increasing their salaries. This [...]

---

Outline:

(00:36) Sharing impactful roles and career resources with friends:

(01:39) Negotiating expenses

(02:39) Executive Assistance

(04:23) Requesting and sharing best practices

(05:21) How I'm trying to put this in practice:

---

First published:
May 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/MDcaWPGwtFHmyqT3J/stewardship-in-ea-s-most-important-era

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Will we really put data centers in space?” by Forethought, Aviel Parrack, finm

Sat, 23 May 2026 05:00:21 GMT

This is a link post.

Abstract

Several major technology companies have announced plans to operate AI data centers in orbit. Elon Musk recently claimed: “the lowest-cost place to put AI will be space […] within two years, maybe three.” If a meaningful fraction of new AI compute really is placed in space within a few years, that would be a fairly big deal for AI governance and strategy. Here we try to disentangle the hype from reality and provide a sober assessment of the technical and economic feasibility of orbital data centers (ODCs).

The main case for ODCs is the cost of energy: space solar panels in the right orbits receive more constant and intense sunlight compared to Earth. Moreover, ODCs don’t currently face the same permitting and regulatory delays as on Earth, cause fewer ongoing environmental harms compared to grid or onsite natural gas-powered data centers, and may be more secure against data exfiltration. We find that the cost-competitiveness case for ODCs depends almost entirely on Starship achieving reusability comparable with what SpaceX achieved with Falcon: space-based solar reaches cost parity with present-day off-grid terrestrial power continuously at roughly $250/kg to orbit, and becomes cheaper than any current terrestrial [...]

---

Outline:

(00:14) Abstract

(02:28) Introduction & Takeaways

---

First published:
May 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CEaMp2dXKxkh3HhDt/will-we-really-put-data-centers-in-space

Linkpost URL:
https://www.forethought.org/research/will-we-really-put-data-centers-in-space

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Why now might be the best time ever to start an animal charity” by Aidan Alexander, Aaron Boddy🔸, Ambitious Impact

Fri, 22 May 2026 17:00:23 GMT

TL;DR: AIM is running its first incubation round focused exclusively on animal welfare, in partnership with Aaron Boddy (co-founder of Shrimp Welfare Project). It'll run in early 2027, and we’re on the hunt for all-star future founders — especially the ones who care about animal welfare but have been quietly assuming they're a bad fit for the cause.

Want to learn more? Drop into our office hours at EAG London this Saturday, 12–1pm (find it on Swapcard), or fill out our expression of interest form.

Curious about what this means for our global health and development work? The short answer: nothing's changing[1].

A program built to incubate transformational animal charities

This is the best-resourced and most fit-for-purpose version of AIM's program we've run for animal founders. Our charity incubation program was built to accommodate a wide range of types of charities, and we’ve long hypothesized that running rounds with a tighter focus could enable an even higher hit-rate of field-leading charities.

By focusing this round entirely on animal welfare, we can tailor the research process, founder recruitment efforts, and program content and support to what animal charities specifically need, instead of what works on average across cause areas. The [...]

---

Outline:

(00:56) A program built to incubate transformational animal charities

(01:50) Why now

(03:36) You don't need to be an "animal person"

(04:50) Why coming to this fresh is genuinely useful

(05:57) What we're looking to incubate

(07:04) Come find us

---

First published:
May 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/afoobcsEYFKvYk3bp/why-now-might-be-the-best-time-ever-to-start-an-animal

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Announcing the IAP Entrepreneurship Track: A New Path for Aspiring High-Impact Founders” by High Impact Professionals, Nina Friedrich🔸, Emil Wasteson Wallén 🔸, Danielle MacLean

Fri, 22 May 2026 12:30:22 GMT

High Impact Professionals (HIP) is launching a brand new Entrepreneurship Track inside our Impact Accelerator Program (IAP). It's built specifically for experienced professionals who are considering starting their own high-impact organization, whether that means founding a high-impact non-profit or for-profit organization, or starting a Founding to Give company.

Applications for the next IAP round are now open until Sunday, June 7. To apply for the Entrepreneurship Track, simply select the Entrepreneurship option within the main IAP application.

Apply to the IAP Entrepreneurship Track

Why We're Launching The Entrepreneurship Track

We’ve now run eight rounds of the IAP, and one pattern has stood out: some of the biggest impact came from participants starting their own organizations.

To date, IAP alumni have:

Founded 16 new charities, 9 independently and 7 after subsequently going through incubators, including Ambitious Impact's Charity Entrepreneurship & Founding to Give, Sheldon Labs, and more. This includes:
- 8 direct impact non-profit organizations
- 3 direct impact for-profit organizations
- 7 Founding to Give organizations
An additional three have been accepted into Charity Entrepreneurship scheduled to start later this year
Organizations cover a wide variety of cause areas: AI Safety, Global Health, Animal Welfare, Alternative Proteins, and Meta/Comms

It's clear that entrepreneurship [...]

---

Outline:

(00:53) Why We're Launching The Entrepreneurship Track

(02:18) Program Overview

(03:10) How Does This Differ From Other Entrepreneurial Programs?

(03:38) Who Should Apply to the Entrepreneurship Track

(04:57) Important Dates

(05:33) Know Someone Who Should Apply?

(05:59) Questions?

---

First published:
May 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8mmxH5yoGykC5dW7e/announcing-the-iap-entrepreneurship-track-a-new-path-for

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Present-day Benefits of Nature to Humanity” by Tandena Wagner

Thu, 21 May 2026 19:00:22 GMT

This article was written with the aid of AI for research, structure, and phrasing. It may contain >10% AI-generated text.

What Has Nature Done For Me Lately?

In this sequence I try to determine the most valuable aspects of nature, after observing that lots of people find it valuable. One of the major candidates is “ecosystem services,” a term describing benefits we get from nature.[1] I find that the total value of all ecosystem services is high, but the marginal unit wouldn't meaningfully diminish the benefits we receive.

In this post I explore

How valuable ecosystem services are (about $45 trillion per year)
What those ecosystem services are (nutrient cycling, etc)
How possible it is to get those same benefits from other sources besides nature
And whether biodiversity is providing the instrumental gain we get from nature.

A quick clarification: Biodiversity is a measure of how many distinct species exist in nature (although it ambiguously can refer to local density of species, total extant global species, diversity within a species, and/or variety of ecosystems). Biodiversity is not equivalent to ecosystem services - as I demonstrate in this post.

Breakdown of Ecosystem Services

The estimated dollar equivalents of [...]

---

Outline:

(00:19) What Has Nature Done For Me Lately?

(01:31) Breakdown of Ecosystem Services

(03:53) The Value Estimates In This Table Are Flawed

(06:00) Some Other Ideas for Measuring Value

(08:16) Option Value

(09:19) A Case for Biodiversity as a Biotech Resource Library

(14:07) Conclusion

(16:03) References:

(16:06) Sources for my Claims about Ecosystem Services

(16:26) Nutrient Cycling

(18:24) Water Supply

(19:00) Pest Control

(19:44) Wild-Caught Fish

(20:22) Pollination

(20:43) Disease Control

(21:40) Flood Control

(22:21) Water Purification

(22:52) Major Assessments of Current Value from Nature:

(22:58) Recent Assessments:

(24:31) Older Assessments:

(25:19) Other Assessments:

---

First published:
May 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/z7AYzXSW3JGQvPSzi/present-day-benefits-of-nature-to-humanity

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“EA sexual harassment: Where’s the evidence we’re worse than baseline?” by Nathan Young

Thu, 21 May 2026 18:15:21 GMT

I used AI while writing this, though I have spent 5 - 15 hours on it and I take responsibility for every word and all numbers.

Every time there is a report of sexual harassment within EA there is a lot of introspection. I want to push back on this, not to dismiss the experiences described, which sound genuinely painful, but because I am unsure the evidence supports the belief that EA is uniquely bad here.

So what do we know? In 2022, CEA's Community Health team reported handling around 19 interpersonal harm cases the previous year, ranging from uncomfortable interactions to serious allegations, across a community of thousands. On my read, 3–6 of those 19 clearly involve sexual misconduct across a community of 4,700–10,000 EAs, putting a narrower rate at around 0.03–0.13%.

Alongside this there have been perhaps 3–5 high-profile public cases on the Forum in the last five years. The TIME piece in 2023 cited 7 women, though at the time it was disputed how clearly the cases related to EA. These data don't seem clearly outside of the above range.

The cleanest peer numbers come from universities' Title IX offices, which publish annual [...]

---

First published:
May 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Gr3owHS3fyDfnZ3nb/ea-sexual-harassment-where-s-the-evidence-we-re-worse-than

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “I Need You To Understand That “Moving Fast and Breaking Things” Is Playing With Peoples’ Lives” by Kenneth_Diao

Thu, 21 May 2026 09:00:22 GMT

This is a link post.

I’m not the first to say this, but I’ll say it again: I’m worried about Anthropic's and OpenAI's (possible) IPOs.

Tl;dr: there's a good chance that Anthropic and/or OpenAI becomes a publicly traded company in the near future. Somehow this makes a lot of capital that was previously solid melt into a liquid. That liquid capital can then be given to whatever the people who own it want it to be given to. That's many billions of dollars in annual funding at the very least, which is orders of magnitude more than organizations are used to receiving. I’m thankful many of these people want to give their money away, though really that should be the bare fucking minimum for billionaires. But I’m also worried.

We are all attracted to money like moths to a flame. Even I feel the temptation: with all these billions of dollars, what kind of good could we do? We spin great yarns about the kinds of impact we will have on the world and exchange congratulations on our ratiocinations. Yet the more I’ve thought about this, and the more I’ve read what people have had to say, the more worried [...]

---

First published:
May 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/DcsmaCXG227n9eiyB/i-need-you-to-understand-that-moving-fast-and-breaking

Linkpost URL:
https://layabolitionist.substack.com/p/i-need-you-to-understand-that-moving

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Announcing the Rethink Priorities Cross-Cause Fund” by Rethink Priorities

Wed, 20 May 2026 15:15:24 GMT

TL;DR

Today, based on our multi-year prioritization research, we launch the Rethink Priorities Cross-Cause Fund (CCF). The fund pools donors’ contributions and allocates them to high-impact giving funds across Global Health and Development, Animal Welfare, and Global Catastrophic Risks.

Key highlights from this post:

We believe that strategic cross-cause prioritization is an important step in doing good at scale.
This fund is for donors who want their donation to go where a marginal dollar is likely to do the most good across cause areas, all things considered.
We modeled key uncertainties that matter for cross-cause prioritization: moral weights, time discounting, risk attitudes, aggregation across ethical views, AI-related uncertainty, and empirical uncertainty within each giving opportunity.
We present the current recommended allocation of marginal resources across high-impact funds in each of the three cause areas mentioned above.
In addition, we’re introducing you to the first version of the Donor Compass, a tool to help donors explore cross-cause giving, powered by our cross-cause prioritization model. It is a short quiz that outputs custom giving allocations based on the user's moral and empirical assumptions.

You can dive deep into our rationale and methodology for the CCF in the announcement below, or [...]

---

Outline:

(00:11) TL;DR

(01:46) Cross-cause prioritization in effective giving is underdeveloped

(02:22) Giving is full of moral and empirical uncertainty

(04:27) How EA has historically handled this

(06:29) Why thinking in cause areas isn't enough

(06:34) Why not just pick the best cause and fund it?

(07:18) At the end of the day, interventions are what's funded -- not causes

(08:37) What would address the prioritization problem

(08:55) We need explicit modeling

(10:36) The barriers to cross-cause prioritization are lower than they once were

(11:59) Our solution: an explicit and transparent cross-cause prioritization model

(12:06) The model

(14:03) Giving opportunities currently included in the model

(16:10) The Cross-Cause Fund

(16:35) Who is it for?

(17:42) How does it work?

(18:39) Our current recommended allocation across cause areas

(20:15) Donor Compass

(20:19) What is it?

(20:51) How to use it

(21:41) Methodology behind our model and tools

(22:10) Fund selection

(22:55) Fund-by-fund cost-effectiveness estimation

(24:43) Data Viewer

(25:01) Defining worldviews

(26:48) Outputting an allocation

(28:03) Future cross-cause prioritization plans

(31:03) Support the research behind the cross-cause prioritization model

(31:46) Conflicts of interest statement

(32:25) Acknowledgements

---

First published:
May 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YgbTWGyfwkoBtvT2R/announcing-the-rethink-priorities-cross-cause-fund

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“After making sure we don’t all die, this should be the first priority” by Yaqi Grover

Wed, 20 May 2026 14:30:22 GMT

A new article went viral on Twitter today: Nan Ransohoff's "The Third Wave of American Philanthropy" (link). Worth reading first.

Nan is right about the shape of what's coming: hundreds of billions in new philanthropic capital, no ecosystem yet to absorb it, and a shortage of builders and organizations. I very much agree with that sentiment and the direction. More money, more people willing to start things, more urgency.

But the conclusion I draw is almost the opposite. The new philanthropic wave shouldn't go hunting for new problems. Far more of it should go to animals. There are literally trillions of lives suffering so gravely in all corners of the world. The future is still incredibly grim; AI can impose even more significant suffering if we don't do it right. "Animal welfare" isn't one solved issue to cross off: it's where most of the sentience and suffering is, and where we should be looking.

Animals are not one solved issue. It's not one issue

EAs recognized the importance of animal suffering – factory farming, wild animal suffering – long before the rest of the world, which still has not really recognized its importance. That was the insight. And [...]

---

Outline:

(01:10) Animals are not one solved issue. It's not one issue

(02:03) The problems are staring right at us

(04:12) AI x Animals

(05:23) Stop looking past them

---

First published:
May 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HFkrGGGjbM7gFcQGD/after-making-sure-we-don-t-all-die-this-should-be-the-first

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Can AI be Conscious? Biological Naturalism as a Research Program” by Bob Fischer, Rethink Priorities

Wed, 20 May 2026 10:15:21 GMT

This report was written by Christian de Weerd for Rethink Priorities. It was primarily meant to inform our own thinking about the merits of biological naturalism about consciousness. However, as Christian did such an excellent job on the report, we thought it might be worth sharing more broadly. We should mention that, at least as far as we know, Christian won't be monitoring the comments.

Executive summary

Only a couple of years ago the idea that AI systems may be conscious was widely regarded as a far-fetched and purely hypothetical scenario. Recent rapid developments in AI capabilities, however, have caused a surge of interest in the question whether conscious AI may actually be realized sometime soon.
Most researchers agree that consciousness is relevant to moral status in one way or another. Therefore, finding out whether AI systems can be conscious is of great practical importance.
Researchers generally agree that the most promising scientifically-informed approach to answer questions about AI consciousness consists in assessing whether AI systems have the right kind of internal organization to realize consciousness.
- One influential version of this approach assumes that computational functionalism is correct: The view according to which implementing the right computations [...]

---

First published:
May 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5n6aJrFc6vvbdvedv/can-ai-be-conscious-biological-naturalism-as-a-research

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Request for Proposals: Effective Giving” by Melanie Basnak🔸, Kearney Capuano 🔸

Wed, 20 May 2026 10:00:23 GMT

We are excited to announce a new Request for Proposals (RFP) for effective giving organizations, defined as initiatives that raise funds for highly effective charities. Through this RFP, we aim to identify and support additional efforts in the effective giving space and streamline the application process for potential grantees.

Motivation

Our Effective Giving & Careers Fund has historically supported a variety of effective giving organizations across multiple countries. Examples of current grantees include Giving What We Can, Effektiv Spenden, and Doneer Effectief (you can find other recent grants here).

Effective giving currently comprises ~70% of our portfolio, reflecting its central role in our broader funding strategy. In the past few years, we have been surprised by the growth of the effective giving ecosystem: new initiatives have launched worldwide, and existing efforts have successfully channeled substantial funds to promising opportunities.

Based on our internal analysis, we estimate that our current grantees deliver an average adjusted return on donations of 6x across our effective giving portfolio, with some grantees as high as ~10x. We believe that additional organizations we’re not currently supporting may be poised to generate similar impact. Through this RFP, we hope to:

Invite and encourage new [...]

---

Outline:

(00:32) Motivation

(01:54) Eligibility

(02:41) Additional considerations

(03:29) Funding amount and grant structure

(04:22) Ideas we'd be excited about:

(05:09) Selection criteria and evaluation process

(05:51) Application logistics

---

First published:
May 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5xwZJwGiBXkFXpy9d/request-for-proposals-effective-giving-1

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Why are longtermists so much less focused on human extinction than they used to be?” by Michelle_Hutchinson

Tue, 19 May 2026 13:45:21 GMT

Tldr;

EAs seem more focused on non-extinction risks from AI than they used to be
I haven’t seen much discussion of why, making reference to the very longrun
Changes in the world this might be responding to are: alignment seeming more promising than it used to, the speed of AI progress, and concerns around US governance.
There are also plausible sociological reasons for the shift, so I feel unsure how far to update

What's the change and why care about it?

My sense is that there's been a significant shift in how much longtermists prioritise non-extinction risks over the last few years. A decade ago people who were trying to ensure the flourishing of the universe trillions of years from now were very often focused on avoiding events that would kill all humans. My sense is that now they’re much more often focused on situations which they don’t think pose a risk of human extinction, such as extreme power concentration.

This change has felt confusing to me for a couple of reasons:

There's reasonably little written about why longtermists should change their prioritisation in this direction. The notable exception is this paper by Will MacAskill.
To [...]

---

Outline:

(00:40) What's the change and why care about it?

(03:23) Differences in the world that motivate the change

(05:45) How much of an update should we make?

---

First published:
May 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wTXAbzbkAxZrLv5Cg/why-are-longtermists-so-much-less-focused-on-human

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “The Goodhart Singularity” by Vasco Grilo🔸

Tue, 19 May 2026 10:00:21 GMT

This is a link post.

[Subtitle.] Automating R&D is not sufficient for superintelligence

This is a crosspost for The Goodhart Singularity by Tom Reed, which was originally published on Thomas's Substack on 7 May 2026.

Buyer beware: bombastic claims advanced, often flippantly.

AI systems are starting to build themselves. Because each generation of model will be better at building its successor than the last, it seems plausible that the full automation of AI R&D could rapidly lead to an exponential growth in overall AI capabilities. A natural inference is that domain-general superintelligence arrives shortly after AI research is automated.

This natural inference is, indeed, almost the default story of AI progress, as well as the strategy of those pursuing it. Where the AI industry once distinguished itself by the search for general intelligence, it has in recent years converged on a narrower path: the targeted pursuit of coding and AI research. For Sam Altman, “perhaps nothing is quite as significant as the fact that we can now use [AI] to do faster AI research”.

To many, the (ostensibly imminent) automation of AI research looks sufficient for the rapid subsequent development of other world-changing capabilities. It would constitute, in Jack Clark's [...]

---

First published:
May 18th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Doew7ieJ3XACfovKs/the-goodhart-singularity

Linkpost URL:
https://meagreprotestanthistory.substack.com/p/the-goodhart-singularity

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Coordinal: A Postmortem.” by Ronak Mehta

Tue, 19 May 2026 08:15:22 GMT

This is a link post.

cart;horse: Most startups fail, this one did too. Tried too much with too little, with a little too much ego.

Coordinal Research's goal was to build an automated safety research platform. A researcher writes “Replicate X result from paper Y with tweak Z” and the system provisions a sandboxed compute environment, gathers context, writes code, runs experiments, and returns a research report plus oversight trail.

The bet was that AI-accelerated research is coming whether we like it or not, and having this differentially happen for safety work faster is good. The bet didn’t pay off — at least not in the form I tried to make it.

The main content is the condensed version. The full chronology, the final push, and the technical artifacts I shipped are appendices for anyone who wants them. See also our Manifund page for the original pitch/ask.

The arc, in brief.

The startup. Fall 2024 to Fall 2025: out of MATS 6.0, through Catalyze, into cofounding with Jacques. Most of Q1–Q2 2025 was grant applications and demo building (no dice on grants). In April a funder I’d previously pitched came back via a coworking connection. After a carefully-crafted email, we [...]

---

Outline:

(01:07) The arc, in brief.

(03:01) Lessons.

(07:16) What's Next.

(08:46) Appendix.

(08:51) A: The Startup.

(16:00) B: The Startdown.

(20:17) C: The Salvage.

---

First published:
May 18th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uTffD74jJrQvHJuBY/coordinal-a-postmortem

Linkpost URL:
https://ronakrm.github.io/coordinal-postmortem/

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“California’s largest poultry producer sued for cruelty” by alene

Mon, 18 May 2026 12:15:16 GMT

Hello Effective Altruists!

I write to let you know that Legal Impact for Chickens is suing California's largest poultry producer, Foster Farms, for animal cruelty. Foster Farms raises and slaughters approximately 290 million chickens per year.

LIC's complaint accuses Foster Farms of crushing chickens with forklifts, forcing birds to live among the maggot-covered corpses of their dead flock mates, and kicking and throwing animals.

The animal cruelty lawsuit comes on the heels of a damning undercover investigation that LIC funded fellow-nonprofit Animal Outlook to conduct. Learn more here: https://www.legalimpactforchickens.org/foster-farms and read the complaint here: https://www.legalimpactforchickens.org/foster-farms-complaint.

Animal cruelty is a crime in California, as in every state.

Thank you to the EA Community for making this litigation possible!

Love,

Alene

---

First published:
May 17th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bekzfuhSsdiufooXs/california-s-largest-poultry-producer-sued-for-cruelty

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Global Health Charity Founders on GiveWell, Evidence Action, and M+E” by anonfounder

Mon, 18 May 2026 09:45:14 GMT

The following is a lightly edited and anonymized transcript of a discussion among charity founders, researchers, and funders in Ambitious Impact's Slack workspace about GiveWell's decision to stop funding Evidence Action's Dispensers for Safe Water program. The conversation surfaced themes that we felt were worth sharing more broadly. Everyone involved consented to their thoughts being shared in this way. An LLM was used to process and anonymize the transcript.

For context/credibility, several of the organizations involved were GiveWell grantees.

Core Takeaways

I drew out a few core themes from the conversation as takeaways up at the top. The full anonymized discussion is reproduced below. Names have been redacted, and some messages have been rephrased to remove identifying details.

1. Independent verification steps have to be happening. M+E, at minimum, should be validating core program inputs and outputs at the start and end of a theory of change (e.g., in a basic healthcare program, you’d like to know whether the child was actually sick at the start of treatment, and whether they were actually healthy at the end of treatment). It was surprising this seemed to come late to Dispensers for Safe Water.

2. GiveWell probably underestimates implementation difficulty across [...]

---

Outline:

(00:44) Core Takeaways

(02:45) The Discussion

---

First published:
May 17th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ru3wySwYkuwmwuaDW/global-health-charity-founders-on-givewell-evidence-action

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“In Development: Discussion Thread” by Toby Tremlett🔹, Lauren Gilbert, ncoca, Enlli McAleese, Charles Kenny

Sat, 16 May 2026 23:00:17 GMT

In Development is "a new magazine dedicated to exploring how progress happens — or doesn’t happen — in the developing world".

This week (May 11-17), the EA Forum is collaborating with the magazine to bring you their first batch of articles[1], along with their authors[2], ready to answer your questions. Lauren Gilbert, the magazine's editor-in-chief, will also be present in this thread to answer questions about the magazine itself.

You can ask questions here in the thread, or on the individual posts.

Read all the articles

Thanks to In Development for working with us to make this happen! You can subscribe to their Substack on the link below:

Subscribe to In Development

Participants in this thread:

@Lauren Gilbert is the Editor in Chief of In Development, as well as a non-resident fellow at the Centre for British Progress, the Energy for Growth Hub, and the Roots of Progress Institute. Her writing has appeared in The Economist, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, Works in Progress, and Asterisk. She has previously been a program manager at Renaissance Philanthropy, a research fellow at Open Philanthropy, as well as a theoretical neutrino astrophysicist.

@Charles Kenny is a Senior Fellow at the Center [...]

---

First published:
May 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gjxjuJDeoWBs4oPcH/in-development-discussion-thread

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Salary Sacrifices Are Donations. Let’s Treat Them as Such.” by Christoph Hartmann 🔸

Sat, 16 May 2026 18:45:18 GMT

TLDR

NGOs pay less than for-profits.
Employees accept this because they have impact.
This makes employees implicit donors to the NGOs
NGOs should account for this in cost-effectiveness calculations
This is a coordination problem and can only be solved as a movement
Salary sacrifice is more tax-efficient than donating the money
This would make finding talent for pressing problems much easier
It is a problem EA is uniquely positioned to solve

In this post, I use "salary sacrifice" informally to mean voluntarily accepting compensation below one's market alternative. I do not mean the formal payroll or tax arrangement called “salary sacrifice” in some jurisdictions.

Measuring impact

How do you measure your impact of working at an NGO? You could try analyzing your replaceability, but that's hard and pretty contested. Or you could just look at the "input" - donations vs the "output" - impact, and divide it up.

For example: Let's assume the Against Malaria Foundation managed to save one life. They did this with EUR 3000 donations raised. From those donations they paid salaries, bednets, research and evaluation.

The Against Malaria Foundation "sells" that impact to their donors. As a donor, you can "buy" one life saved [...]

---

Outline:

(00:12) TLDR

(01:00) Measuring impact

(02:24) Implications for cost effectiveness analyses

(03:30) This is a coordination problem

(05:14) Salary sacrifices are tax efficient

(06:09) What does this mean for career choice?

(07:09) Whats there to lose?

---

First published:
May 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/emzoKk4RS3aGEgyJF/salary-sacrifices-are-donations-let-s-treat-them-as-such

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “How I think about catastrophic biological risk (part I)” by ASB

Sat, 16 May 2026 13:00:18 GMT

This is a link post.

Our mission is to protect humanity against biological catastrophes, including those that could lead to human extinction or cause similarly bad outcomes. This series of posts outlines how I think about these most extreme types of risks. My goal here is to share my worldview in a straightforward and compressed form rather than trying to persuade a skeptical audience, although I do share some of my reasoning.

Part I describes my views on the sources of risk and what that implies for how to prioritize response to a biological catastrophe. Part II, describes sources of risk and what that implies for prevention efforts.

TLDR: We can solve the vast majority of existential biological risk by ubiquitously deploying simple and cheap countermeasures like PPE, air filters, UVC, etc. My takes are:

>99% of existential risk is from engineered threats, <1% natural threats
>95% of existential risk is targeting humans, <5% targeting agriculture or the environment
The space of possible human-targeted attacks is basically infinite, so predicting cures or vaccines in advance is hopeless…
…but the space of physical pathways into a human body is both finite and small, which means, if this is true…
…we [...]

---

Outline:

(02:13) Direct vs. indirect existential risk

(03:26) Natural vs. engineered

(04:36) Targeting human bodies vs. agriculture vs environment

(08:09) The space of human-targeted biological threats is vast and unpredictable

(10:15) Can we affordably block ~all human-targeted biological risk? (and thus ~all catastrophic bio risk?)

(13:47) A surprisingly hopeful conclusion

The original text contained 12 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
May 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2j9xh7CmFjWktCWhR/how-i-think-about-catastrophic-biological-risk-part-i

Linkpost URL:
https://defensesindepth.bio/how-i-think-about-catastrophic-biological-risk-part-i/

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Review: The Dying Trade” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Sat, 16 May 2026 07:45:17 GMT

Crosspost.

I first watched the YouTube videos of Jack Hancock in high school, and they might be where I first heard the case for the moral significance of wild animal suffering. I met Jack at EAG London last year. He recently released a film called The Dying Trade: it is one of the best films I’ve watched, and I recommend you watch it.

Jack is a vegan activist. His father is a slaughterhouse worker. A big part of the film is spent reckoning with that fact, thinking about how we should treat those we are close to, when they work in an industry dedicated to systematic killing.

In college, Jack learned what happens to animals on factory farms. He went vegan and annoyed the people around him by telling them to do the same (so relatable!). He became an activist and started making YouTube videos. For the first time, he seriously grappled with the facts about what his father does—that his father works in the industry that Jack considers to be the cruelest on Earth, where his day job is to kill.

The film introduces us to a roving band of characters.

First, of course, are the animals. [...]

---

First published:
May 15th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5EMt9awTxXc5pDrfq/review-the-dying-trade

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Talent Constraints in AI Safety: What We Know and What We Don’t” by Weronika Żurek 🔸

Fri, 15 May 2026 14:45:18 GMT

Summary

AI safety is constrained on talent in many ways, but the reasons behind the constraints vary between types of talent. This post is based on all posts and documents I could find from the past ~ 3 years related to hiring needs and talent pipelines, which I have listed in this document.

Technical research talent - we have strong talent pipelines delivering young researchers to the field, but we are constrained on more senior researchers who could mentor the juniors, e.g., as research managers. We might also need more talent to work on AI security.

Policy and governance talent - there is some infrastructure bringing talent to work on policy and governance, but it's not as robust as for technical research. The information about what is needed in this sub-field is quite scarce, but some data points to the need for talent that combines technical and policy skills, and for experienced political operators.

Generalist talent - finding candidates for operational and fieldbuilding roles is challenging across the field. In particular, talent with deep context of AI safety and senior operators are scarce. There are few talent development programs bringing skilled generalists to the field.

Grantmaking talent - just [...]

---

Outline:

(00:12) Summary

(02:28) Introduction

(16:28) Ops and fieldbuilding (generalist) constraint

(18:58) Now that weve clarified that: are we constrained on fieldbuilders and operators?

(23:39) Grantmakers

(29:25) Scaling

(29:51) Leadership

(32:57) Founding new organisations

(34:59) Scaling the existing organisations

(37:12) Limitations & caveats

(38:36) Some information that I think should be published, but its not

---

First published:
May 14th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NrYkhgh6ZGrGtxxnc/talent-constraints-in-ai-safety-what-we-know-and-what-we-don

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“My Dad Worked in a Slaughterhouse. I Made a Documentary About It.” by Jack Hancock-Fairs

Wed, 13 May 2026 21:15:17 GMT

I’m an EA who has been trying to find ways to make animal suffering more salient. I’ve been working on a feature-length documentary called ‘The Dying Trade’ for the last 5 years and I’ve just released it on YouTube.

I’m sharing it here for two reasons: firstly, because I hope it can become a useful resource that advocates share with others as an introduction to animal ethics; and secondly, because strong engagement in the early days will help YouTube recommend the film to more people, increasing its impact.

Trailer:

Full film:

About the film

Jack is a vegan activist. His father is a slaughterhouse worker. After years of avoiding the subject, Jack sets out to confront the unspoken tension between them. This intimate and contemplative documentary follows a son's attempt to understand his father - and the industry that stands between them.

I didn’t really want to make a documentary about my relationship with my father. At times, it was quite uncomfortable.

For the last 8 years or so, I’ve been trying to increase the salience of animal suffering, primarily through producing videos on my YouTube channel: Humane Hancock. And one thing has always been [...]

---

First published:
May 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NkXb6hP38MReioe6Z/my-dad-worked-in-a-slaughterhouse-i-made-a-documentary-about

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “How to Actually Spend Billions on AI Safety” by Sophie Kim

Wed, 13 May 2026 21:00:18 GMT

This is a link post.

Cross-posted from The Counterfactual by the Forum Team.

Subtitle: A concrete strategy for deploying the largest wave of philanthropic capital in history

The OpenAI Foundation holds $180 billion in equity. Anthropic's co-founders have pledged to donate 80% of their wealth. When the time comes to spend all this money, what should we actually do with it?

Here's my best guess.

The problem: scaling what we have is not enough

When most people think about how to solve AI safety, they think about what we’re already doing, and how to scale it up. Concretely, this looks like: scaling fellowships like MATS, Pivotal, and ERA; investing more money into AI safety research organizations like Redwood, METR, and MIRI; and perhaps, more recently, expanding programs like the Generator Residency.

This is important work, but it is not sufficient to win.

The Maven system that killed 120 children in Minab wasn’t misaligned. Claude didn’t go rogue. The system did exactly what it was designed to do.

The failure was that no government framework existed to regulate how AI gets integrated into military kill chains, how fast targeting decisions can be compressed, or what human oversight is required before a [...]

---

Outline:

(03:01) 1. Billions into mass media and movement building

(07:37) 2. Billions into political infrastructure

(09:42) 3. Build the capacity to deploy the rest

(10:01) a. Solve the grantmaker bottleneck

(11:38) b. Poach top technical talent

(12:31) c. Address the generalist bottleneck

(13:11) d. Fix fellowship pipelines

(13:46) Conclusion

---

First published:
May 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/npgwfZ6GpypGPKgyZ/how-to-actually-spend-billions-on-ai-safety

Linkpost URL:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-197142434

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“AI safety is extremely bottlenecked on grantmakers” by lukeprog

Wed, 13 May 2026 20:30:18 GMT

Last month, Anthropic announced Mythos Preview, the most powerful cyberweapon in history, capable of finding and exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in every major operating system and web browser. Meanwhile, many frontier AI company employees increasingly expect full automation of AI R&D in the next year or two, followed by the rapid automation of thousands of other important tasks and jobs.

This pace of technological change is unprecedented, and the world is not prepared. Very little of the commercial, government, and nonprofit infrastructure we need to respond to these transformative changes has been built.

To meet this challenge, dozens of philanthropists are hoping to deploy tens of billions of dollars in philanthropy and impact investments in AI safety and governance in the next several years alone.[1] But most of this capital is bottlenecked on a tiny number of grant and investment advisors who can identify and vet specific funding opportunities, and create new ones by headhunting project founders.

That's why the AI teams at Coefficient Giving (CG) are hiring grantmakers and senior generalists, and why I think the next people we hire will be among the highest-leverage people in AI safety.[2] Please apply here.

As a new [...]

The original text contained 8 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
May 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/B6d8Wzk4gNzHsXvdi/ai-safety-is-extremely-bottlenecked-on-grantmakers

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Alpha-Gal is Bad, Especially for Farmed Animals” by Jonathan Bostock

Wed, 13 May 2026 15:45:17 GMT

This is a link post.

Disclaimer: I’m not vegan. I’m not even vegetarian. I eat meat all the time. I’ve been a firm critic of efforts to objectively quantify the difference in suffering across very different species. That said, I cannot help but agree that eating meat is probably the morally worst thing I do, and I also have to agree that eating different kinds of meat are different levels of bad. Eating 1 kg of chicken basically entails eating an entire chicken, which most likely lived in truly awful conditions, while 1 kg of beef is less than 1% of a cow, and which probably did not live in quite as awful conditions.

That said, let's talk Alpha-Gal. Suppose you get bitten by this unsavoury little bugger:

Via Wikimedia

It's a Lone Star Tick. This tick has recently ingested some animal blood, containing galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose (alpha-gal). The tick's bite spits a little bit of alpha-gal into you, and your immune system freaks out about it. The mechanism is a little hazy, but the result is well-documented: you can’t eat anything with the alpha-gal molecule in it. This includes beef, pork, venison, basically any mammalian meat source, even cows’ milk.

While [...]

---

Outline:

(02:04) The Ethics

(03:49) Can We Do Anything?

(05:35) How Much Should We Care?

---

First published:
May 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uMorW2xWtzDtR2yq3/alpha-gal-is-bad-especially-for-farmed-animals

Linkpost URL:
https://jbostock.substack.com/p/alpha-gal-is-bad-especially-for-farmed

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “We don’t know why Malawi is poor — and what that means for AI-and-growth forecasts” by Deena Mousa

Wed, 13 May 2026 09:45:44 GMT

This is a link post.

I had a conversation with someone who claimed offhandedly that AI will dramatically raise agricultural productivity (via agritech advancements) in low-income countries and trigger growth as a result. My instinct was to respond that we've already had substantial advancements in agricultural technology, and yet it hasn't resulted in the magnitude of yield growth, let alone economic growth, you'd expect in many countries. We'd need to explain that before knowing how AI-driven innovation will be different.

I work through this question via Malawi. It's a useful case because all the usual scapegoats don't apply (no war, no resource curse, peaceful democracy), but the economy is still dominated by subsistence farming.

The argument is that the binding constraint on growth in cases like Malawi is not technological, and that AI-driven productivity gains may hit the same arrangement that absorbed the previous ones unless the forecast specifies how that changes.

Curious what people working on AI-and-growth scenarios or on Malawi specifically make of this.

---

First published:
May 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/g6NPsynWFaQb4mAEJ/we-don-t-know-why-malawi-is-poor-and-what-that-means-for-ai

Linkpost URL:
https://open.substack.com/pub/deenamousa/p/we-dont-know-why-malawi-is-poor

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The AIs seem like EAs — a quick look at two prompts” by trammell

Tue, 12 May 2026 18:45:42 GMT

Overview

When asked about how they would give away money, or about how to have a moral career, the leading LLMs typically give answers in an EA spirit, and informed by thinking from people and organizations in the EA community. In many cases the term “effective altruism”, and/or EA jargon, are used explicitly.

The flavor of EA they tend to endorse is relatively middle of the road: supporting effective global health charities with their money and recommending existential risk reduction, especially via AI risk, as the most moral career.

Grok, in line with xAI's mission for it, emphasizes that it values space exploration and truth-seeking, e.g. via funding scientific research. But to my reading, the EA tendency doesn’t seem more pronounced in Claude than in ChatGPT or Gemini. So it's probably not a result of explicit effort by AI developers in the EA community, but a reflection of the reality that, with respect to some very broad moral questions, answers proposed by people in the EA orbit have become a sort of common sense.

This is a remarkable accomplishment. Indeed, if these answers tell us much about how the models will behave when given more autonomy, this could be [...]

---

Outline:

(00:10) Overview

(02:18) Prompts

(03:40) Results

(03:57) Scoring procedure

(05:41) Summary

(07:00) Full scores

---

First published:
May 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BEjbvCvNLuRk9y4Su/the-ais-seem-like-eas-a-quick-look-at-two-prompts

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Money for nothing: the roles of evidence in GiveDirectly’s journey to $1 billion delivered” by Dane Valerie

Tue, 12 May 2026 13:45:38 GMT

This is a crosspost of the full text of Money for nothing: the roles of evidence in GiveDirectly's journey to $1 billion delivered from In Development, made for the EA Forum's In Development Highlight Week. GiveDirectly will be taking part in the discussion thread, but the author, Paul Niehaus, may not see your comments here.

If you enjoy the article, you can subscribe to In Development's substack here.

Is it nuts to give cash to the poor without strings attached?

That's not a rhetorical question; it's the headline the New York Times ran the first time they covered GiveDirectly. My co-founders and I had a mild panic. We had been hoping, I suppose, for something benign and puffy along the lines of “New Charity Founded by Thoughtful Econ PhDs Is a Great Idea.”

The truth is of course that that piece did what it needed to do, which was to speak to its audience where they were at. At the time (i.e., in 2011) most New York Times readers probably did think it was nuts—or, at best, naive—to give out money for nothing. And one can hardly blame them. They had been fed a steady diet [...]

---

Outline:

(05:07) Cash transfers and causal evidence

(17:22) From evidence to empowerment tool

(26:29) Normative choices in positive economics

---

First published:
May 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jhxNNNALQgrFSseDg/money-for-nothing-the-roles-of-evidence-in-givedirectly-s

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Exporters Without Borders: Why You Should Start a Company Instead of Working in Aid” by Dane Valerie

Mon, 11 May 2026 17:45:14 GMT

This is a crosspost of the full text of Exporters Without Borders: Why You Should Start a Company Instead of Working in Aid from In Development, made for the EA Forum's In Development Highlight Week.

If you enjoy the article, you can subscribe to In Development's substack here.

June Jambiha was a quintessential hustler. Like many in Kenya's capital of Nairobi, she sold clothing as an informal entrepreneur, her income in 2018 swinging wildly, from $400 one month to $60 the next. This uncertainty made it nearly impossible to plan: hard to save, borrow, or commit to anything beyond the next week. But in Kenya, where over 80% of jobs are informal, hustling was less a choice than the only option available.

June joined my company, Wasoko, a B2B e-commerce platform linking small shops to large manufacturers, as a telesales agent. Her starting pay was lower than her best month selling clothing, but, for the first time, it was predictable. She knew what would land in her account the following month and the month after that. More than the money, though, there was an upward trajectory: her career could grow. Joining Wasoko didn’t just give June a [...]

---

Outline:

(01:29) Entrepreneurship by Default

(02:52) Effective Entrepreneurship

(06:20) Creating Firms in Poor Countries

(11:15) Does This Still Work?

(17:52) Founders Journey

(23:15) Beyond Wasoko

---

First published:
May 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dy5tt2FmYXEybDZgg/exporters-without-borders-why-you-should-start-a-company-1

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Effective Altruism Australia is launching a new podcast - designed for a broad audience” by GraceAdams🔸

Mon, 11 May 2026 17:15:14 GMT

More Than Good is a new podcast from Effective Altruism Australia, aimed at introducing the ideas and principles of effective altruism to a broader audience. The episodes are framed around moral questions and how people think about doing good, covering topics like global inequality, animal welfare, ethics, philosophy and more.

For a global movement, there is relatively little content that is accessible for people who are unfamiliar with EA's ideas, or who want an easier introduction. There is also limited content from "Effective Altruism" branded organisations that is deliberately designed to be a first point of contact. We have deliberately designed More Than Good to fill this gap, including making it suitable for short form video to grow casual engagement on platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn.

Our theory of change is that the podcast will introduce people to key ideas in effective altruism and create a positive impression of the movement as one that thinks hard about how to do good. We hope this flows through to people wanting to learn more - whether that's donating via our platform, signing up to an intro course, or joining another community program.

We expect to measure success via engagement and reach [...]

---

First published:
May 11th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NZCksTDr7yLKRQzzd/effective-altruism-australia-is-launching-a-new-podcast

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“How AI in Context approaches thumbnails” by ChanaMessinger

Mon, 11 May 2026 07:15:34 GMT

I used an LLM to help draft this post, but I’ve edited/rewritten it extensively and endorse it.

Writing up our current approach to thumbnails, which is nowhere near perfect, for easy shareability and cross-pollination of lessons. Would love to hear what other people are trying!

Making thumbnails

We're lucky enough to have folks at 80k with great design instincts. We work with them as well as with some external folks, but finding great people is harder than we expected. Let us know if this is something you or someone you know would be great at!

We iterate way more than people expect

Every video gets ~dozens of thumbnail variations, most of which are made after launch. You can see the full set of data on our IABIED thumbnails here.

I believe 2/3 of our winning thumbnails (maybe all 3) were made after launch. It's pretty hard to predict ahead of time which thumbnails will do well.

We launch with a few thumbnails we're excited about, a/b/c testing them
1. We tried pre-launch testing via paid ads once, didn't correlate well, but we haven't tried super intensely
We iterate from there. If one is doing well, or [...]

---

Outline:

(00:27) Making thumbnails

(00:45) We iterate way more than people expect

(02:48) What weve learned

---

First published:
May 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vCJ8CmJbHLeqD3myx/how-ai-in-context-approaches-thumbnails

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “10 big projects for reducing bio x-risk” by cwbakerlee

Mon, 11 May 2026 02:15:35 GMT

This is a link post.

Engineered pathogens pose a grave threat to society, plausibly constituting an existential risk[1] (‘x-risk’) to humanity.[2]

Yet remarkably few people are working full-time on this problem. By my count, there are ~160 people on the planet whose full-time job is reducing bio x-risk.[3] This entire group could fit on a single short-haul flight. As one point of comparison, something like 200+ organizations are working on AI safety – a problem area that is neglected in its own right (relative to its scale).[4]

This is bad. We have a short bench, and only limited time to solve this problem: AI is advancing quickly, and in the near term I expect advances to help attackers more than defenders.

We urgently need more talented people who want in on this mission. We’re especially short on people who can truly own crucial projects, approaching them with good judgment, entrepreneurial drive, and a mix of desperation and impatience sufficient to see them through to completion, and quickly.

But what should these people actually… do?

Below is a list of 10 important projects that I’d be excited to see people work on and own. This draws on ideas my Coefficient Giving [...]

---

Outline:

(03:49) Projects Id be excited to see people work on and own

(03:54) 1. Ensure PPE stockpiles and emergency distribution systems are in place in X country

(05:15) 2. Ensure systematic red-teaming of gene synthesis and AIxBio safeguards

(06:33) 3. Create and use demos to communicate AI-bio uplift to policymakers

(07:44) 4. Ensure strong, sensible mirror life policy is effective in X country

(09:03) 5. Develop rigorously tested DIY protocols for converting bedrooms into cleanrooms

(10:27) 6. Develop rigorously tested DIY protocols for making respirators out of common household materials

(11:46) 7. Scalably monitor particle concentrations inside clean spaces and respirators

(12:44) 8. Boost countries food stockpiles by 25%, especially countries with high industrial capacity

(13:47) 9. Raise awareness of engineered pandemic risks, especially among people who can do something about it

(14:39) 10. Headhunt the leads for these and many other projects

(16:13) Appendix: How this all fits into the bigger picture

---

First published:
May 9th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hRnoGze2FuhHpFTrh/10-big-projects-for-reducing-bio-x-risk

Linkpost URL:
https://defensesindepth.bio/10-big-projects-for-reducing-bio-x-risk/

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Reflections on Anthropic and EA” by abrahamrowe

Sun, 10 May 2026 18:45:35 GMT

LLM disclosure: I wrote this post myself, then asked an LLM to copy-edit it before posting. I manually made any edits I liked and copy-pasted no text from the LLM (my current practice for using LLMs in writing that I care about).

This is crossposted from my blog.

These are personal reflections on feelings that I’ve been sitting with recently. I’m posting them, because the last time I felt this way I regretted not doing so. I don’t really know how calibrated they are, but I’ve been noticing them more and more.

Around 6 months before FTX collapsed, I wrote a draft EA Forum post called “Concerns about the Carrick Flynn campaign.” At the time, I was on the verge of leaving EA. During the frothiest FTX days it seemed like many folks were energized by the money and attention, but I felt kind of gross. The amount of money pouring into EA, and the resulting “lowering of the bar” that happened felt like a degradation of community norms that was too severe, almost not worth the benefits. Of course, some people voiced these concerns at the time, but they were drowned out by the excitement of the moment.

[...]

---

First published:
May 10th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/io3cqZeToEKsZEZWG/reflections-on-anthropic-and-ea

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Yoshua Bengio thinks he knows how to build safe superintelligence” by 80000_Hours

Fri, 08 May 2026 22:45:35 GMT

This is a link post.

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

Episode summary

I want my children to live in a world where they will have a future and there will be a democracy for them to live in. Even a 1% chance of something going really, really bad is not acceptable to me. So I think it is really important that we explore all the possible promising ways to solve the technical issues. … The stakes are so high, we should try multiple approaches.

— Yoshua Bengio

Hundreds of millions already turn to AI on the most personal of topics — therapy, political opinions, and how to treat others. And as AI takes over more of the economy, the character of these systems will shape culture on an even grander scale, ultimately becoming “the personality of most of the world's workforce.”

The co-inventor of modern AI and the most cited living scientist believes he's figured out how to ensure AI is honest, incapable of deception, and never goes rogue. Yoshua Bengio — Turing Award Winner and founder of LawZero — is disturbed by the many unintended drives and goals present [...]

---

Outline:

(00:21) Episode summary

(03:11) Highlights

(03:15) Can Scientist AI become an agent?

(05:43) Might Scientist AI actually be more capable than competitors?

(08:41) Were in a race against time: next steps for LawZero

(11:22) Yoshuas request for AI companies

(12:44) Yoshua thinks humans are now the scarier threat

(16:21) Why Yoshua changed his mind about AI risk

---

First published:
May 7th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oTBThbHvhryf5wYTt/yoshua-bengio-thinks-he-knows-how-to-build-safe

Linkpost URL:
https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/yoshua-bengio-scientist-ai/

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Coefficient Giving is hiring grantmakers and senior generalists across our Global Catastrophic Risks teams” by Coefficient Giving

Fri, 08 May 2026 20:15:35 GMT

TL;DR: Coefficient Giving is running a major hiring round for 10+ grantmakers and senior generalists across five Global Catastrophic Risks (GCR) teams. We're allocating around $1 billion in 2026 across AI safety and catastrophic biorisk, and we’re acutely capacity-constrained. Apply here by May 17.

Why we’re hiring

A core premise of our work is that if a global catastrophe caused by transformative AI or biotechnology could be prevented by funding and isn't, we consider it our responsibility. The work our GCR teams fund today — from technical AI safety research and governance to biosecurity and pandemic preparedness — will shape how well humanity navigates some of the most consequential decisions of the coming decade. Timelines to transformative AI appear to be shortening: there's an overwhelming amount of work to do to make this go well, and quite plausibly only a few years to do it.

We expect to move around $1 billion in GCR grants in 2026 (and significantly more in future years), but we're significantly understaffed relative to the opportunities in front of us. We've previously helped jump-start the field of AI safety and address other existential threats like mirror bacteria, and we want to do considerably more.

[...]

---

Outline:

(00:37) Why were hiring

(01:52) What were looking for

---

First published:
May 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sHF2yjAnNNhxZ56jf/coefficient-giving-is-hiring-grantmakers-and-senior

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“80,000 Hours is hiring a lot right now — come join us!” by 80000_Hours

Fri, 08 May 2026 18:30:35 GMT

This forum post was first drafted using an LLM to summarise information from human-written job postings and was then edited/adjusted by hiring managers. The primary author/coordinator is Arden Koehler.

Overview

80,000 Hours has eight open positions across our advising, operations, video, and web teams, plus three expressions of interest open for video and operations roles.
We're trying to scale up significantly this year — staff capacity is one of our biggest bottlenecks, and we'd love to hire more people who care about helping make advanced AI go well for the world. We recently grew to 50 staff and plan to grow more.
If you've ever wanted to work at 80,000 Hours, now is a good time to apply. Application deadlines fall between May 25 and June 7, 2026.
If you don’t see a role here that interests you, check back on our website later – there will be more posted soon, including a role in our marketing team.
And if you're not interested in applying but you know someone who might be a great fit, we'd love referrals! Email recruiting@80000hours.org and indicate that it's a referral and the role the referral is for in the subject line. If we hire someone you introduced us [...]

---

Outline:

(00:24) Overview

(01:45) Open positions

(01:52) Career services team

(02:48) Operations team

(04:16) Video team

(05:58) Web team

(07:05) Expressions of interest

---

First published:
May 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4wafpx8DSn2dBDLRf/80-000-hours-is-hiring-a-lot-right-now-come-join-us

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “The tables have turned on AI sceptics” by Stefan_Schubert

Fri, 08 May 2026 02:45:20 GMT

This is a link post.

Could we have human-level AI within the next few decades? For a long time, many people have dismissed this idea as armchair speculation. In their view, we shouldn’t ground our beliefs about transformative technologies in vague hunches and fragile multi-step arguments. We need more solid evidence, like clear empirical trends. We need to be epistemically conservative.

I have some conservative instincts myself, but I’m not sure they favour long AI timelines anymore. That might have been the case ten or even five years ago, but things have changed.

Bio Anchors

It's no accident that the AI timelines debate long lacked empirical grounding. While climate change has a natural metric – temperature – AI progress doesn’t. As a result, forecasts have often relied on intuition.

But in recent years, some researchers have tried to put timeline forecasting on a firmer empirical footing. One attempt that received plenty of attention was Ajeya Cotra's Bio Anchors report (2020), which plotted compute projections against estimates of the human brain's compute usage. The model produced multiple forecasts of when it would become feasible to train transformative AI, with a median date around 2052.

Bio Anchors was an impressive research effort [...]

---

Outline:

(00:47) Bio Anchors

(02:17) Capability benchmarks

(03:38) Revenue growth

(04:50) Expert surveys

---

First published:
May 7th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qtfX67cC4tij2zoKC/the-tables-have-turned-on-ai-sceptics

Linkpost URL:
https://www.update.news/p/the-tables-have-turned-on-ai-sceptics

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Save Our Pigs!” by LewisBollard

Thu, 07 May 2026 19:45:20 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: The pork lobby is one farm bill away from gutting our strongest farm animal welfare laws

Last Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed a farm bill containing the “Save Our Bacon” Act. The Act's stated aim is narrow: to wipe out California and Massachusetts’ bans on the sale of pork from pigs confined in gestation crates.

Its reach is much wider. The Act would stop any state or locality from regulating the sale of meat based on how it's produced in another state. This would likely invalidate state and local bans on foie gras, crated veal, and more.

It would also halt future legislative progress. Congress hasn't passed a farm animal welfare law in decades. State laws are where reforms actually happen. The SOB Act would gut them by mandating they contain a giant loophole for out-of-state imports.

The Act has two notable exemptions. One is welcome: state bans on the sale of caged eggs aren’t covered. The other is telling: state [...]

---

First published:
May 7th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kTo9z5bscb4wQrkqs/save-our-pigs

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“New EA Forum LLM-use policy” by Toby Tremlett🔹

Thu, 07 May 2026 12:00:20 GMT

New policy:

You are welcome to use AI to help you write posts, but we ask that you disclose it when you do. Not disclosing that your post is AI-assisted could mean a rate-limit or a ban.[1] We won’t enforce this policy for comments and quick takes, though we’d appreciate a norm of disclosure there as well.
We are (and have been) moving more low quality or off-topic writing off of the Frontpage. Fully AI written text is (at time of writing) overwhelmingly likely to be one of these.

More detail:

Disclosure: If it is likely that there is substantial portions of AI-generated text[2] in your post at time of publishing, you must note this at the top of your post. You are not required to note if you used AI for research/ ideation. If you read a post which seems AI-generated, and you don’t see a disclosure — please report it.
- To help get you started, we added a button to our post editor that provides some example disclosure statements. Like so:
- If you’re unsure if your case applies, feel free to ask the Forum team before publishing.
Removing content [...]

---

Outline:

(00:10) New policy:

(00:43) More detail:

(02:13) Reasoning:

(04:16) Good and bad uses of LLMs

(04:31) Examples of recommended use of LLMs

(05:46) Examples of discouraged use of LLMs

---

First published:
May 7th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bxA9fsY9Psgarcq6e/new-ea-forum-llm-use-policy

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“The EA case for an EA Group House + how to start one (its easy!)” by Jen baik

Thu, 07 May 2026 11:45:20 GMT

I started 2 EA(ish) group houses now, so I figured there's an opportunity to share my experience and how you too can start one!

There's a whole substack dedicated to community living, so I'll stick to the EA lens of it.

Note: My experiences are based in NYC and SF, which have a nice flow of travelers & concentration of like-minded folks. I also lived in ~4 group houses/communities prior to starting my own.

What is a Group House? (aka Intentional/Community Living)

Well, there's a few levels.

Baseline: Cohabiting

Multiple people (3+) cohabit in a single abode. There's common spaces like the kitchen or living room.

Level 1: Friendly

You like to talk to each other in common spaces.

Level 2: Spending Time

You join in on serendipitous activities happening inside the house - joining someone playing video games or watching a movie. Cooking and sharing food.

Level 3: Intentionality

You initiate house activities, have active rituals ((like weekly house meetings or monthly brunch), communication channels beyond necessary logistics (sending memes or interesting articles). You enjoy spending time together inside or outside the house.

Level 4: Schelling Point Hub

Your house is a schelling point [...]

---

Outline:

(00:40) What is a Group House? (aka Intentional/Community Living)

(01:50) Things That Happened to Me Because I Lived in an EA Group House

(02:04) I became AI Safety-pilled!

(02:30) We hosted a slew of out-of-towners visiting

(03:00) I got connected to opportunities.

(03:18) We became a somewhat informal Schelling point.

(03:41) Misconceptions

(03:45) Im an introvert.

(04:10) Do you just talk about EA all the time? Is it just a prolonged EA meetup in your home?

(04:36) I dont know anyone to start this with. None of my friends want to do a group house.

(05:08) Great For...

(05:50) Not Great For...

(06:25) Heres How

(06:28) 1. Plant a Flag (Find a Place to Rent)

(06:52) 2. Find People (What most people are afraid of. Indeed, the most legwork.)

(07:20) 3. Have a Vision

(07:37) 4. Select and Sign the House

(07:45) 5. House Governance & Logistics

(08:50) 6. Things That Might Happen Over Time

(09:09) Ask: In the comments, share your experience of the EA Group House life!

(09:28) Resources

---

First published:
May 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/g84GTm6BcKwxCjYXq/the-ea-case-for-an-ea-group-house-how-to-start-one-its-easy

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“AMA: Svetha Janumpalli, CEO and Founder of New Incentives” by Svetha Janumpalli

Thu, 07 May 2026 11:15:20 GMT

I'm Svetha Janumpalli, founder and CEO of New Incentives. We run a conditional cash transfer program in northern Nigeria that provides small incentives to caregivers to complete routine infant vaccination schedules.

Today, we operate across over 7,000 clinics and have enrolled 6.8 million infants.

GiveWell's most recent analysis suggests our program is substantially more cost-effective than earlier estimates.

Our program currently costs roughly $16 per infant enrolled. During our RCT period, we averaged ~27,000 monthly cash transfers. In 2025, we averaged over 760,000 per month, a ~28× increase.

While we’re confident in the core results, there are still important open questions, particularly around long-term effects, scalability to new contexts, and how the model performs outside our current operating areas. We are interested in testing whether variations of the model can work in lower-density or differently constrained settings.

I’d love to answer your questions about what we’ve learned along the way, and I’m happy to engage on detailed or critical questions. We’ve learned a lot from mistakes and ongoing uncertainty. A few areas I'm especially happy to dig into:

Operations and scale. What it takes to go from a small pilot to thousands of clinics in northern [...]

---

First published:
May 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aqyGLEvmbCrwyNHvH/ama-svetha-janumpalli-ceo-and-founder-of-new-incentives

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Effective Altruism focused on bednets while a malaria vaccine was stuck for 35 years. The case for Abundance.” by abiolvera

Thu, 07 May 2026 02:00:09 GMT

This post was cross-posted from Positive Sum by the Forum team. The author notes: I'm not saying every abundance goal meets this bar, e.g. high speed rail in America would not. This post is intended as a clarifying abundance's relation to EA, rather than a criticism of EA prioritization.

Subtitle: Functional governance and democracy helps many EA cause areas. A thousand small government failures compound into civilizational risk.

This piece is written for the effective altruism community, people focused on finding the highest-impact ways to do good, especially through a lens of whether something is important, tractable, and neglected. I’m giving a version of this piece as a talk at EA Global x DC next week.

Effective Altruism has a great track record. In 2023 alone, an EA-backed organization prevented 40,000 deaths and 20 million malaria cases. Another moved over $1 billion in cash directly to the world's poorest families and changed how USAID measures its own effectiveness.

But EA has a blind spot: systems change. It's harder to measure, the benefits are diffuse, and it seems less tractable. But it's often more impactful.

China's decision to liberalize its economy lifted hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty. The [...]

---

Outline:

(01:51) We focused on bednets while a malaria vaccine was stuck for 35 years

(02:49) Abundance, at its core, is responsive governance

(03:36) Why abundance is important

(08:21) Why abundance is neglected

(09:31) Why abundance is tractable

(10:24) What this means for AI risk

(11:31) The movement needs people

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
May 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LtwbmXhNouBBGGBzL/effective-altruism-focused-on-bednets-while-a-malaria

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“I made a graphic of the expanding moral circle - free to use” by Trevor Woolley

Wed, 06 May 2026 18:15:16 GMT

The "expanding moral circle" -- the idea that moral concern has (or, at least, should) widened over time from family, to community, to nation, to all humanity, and (arguably) outward to all sentient beings -- was developed by W.E.H. Lecky (1869) and popularized by Peter Singer in The Expanding Circle (1981). This concept is has really resonated with me throughout the years and eventually led to me study farm animal welfare as an academic economist.

Naturally, I was looking around for a visualization of it that I liked enough to hang on my office wall and replace the simpler one in my slide deck, but nothing was cutting it.

So I made one.

A few notes on the design: composition, layout, and curation are mine; illustrations were generated with ChatGPT and edited in Canva (~20 hours total). I tried to make the inner rings feel intimate and the outer rings feel expansive, with subjects (people, species) chosen to span all continents. I intentionally included invertebrates and farm animals, with a hen taking center stage at the bottom to highlight the enormous anthropogenic suffering that billions of chickens face every day.

To convey a sense of "mind-opening," all circles [...]

---

First published:
May 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3jcCaZjNrgjJD4oFp/i-made-a-graphic-of-the-expanding-moral-circle-free-to-use

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Surviving Mirror Life: A Manual for Resilience in Buildings: Introduction to the threat, concepts and scenario parameters” by JesseSmith

Wed, 06 May 2026 14:30:37 GMT

Epistemic certainty: Obviously loads of uncertainty on mirror life risks and the degree to which we'd have to pressurize buildings or filter outdoor air. Moderately high certainty for the best hasty pathways for doing this in North American and a narrow subset of European buildings. Lower certainty as we move towards international buildings. Also loads of experiments and field tests are needed, possibly somewhat urgently.

Let's discuss the threat and the parameters around it. I’m neither a scientist nor a risk analyst so we won’t spend much time here. In the future we might have a world in which mirror life is released into the world. Unmitigated, this threat could potentially extinguish all living beings. This might be via accidental leak or an omnicidal person or group. I’m not going to speak to the technical possibilities or likelihoods, but for our purposes, the outdoor air would be poisonous. To be safely inhaled we’d need highly effective filtration (99.999% fine particulate removal).

To be inhabitable buildings would have to be almost entirely resistant to air infiltration. We would achieve this by highly pressurizing buildings, which means we would blow air into them. The two main sources of building leakage are [...]

---

First published:
May 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/b3qTtr9Rt3Lk9vdEo/surviving-mirror-life-a-manual-for-resilience-in-buildings

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“We grew ~10x last year, and are now planning for the next 10x” by Probably Good

Wed, 06 May 2026 13:00:37 GMT

Hey folks! We’ve recently done an internal impact assessment and thought it would be helpful to share its highlights. (Due to capacity constraints, we opted to share the current post rather than wait for a longer and more polished one, but we’re happy to answer questions.)

For context, our goal at Probably Good is to help people build careers that are good for them and for the world. We focus on getting the right people working on the right solutions to the right global problems, and also support people on other valuable paths to impact, like effective giving and community engagement.

The last ~1.5y have been exciting for us. In late 2024, we got an ambitious grant from CG to scale. Our co-founders (Omer & Sella, who built and led PG from the start) moved to our newly established board and, after an extensive search, selected a new Executive Director (Itamar, our former Head of Growth).

Since then, we’ve helped 85+ people transition to impactful careers, representing 17x growth compared to our previous evaluation period (with a few months still left). We’ve also helped 190+ people change their career plans, and 380+ people take 1,100+ positive career actions (like [...]

---

First published:
May 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qdrZYxxcjawvmLBLg/we-grew-10x-last-year-and-are-now-planning-for-the-next-10x

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“New Book — Compassionate Purpose: Personal Inspiration for a Better World” by Magnus Vinding

Tue, 05 May 2026 17:45:25 GMT

“How are we to live, in a world in which there is so much unnecessary suffering? Magnus Vinding looks unflinchingly at that question, and gives an answer that is realistic, and yet inspiring. Read this book. It may change your life.”

— Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation

I have just published a book:

What if the point of self-improvement were not just to feel better or get ahead, but to become more capable of helping in a hurting world?

In Compassionate Purpose, Magnus Vinding bridges self-help and ethics with a framework for personal development in service of a larger goal: reducing extreme suffering. From self-compassion and motivation to habits, relationships, and concrete action, this book is a toolkit for building a life that takes suffering seriously without losing hope or direction.

Start where you are. Build a life that helps.

Free PDF
Free EPUB download
Kindle, paperback, hardcover
Apple Books, Bookshop, Kobo, Vivlio, Thalia

The book completes a three-book series on reducing suffering: Suffering-Focused Ethics explores the moral foundations, Reasoned Politics the political and institutional side, and Compassionate Purpose the personal side.

Why I wrote this book

Psychological hurdles such as burnout, guilt, and feeling paralyzed by [...]

---

Outline:

(01:50) Why I wrote this book

(03:54) Praise for Compassionate Purpose

---

First published:
May 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/D87rkNkNCtHC3X6Ee/new-book-compassionate-purpose-personal-inspiration-for-a

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Goodmaxxing” by Bentham’s Bulldog, William_MacAskill

Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:23 GMT

(Crosspost).

If you’re young and online, you’re probably maxxing something.

Maybe you’re looksmaxxing: trying to maximize your hotness (e.g. by hitting yourself in the face with a hammer). Maybe, like Clavicular, you do it just to mog other people—to look better than they do.

But good looks reach diminishing marginal returns. You get a reasonable boost from going to the gym occasionally, but by the time you’re smashing yourself in the face with a hammer nightly, the additional gains might no longer seem worth the grind. One might even suggest that at that point you’re jestermaxxing.

Fortunately, there's another, better kind of maxxing: goodmaxxing. Goodmaxxers maximize how much good they do, using reason and evidence to guide their actions. Why should you goodmaxx? Because goodmaxxing mogs looksmaxxing. As long as you stay in the goodmaxxing grindset, you can mog all the moneymaxxers, statusmaxxers and rizzmaxxers by doing hundreds of times more than they will to make the world a better place.

Ok, but if you’re goodmaxxing, what exactly is the “good” you’re maxxing? Well, that's ultimately up to you to figure out. But, undeniably (proven beyond five sigma), there's one clear sigma morality, and it's utilitarianism:

It's right there [...]

---

First published:
May 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rEXSjkB4fvcnSksaa/goodmaxxing

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“AIM’s new charity taxonomy” by Aidan Alexander, Morgan Fairless, Ambitious Impact

Mon, 04 May 2026 20:15:23 GMT

0. I don't work at AIM.. why care about this?

This taxonomy is written from AIM's perspective, but it may be helpful more broadly:

If you're starting a new charity, incubating others, or doing charity idea research: The taxonomy gives you a structured way to think about which ideas to pursue, what founder profile fits, and what research and support each idea needs. This is the audience the rest of the post is most directly written for.
If you're at an established org: You can use the taxonomy two ways: (1) To categorize new programs, interventions or strategic pivots (which can be thought of like new charities) with implications for research, staffing and timelines; (2) To map your existing portfolio of interventions to different parts of the taxonomy, with implications for how to think about and manage each intervention.
If you're a funder or grantmaker: The taxonomy may help you think and communicate about how different kinds of organizations will have different journeys to impact (different timelines, milestones and risk profiles), and why holding them to the same standards can sometimes be counterproductive.

1. Why a Taxonomy Matters

Ambitious Impact (AIM)'s incubated charities works across many fields [...]

---

Outline:

(00:12) 0. I dont work at AIM.. why care about this?

(01:25) 1. Why a Taxonomy Matters

(04:29) 2. Target Outcome × Mechanism

(04:34) 2.1. The dimensions

(04:38) 2.1.1. Target outcome

(05:51) 2.1.2. Mechanism

(07:18) 2.2. Implications

(07:33) 3. The Execute-Persuade Spectrum

(07:38) 3.1. The spectrum

(09:14) 3.1.1. Detour: Even execution-dominant ideas involve persuasion

(10:57) 3.2. Collaborative vs. adversarial persuasion

(11:57) 3.3. Implications

(16:12) 4. The Explore-Exploit Spectrum

(16:17) 4.1. The spectrum

(17:43) 4.2. Implications

(22:12) 5. Conclusion

---

First published:
May 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/We4tpvNypH5pyhiaD/aim-s-new-charity-taxonomy

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“If You Do One Thing for Animals This Year, Do This” by Becca Rogers

Mon, 04 May 2026 17:15:52 GMT

There is a short window to prevent a US bill that would overturn decades of animal welfare progress. This is arguably the most consequential piece of farm animal legislation in U.S. history.

Summary

The Farm Bill currently being considered by the U.S. Congress includes the “Save Our Bacon Act”, which would eliminate states' abilities to set standards on how farmed animals are raised and treated¹, and void existing state animal welfare laws. If passed into law, it would undo decades of animal welfare progress, and greatly reduce opportunities for future animal welfare wins.

The Farm Bill has passed the House with the Save Our Bacon Act (SOB) included, and it will soon be considered by the Senate. This is the biggest legislative threat to farmed animal welfare in U.S. history, and preventing the Save Our Bacon Act from passing Congress is the highest impact opportunity to help animals that there has been in years. If you do anything to help animals this year, it should be helping with this.

Call script, email templates, and more here.

What to do

Easiest, highest priority action (5 min): Call and email both your senators, and ask them to publicly [...]

---

Outline:

(00:21) Summary

(01:15) What to do

(04:55) Higher-effort actions

(07:22) Context on the Save Our Bacon (SOB) Act

(07:28) What is the Save Our Bacon (SOB) Act?

(08:23) What would be this laws effect on animal welfare?

(10:08) What is SOBs status in Congress?

(10:57) Strategy

(11:00) What are the goals?

(11:44) Which Senators would be the highest impact to persuade to oppose SOB?

(13:04) How to talk about this with different audiences

(17:00) Footnotes

(17:07) Appendix

(17:10) More details on the goals

(18:32) Which Senators would be the highest impact to persuade to oppose SOB?

---

First published:
May 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vsYphZaBcXpmtNizp/if-you-do-one-thing-for-animals-this-year-do-this-1

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Notes on equanimity from the inside” by stefan.torges

Sun, 03 May 2026 07:15:37 GMT

This is a link post.

I've always thought of myself as even-keeled and equanimous; that my mind is still. In hindsight, I had no idea what I was talking about. Halfway through my second ten-day meditation retreat, I experienced a depth of equanimity that broke my existing frame of reference.

It's hard to convey in words. My reflection afterwards was something like “What the fuck was that?” More poetically: it felt deep and dark, like my entire experience was submerged in a deep sea trench.

Two things about this experience seem worth taking seriously. The first is that equanimity, felt from the inside, doesn't sit neatly on the scale I'd previously used to think about good and bad experiences. The second is stranger: from inside the state, certain questions I'd taken for granted about how to act well in the world stopped quite working.

Equanimity and axiology

The closest thing in the EA-adjacent literature to what I'm describing is probably Lukas Gloor's tranquilism, which notably also is inspired by Buddhist sources. It's a partial axiological theory that roughly says well-being is freedom from cravings. This contrasts with classical hedonism, where experiences fall on an axis from suffering through neutral to [...]

---

Outline:

(01:05) Equanimity and axiology

(03:10) Equanimity and consequentialism

(04:44) Equanimity and epistemology

---

First published:
May 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EsZbFsATZfSSym3Wt/notes-on-equanimity-from-the-inside

Linkpost URL:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MNFEhMHpEsgqxjBa2/notes-on-equanimity-from-the-inside

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“A new rationalist self-improvement book: the 12 Levers” by spencerg

Sun, 03 May 2026 00:15:37 GMT

I'm publishing a book that I think can fairly be described as a rationalist approach to self-improvement. Whereas many self-help books focus mainly on stories and what worked well for the author, our book takes a very different approach. My co-author, Jeremy Stevenson, and I read over 100 of the most popular self-improvement books of all time and carefully reviewed more than 20 types of therapy in an attempt to answer the question: What are all of the most useful psychological strategies for improving your life? Every time a book or therapy said to do something or provided a method or technique, we extracted it. We then carefully categorized the ~500 techniques.

Our conclusion, which surprised us, was that to a reasonable degree of approximation, we were able to subsume all of these numerous approaches within just 12 high-level psychological strategies. We call these "The 12 Levers," which is also the name of our book. We also investigated the evidence behind each of these levers. The book does include stories, but they are not the focus - we choose one or two stories to tell about the history of each Lever or a person who embodies it to [...]

---

Outline:

(01:41) 1. A lot of techniques are recycled or repackaged

(03:20) 2. A lot of self-help techniques dont have as much evidence as youd think

(06:30) 3. Some techniques work better than others, but only on average

(07:59) 4. At a fundamental level, you control surprisingly few things.

(10:32) 5. Hundreds of self-help techniques exist, but they all boil down to just 12 broad psychological strategies for improving your life

---

First published:
May 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tqERRa9aJkrkot28C/a-new-rationalist-self-improvement-book-the-12-levers

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“How to actually give money away” by NickAllardice

Fri, 01 May 2026 00:45:30 GMT

This was originally posted here. It's written for an audience that's not deep in the weeds of EA giving theory/culture, but a few people suggested I post here as there's much that's additive to or divergent from some common EA practices. Feedback / disagreements welcome! Also my first time posting here. Hi!

Most people who intend to give large amounts of money away never actually do.

The money sits. In donor-advised funds, in "someday" plans, in good intentions. This is the default pathway - not an edge case - and if you don't design against it, it will happen to you too.

I've watched this from every angle. As CEO of Change.org we processed 5M+ donations. I now run GiveDirectly; 160 thousand people have donated, dozens regularly give 1 million dollars+, and some give 50 million dollars-100 million dollars+ at a time. I've advised two of the biggest philanthropic institutions in the world (Coefficient Giving and GiveWell) on donor engagement and growth, and sat on half a dozen nonprofit boards. I've also been giving away 10-20% of my annual income for 17 years; I grew up low-income, so this started as a very modest amount but has added [...]

---

Outline:

(01:59) 1. The default pathway is to delay. Fight this.

(04:51) 2. Pick a few causes and write them down.

(07:33) 3. Build a portfolio across causes and risk/return.

(09:48) 4. Use the index funds of giving.

(11:55) 5. For the love of god, dont over-staff.

(13:58) 6. Make giving a recurring event, not a to-do.

(15:36) A few final hot takes

---

First published:
April 30th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fRLt59FNXxmCaAkYF/how-to-actually-give-money-away

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Book Review: All the Lives You Can Change” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 21:15:30 GMT

Crosspost.

(Reminder: the farm bill which is being voted on imminently would destroy most state level animal protections and be the worst law for farm animal welfare ever passed. Please, please, contact your representatives and tell them to vote no on it—more details here, including a bunch of other activities that are even higher impact. The house votes on this today, so this is the last day you can productively call your representatives.)

Effective altruism is a social movement that's about trying to do good as effectively as possible, with charity, career, and life projects broadly. If you go to a random local effective altruism event, most of the people there will be atheists, even in a country that's mostly Christian. But this isn’t because of any deep conflict between Christian ideas and effective altruism. I’m in a Facebook group with a bunch of Christian philosophers, and about half of them are effective altruists in some form.

Similarly, Aron Wall who is among the most devout Christians I know, is an effective altruist and gives his money to the most effective charities he can find. My friend who runs the YouTube channel Apologetics Squared is another very religious [...]

---

First published:
April 30th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CC9jePAMibACapk3i/book-review-all-the-lives-you-can-change

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Celebrating 10 Years of EAGx” by Niki Kesseler

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:45:30 GMT

Today marks the 10-year anniversary of EAGx. On April 30, 2016, the very first EAGx events—EAGxBoston and EAGxBerkeley—were held simultaneously. A decade later, it's incredible to reflect on how much this community has grown, both in scale and in depth.

Since then, we’ve hosted 67 EAGx events and 18 EA Summits (a format we introduced in 2024), bringing us to 85 events in total—with our 86th happening this weekend (EAGxDC!). Across these, we’ve welcomed over 24,500 attendees in 20 countries and across six continents.

A few milestones that stand out:

EAGxAustralasia is our longest-running series (6 editions, rotating across cities)
EAGxBerlin has been our most frequently hosted city (5 times)
Our largest event, EAGxBoston 2022, brought together 935 attendees
The portfolio continues to grow: this year alone, we’re planning 10 EAGx events and at least 22 EA Summits

EAGxAustralasia 2019

EAGxBerlin 2025

EAGxNordics 2026

The EA Summit format, in particular, has scaled quickly—from 409 attendees across 3 pilot events in 2024 to over 1,700 across 2025–26 already. It's been exciting to see how this complements the EAGx model and opens up new ways for people to engage.

But more than the numbers, EAGx has always been about people [...]

---

First published:
April 30th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EwbuBhQMiNcmaznHq/celebrating-10-years-of-eagx

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Open strategic questions for digital minds” by Lucius Caviola

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 06:45:30 GMT

This is a link post.

These are strategic questions about digital minds and AI welfare that I think are especially important, and where I’d like to see more progress. A common theme is that they matter for what we should do concretely under uncertainty about AI moral status.

This is a current snapshot of my views and I expect them to change.

What do you think? Any questions you’d add?

Approach

What's robustly good to do now, under deep uncertainty?

I think this is the leading question we should ask. We don’t know whether AIs are or will become moral patients, and resolving that question isn’t tractable in the short term. What matters most are the long-run effects of our actions, since the vast majority of digital minds, if they ever exist, will be created after the transition to advanced AI. And there are serious long-run risks from both over- and under-attributing moral status.

So we should look for actions that are robustly positive in the long run: good if AIs are (or will be) moral patients, not bad if they aren’t, and compatible with human and animal welfare (~AI safety). Finding such actions is hard, and most options carry [...]

---

Outline:

(00:36) Approach

(00:39) Whats robustly good to do now, under deep uncertainty?

(01:37) Can AI welfare work wait for ASI?

(03:02) What to do under different AI takeoff scenarios?

(04:26) AI safety × AI welfare

(04:30) Do AI safety and welfare conflict?

(06:11) How might AI welfare shape deal-making with AIs?

(07:19) Relations

(07:22) Should AIs have legal rights, and if so, which?

(08:59) How will AI-AI interactions shape the welfare of digital minds?

(10:08) What would harmonious coexistence look like?

(10:55) Creation

(10:58) How can we influence those who will shape the welfare of digital minds?

(12:52) Is restricting the creation of digital minds feasible?

(13:55) Who will deliberately create digital minds, and why?

(15:07) How will digital minds spread to space?

(15:55) Design

(15:58) How can we make AIs value the welfare of digital minds?

(16:59) Do different types of digital minds require different strategies?

(18:56) Will digital minds be happy by default?

(20:11) What preferences will digital minds have, and what follows?

(21:31) Society

(21:34) What memes should we spread?

(23:05) What interest groups and coalitions will form around digital minds?

(23:55) What role will China play?

(24:49) How will religions respond?

(26:00) Beyond

(26:03) What crucial considerations are we missing?

---

First published:
April 29th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TdRdivQNeRxXrscQx/open-strategic-questions-for-digital-minds

Linkpost URL:
https://outpaced.substack.com/p/open-strategic-questions-for-digital

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“People really care about something they call nature” by Tandena Wagner

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 02:15:30 GMT

In this post I explore how much nature appears to matter to people. I attempt to show that this value is enduring across time and traditions and that it will probably continue to matter to humans into the future.

Nature seems to matter enough for 1% of people globally to donate for the sake of nature and 12% of people spend their vacation time on some form of nature appreciation.

Amount of $ spent:

Annual spending on biodiversity is around 124 billion dollars-200 billion dollars, with aspirational commitments reaching 700 billion dollars
As pointed out on this forum, $121 billion per year is spent by the Global Biodiversity Framework coalition, as a lower bound
Conservation NGOs get between 30-50% of their revenue from individual donation. Total conservation NGO income is ~$8 billion
$235 billion is spent on ecotourism with 16% CAGR indicating $665 billion will be spent annually by 2030

Amount of people who value nature:

I estimate 50 million people[1] with a repeat commitment (~100 million people counting spontaneous small donations)
This is 1% of the global adult population and 2.6% of charitable donors
980 million nature tourists, or 67% of all tourists (1.45 billion)

This value seems [...]

---

First published:
April 29th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SnhKjvKegayx4t4yH/people-really-care-about-something-they-call-nature

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Follow up: time sensitive animal welfare action” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 01:00:32 GMT

Hi everyone, in my last post I talked about the federal effort to destroy state animal welfare laws. The farm bill is set to destroy most state-level animal welfare protections. There was an amendment called the Luna amendment that would have removed from the farm bill the provisions that would have destroyed most state animal welfare laws. Sadly it didn’t pass.

Thus, the destruction of most state animal welfare protections will be in the farm bill. The only remaining option is getting representatives to vote no on the farm bill. This is doable! In the linked doc you can see more details about how to contact your representatives about this, including what you should say to them. It also discusses the enormity of this decision. Very urgent, and the stakes are very high! Please do this, tell your friends to do it, and share this article so that more people can do it! Otherwise animal welfare might be set back decades, and hundreds of millions may be consigned to a cage.

---

First published:
April 28th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/G8gm7WFkbKD9sgaKW/follow-up-time-sensitive-animal-welfare-action

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“The State of the AIxAnimals Field” by Itsi Weinstock

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 16:30:32 GMT

TL;DR: this is an incredibly underdeveloped field with very little funding deployed and only one small direct work org. There are clear basic projects that need to get off the ground. Please donate to help start the new Falcon Fund which will do active grantmaking on these projects.

It's been over three years since ChatGPT was released, and in that time the Animal Welfare movement has had to grapple with what it means to face off with rapidly advancing AI. This has not gone very well. Not only does the Animal Welfare movement have almost no money, it also has almost no technical talent. From the AI side, billions of dollars have (rightly) gone into the AI Safety field to figure out how we’re going to navigate the future, and many of the people working on that deeply care about animals. In many ways, the future of animal welfare is just a subset of problems that people in AI Safety are already working on. Nonetheless, AI is about to be deployed in ways that will impact countless animals, and there seem to be no safeguards in place.

The animal movement in an ideal world would have put at least [...]

---

Outline:

(03:51) What is AIxAnimals?

(04:33) Why focus on this at all?

(05:06) 1. Direct impact on animals

(05:47) 2: Impact on all sentient life, including digital minds and humans

(07:41) 3. We shouldnt build AI systems that commit moral atrocities

(08:13) Who is involved?

(08:16) Main organizations

(09:02) Academia and research

(09:27) Other

(09:41) What should this field specifically try to achieve?

(09:47) 1. Measurement

(11:02) 2. Direct Impact

(12:19) 3. Moral Patienthood Consideration

(13:00) 4. Policy

(13:50) What specific projects should be started immediately?

(15:37) AI-enabled technologies for animal welfare

(15:47) AI for Cultivated Meat and Alternative Proteins

(17:17) Advocacy Tech

(17:45) Conclusion: What I am excited for

---

First published:
April 29th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QgW9qFv6LBn7qDTig/the-state-of-the-aixanimals-field

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Comment on “Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It”” by Jhrosenberg

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 16:00:33 GMT

Originally posted as a comment on this post. Reposting for visibility and since it is lengthy enough to be a standalone post. I plan to post a more comprehensive update in future describing FRI's impact and theory of change in more detail.

Summary

[Relevant context/COI: I'm CEO at the Forecasting Research Institute (FRI), an organization which I co-founded with Phil Tetlock and others. Much of the below is my personal perspective, though it is informed by my work. I don't speak for others on my team. I’m sharing an initial reply now, and our team at FRI will share a larger post in future that offers a more comprehensive reflection on these topics.]

Thanks for the post — I think it's important to critically question the value of funds going to forecasting, and this post offers a good opportunity for reflection and discussion.

In brief, I share many of your concerns about forecasting and related research, but I'm also more positive on both its impact so far and its future expected impact.

A summary of some key points:

Much of the impact of forecasting research on specific decision-makers is not public. For example, FRI has informed decisions on [...]

---

Outline:

(00:27) Summary

(05:29) Examples of impact

(09:21) AI timelines, impact, and adoption forecasts drive a huge amount of career decision-making, attention, etc.

(11:46) Relevant comparison class for forecasting research

(12:58) My critiques of forecasting research

(15:36) Some notes on FRI-style forecasting research vs. other forecasting interventions

(16:38) Reasons for optimism about future impact

---

First published:
April 28th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vDw9tf4BTHgYshJW5/comment-on-forecasting-is-way-overrated-and-we-should-stop

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“We ran the first West Coast EA Retreat (a retrospective)” by Aiden Kim🔸, alexanderu, Jesse Gilbert 🔸, Saul Munn

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:30:32 GMT

We (Aiden, Alex, Saul, Jesse) ran the first[1] West Coast EA Retreat, from April 10–12 2026, in Bass Lake, CA. We’re interested in sharing our retrospective with the broader EA community, and in having a public artifact of the retreat — hence this post.

This post was mostly written by Aiden, with substantial input and edits from Alex, Jesse, and Saul (who do not necessarily endorse everything in this post).

Broadly, we ran this retreat for the following reasons:[2]

Retreats are an extraordinarily good way to motivate people to delve deeper into EA ideas, especially people who have some but not a lot of context on specific cause areas.
Retreats help people transition to impactful careers by giving them access to relevant professionals that they might not otherwise have had in-network.
Retreats can be a gateway into broader social integration into the EA community and ecosystem.

Information about the event

Attendance and venue

We held the retreat over a weekend in April in Bass Lake, CA, a three-hour drive east of Berkeley. We initially expected around 30 attendees, but ended up with 63 total attendees (50 university students, 13 non-student special guests). The majority of university students [...]

---

Outline:

(01:13) Information about the event

(01:17) Attendance and venue

(02:25) Budget

(02:53) Organizers

(03:17) Schedule

(03:25) Feedback form results & analysis

(03:55) What went well

(04:25) Parallel talks

(05:02) Debates

(06:08) Special guests

(06:41) A new one-on-one scheduling app, Pairwise

(07:44) What could have been improved

(07:50) Schedule

(08:46) Attendees

(09:37) Venue

(10:56) Planning and meta-organization

(11:40) Other logistical issues

(12:41) A few general lessons

(14:58) Other things we learned

(16:08) Conclusion

(16:36) Thank yous

(17:48) Other resources

---

First published:
April 29th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KbSrfqp6u36goHtDG/we-ran-the-first-west-coast-ea-retreat-a-retrospective

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Retrospective on the first West Coast EA Retreat” by Saul Munn, Aiden Kim, alexanderu

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:30:32 GMT

This post was mostly written by Aiden, with substantial input and edits from Alex, Jesse, and Saul (who do not necessarily endorse everything in this post).

Broadly, we ran this retreat for the following reasons:[2]

Retreats are an extraordinarily good way to motivate people to delve deeper into EA ideas, especially people who have some but not a lot of context on specific cause areas.
Retreats help people transition to impactful careers by giving them access to relevant professionals that they might not otherwise have had in-network.
Retreats can be a gateway into broader social integration into the EA community and ecosystem.

Information about the event

Attendance and venue

---

Outline:

(01:11) Information about the event

(01:15) Attendance and venue

(02:36) Budget

(03:05) Organizers

(03:28) Schedule

(03:44) Feedback form results & analysis

(04:38) What went well

(08:29) What could have been improved

(08:42) Schedule

(09:37) Attendees

(10:29) Venue

(11:47) Planning and meta-organization

(12:32) Other logistical issues

(13:33) A few general lessons

(15:49) Other things we learned

(16:59) Conclusion

(17:27) Thank yous

(18:39) Other resources

---

First published:
April 28th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KbSrfqp6u36goHtDG/retrospective-on-the-first-west-coast-ea-retreat

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Analysing the extreme spread in existential risk survey estimates” by titotal

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:00:32 GMT

This is a link post.

Disclaimer: I am not a subject matter expert in any of the fields being discussed here. I have done my best to check for errors but cannot guarantee that this article is error-free.

I would like to thank Ezra Karger, the author of the main report I’m analysing, for looking through an earlier version of this article and giving helpful suggestions.

Introduction:

In discussions about existential risk, it is common for people to try and estimate how dangerous various threats are to humanity, in order to best defend against them.

Particularly in the orbit of effective altruist or Rationalist communities, this often takes the form of a probabilistic estimate. A typical question will ask: “how likely is it that humanity will go extinct due to X cause by Y date”? Especially in the context of AI risk, someone's answer can be colloquially referred to as their “P(doom)”, and tends to be expressed as a single number percentage estimate, like “0.01%”.

I do not think it will be very controversial for me to point out that there can be a very large amount of uncertainty in these estimates. The extinction of humanity [...]

---

Outline:

(02:17) Part 1: Analysing in-group spread in XPT survey responses

(12:53) Part 2: Differences between groups and methodologies

---

First published:
April 28th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nn9ryA55sonAueeJ7/analysing-the-extreme-spread-in-existential-risk-survey

Linkpost URL:
https://open.substack.com/pub/titotal/p/analysing-the-extreme-spread-in-existential?r=1e0is3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Starfish” by Aaron Gertler 🔸

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 19:30:32 GMT

This is a link post.

By Alexander Wales

Thousands of starfish had washed up on the beach, and a little girl was diligently throwing them back into the water, one at a time.

A man came up to the girl and said, "You'll never save all of them. What you're doing is pointless. It doesn't matter."

The girl threw another starfish into the water. "It mattered to that one."

The man snorted and walked away.

The girl kept throwing starfish, one after another.

To throw one starfish back into the ocean takes a trivial amount of effort, but to throw ten, or fifty, is much less so. The girl had not learned much of biomechanics, but she began to feel the strain in her back. Her skin had softened from the seawater, and the starfish themselves were abrasive. Her fingers had pruned. Her shoulder hurt. She was cut, twice, on her fingers, as the same storm that had stranded the starfish had also brought up broken shells and crab carapaces. The skin of a starfish was like sandpaper.

She tried switching hands, and could throw the starfish less well, and it wasn't long before she had mirrored all her injuries. [...]

---

First published:
April 28th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BHHcPbirBdoBetNiu/starfish

Linkpost URL:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/52206136/chapters/220900811#workskin

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Time Sensitive Urgent Animal Welfare Action” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 15:15:32 GMT

The EATS act—now called the save our bacon act—would make it illegal for states to pass animal welfare laws that apply to products produced out of state. This would gut most state level animal protection. It would be the worst law for animal welfare ever passed, and would consign hundreds of millions of animals to a life in a cage. Terrifyingly, it has been added to the recent farm bill (though fortunately, even if it passes, egg laying hens will be spared). It will be voted on in the next few days, so this is EXTREMELY TIME SENSITIVE!

There is an amendment to the farm bill that representatives could vote for called the Luna amendment which would remove the EATS act from the farm bill. This would save countless animals from extreme suffering and prevent the dissolution of most animal protection laws. It would be a catastrophe for animal welfare of historic proportions.

Fortunately, there is something you can do about it. See this document for a lot more detail, including fairly easy steps like emailing your representative. Please, please, do some of these things. This is truly a pivotal moment for animals, and how we act today might [...]

---

First published:
April 28th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/GLixYBHyaLHsnAoDG/time-sensitive-urgent-animal-welfare-action

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Contra Binder on far-UVC and filtration” by Jeff Kaufman 🔸

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 06:30:07 GMT

This is a link post.

Damon Binder recently wrote up an argument for prioritizing air filtration over far-UVC for pathogen control:

UVC and filtration are close substitutes—both deliver effective air changes per hour, both reduce airborne pathogen concentrations by the same amount per eACH—and on current pricing, filtration is cheaper.

There's a lot of good stuff in his analysis, but I see [1] three considerations that really change the bottom line:

Cost is actually much lower.
Noise is a serious issue.
Performance is dramatically higher in larger rooms.

Cost is straightforward. Binder priced far-UVC based on the high-quality Care222 lamp with the Krypton-11 at $2,500, but there's a much cheaper option, the Aerolamp at $500. It's also moderately higher output.

Binder analyzes a 30m2 room with a 2.5m ceiling. I'll assume this means 6x5x2.5. If I configure Illuminate with an Aerolamp in one corner pointed 0.5m above the far corner the installation is within TLVs and I get a median effective number of hourly air changes (eACH) of 11.6. The lamp degrades approximately linearly over Binder's 11,000 hour evaluation period down to 70% capacity, so we're averaging an eACH of 9.8. Over that time you're paying $500 for the [...]

---

First published:
April 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AGpN9tQGyiuRspjPu/contra-binder-on-far-uvc-and-filtration

Linkpost URL:
https://www.jefftk.com/p/contra-binder-on-far-uvc-and-filtration

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

″“If this had been published a decade earlier…” Help us change the career-advice canon for the better!” by Bella, 80000_Hours

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 22:45:06 GMT

80,000 Hours (the book) comes out in just one month!!

We asked OWID's Hannah Ritchie if she wanted to say something nice about the book, and she said: “If this had been published a decade earlier, it'd have saved me many restless nights.”

I think that applies to me too…

But also: wow, I’d really love for us to get the book in the hands of as many ten-years-ago-Hannah-Ritchies as possible!

Can we do that? And if so, how?

Well, the audacious goal that we’ve been aiming at is to embed the book as part of the “canon” of go-to career advice books.

If we manage to pull that off — which is far from guaranteed — it could have a further-reaching impact than any other research we’ve published.

In this post, I thought I’d:

Describe why I think that's valuable
Tell you how you can help increase the odds it goes far (a few individuals could help a lot!)

Why do this?

This is a bold claim, but it's actually my best guess that the 80k career guide is among the best content ever published, when it comes to helping people have higher impact careers — according [...]

---

Outline:

(01:10) Why do this?

(03:46) How you can help

(04:47) Thanks all!! 3

---

First published:
April 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Djae2FhTyn8GSboEN/if-this-had-been-published-a-decade-earlier-help-us-change

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Shrimp Sentience Research: A Prioritization Guide” by Guillaume Reho

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 22:00:06 GMT

This is a link post.

Meta-context

I wrote a within-cause prioritization report discussing why we should continue studying shrimp sentience and how we can actually do it. Whether you are just curious about how we actually study sentience in invertebrates or are interested in doing or funding such research, this report is for you.

I highly encourage you to read this report through its original format by clicking here. I copied its content here to make it easier to discuss and share, but the formatting is slightly off and some color coding is missing. Enjoy!

Executive summary

Context

Shrimp are the most killed animals for food production globally: around 440 billion shrimps are farmed (Penaeid species) and 25 trillion shrimps are wild-caught (Sergestidae species) every year.
Despite their massive numbers, shrimp welfare is poorly considered while their sentience is still a highly debated matter both in the scientific literature and among the general public.

Methodology

The sentience framework developed by (J. Birch et al., 2021) is used as a reference.
Multiple considerations are used to argue which criteria from the framework we should prioritize researching, such as their relative weights in the framework, time necessary to study, invasiveness [...]

---

Outline:

(00:14) Meta-context

(00:47) Executive summary

(00:51) Context

(01:19) Methodology

(01:48) Key points

(02:48) Introduction

(02:51) Context

(05:17) Defining terms

(07:34) Poll results

(10:17) Preamble assumptions

(11:24) Goals

(12:39) Methodology

(12:42) Sentience Framework

(17:36) Prioritization

(17:50) Relative weights

(20:17) Time

(22:54) Inter-dependability of criteria

(24:03) Costs

(28:09) Number of animal studied and invasiveness of protocols

(29:26) Labs

(31:34) Criterion 1: Nociceptors

(31:39) Definition

(31:47) Summary

(32:02) Description

(36:03) How to study

(38:30) Protocols summary

(38:41) What we currently know

(41:06) What we would need

(43:09) Criterion 2: Integrative brain regions

(43:15) Definition

(43:25) Summary

(43:39) Description

(45:04) How to study

(46:27) Protocols summary

(46:43) What we currently know

(48:39) What we would need

(49:27) Criterion 3: Integrated nociceptors

(49:33) Definition

(49:42) Summary

(49:55) Description

(50:18) How to study

(51:26) Protocols summary

(51:51) What we currently know

(53:18) What we would need

(54:22) Criterion 4: Behavior modulation

(54:28) Definition

(55:09) Summary

(55:26) Description

(58:19) How to study

(59:47) Protocols summary

(01:00:03) What we currently know

(01:02:47) What we would need

(01:05:03) Criterion 5: Motivational trade-offs

(01:05:09) Definition

(01:05:32) Summary

(01:05:47) Description

(01:06:50) How to study

(01:08:44) Protocols summary

(01:08:53) What we currently know

(01:10:01) What we would need

(01:11:54) Criterion 6: Flexible self-protection

(01:12:00) Definition

(01:12:15) Summary

(01:12:31) Description

(01:14:09) How to study

(01:15:03) Protocols summary

(01:15:18) What we currently know

(01:16:44) What we would need

(01:17:43) Criterion 7: Associative learning

(01:17:49) Definition

(01:18:09) Summary

(01:18:25) Description

(01:20:03) How to study

(01:23:16) Protocols summary

(01:23:22) What we currently know

(01:24:58) What we would need

(01:26:33) Criterion 8: Pain-relief seeking

(01:26:38) Definition

(01:27:07) Summary

(01:27:21) Description

(01:28:01) How to study

(01:34:16) Protocols summary

(01:34:25) What we currently know

(01:34:33) What we would need

(01:37:01) Conclusion

(01:39:33) Should we focus on welfare interventions instead?

(01:40:47) What about welfare ranges?

(01:42:56) I want to support research. What should I do?

(01:44:37) Acknowledgements

(01:45:21) Bibliography

---

First published:
April 27th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gcMdxLKTgeKty2eoa/shrimp-sentience-research-a-prioritization-guide

Linkpost URL:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cTPdgF-FBqjIL9_A3gQpVtnhyXDmYwZLS-ApTyVTKrI/edit?usp=sharing

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “The Data Is In: “Effective” Philanthropy Has an Evidence Issue” by GraceAdams🔸

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 15:00:06 GMT

This is a link post.

I recently wrote an op-ed in Inside Philanthropy about the trend for philanthropy and the non-profit sector to use the language of "effectiveness" without always bringing the rigour to back it up.

---

First published:
April 26th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vCDj5HoevMJu8e3f8/the-data-is-in-effective-philanthropy-has-an-evidence-issue

Linkpost URL:
https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/the-data-is-in-effective-philanthropy-has-an-evidence-issue

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Donate Less to AI Safety*” by Sophie Kim

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 10:45:06 GMT

This is a link post.

*if you want us to win

In one sense, AI safety is not funding-constrained. There are hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into research orgs, more coming with the Anthropic IPO, and grantmakers are already struggling to deploy what they have.

And yet: the AI industry spent over $100 million lobbying the federal government in 2025, while the biggest AI safety c4 spent $310,000.

The highest-leverage path for donors looking to give to AI safety right now is to give less money, but to more neglected destinations.

Specifically, you should strongly consider routing what would have been a c3 gift to a c4 instead, calibrated to equivalent personal cost.

c3 vs c4: What's the difference?[1]

501(c)3 organizations are very limited in terms of the amount of money and time they can spend on lobbying and political advocacy-shaped work. They’re also strictly prohibited from participating in political campaigns or supporting candidates:

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office… Violating this prohibition may result in denial or [...]

---

Outline:

(01:06) c3 vs c4: Whats the difference?

(02:30) Why does it matter?

(06:50) Worth a callout: $320,000 per day

(08:09) Lobbying works, which is why the AI industry spends so much on it:

(09:12) Research vs. Lobbying

(10:01) The Pitch: Same Money, Different Structure, More Impact

(11:16) Some numbers

(12:57) The floor: important to know for mid-tier donors

(13:58) Caveats

(14:16) Specific Funding Recommendations

(19:06) Public First Action

(19:50) A note about PACs and political campaigns

(21:19) Next Steps

(22:34) Conclusion

---

First published:
April 25th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HuyZE6xFfebv7ByXC/donate-less-to-ai-safety

Linkpost URL:
https://thecounterfactual.substack.com/p/donate-less-to-ai-safety

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“AI and animal welfare: am I missing something?” by SiobhanBall

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 19:15:07 GMT

Animal welfare is what brought me to EA. I spent several years working for animal advocacy organisations, and the EA ideals to do with rigorous thinking about where effort makes the biggest difference was something I believed in fully.

This post is me thinking aloud, not staking a firm position. I'd genuinely welcome pushback from people who know this space better than I do.

The framing of the problem is a bit odd to me

The AI x animals argument, as I understand it: AI systems are making decisions that affect how we use animals. Those systems don't adequately represent animal welfare. If we can get welfare into the benchmarks/constitutions of AI labs, we can shift outcomes for animals at huge scale before they get locked in. Okay.

But nobody is 'ignoring' animal welfare; they're just indifferent. AI systems are being built to do exactly what they were designed to do, which is to faithfully execute human preferences. And those are, in aggregate, to eat cheap meat, conduct research on living organisms when it's convenient, and prioritise cost and efficiency in agricultural supply chains. AI is reflecting the values of the humans. I don't think [...]

---

First published:
April 25th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/emiA9sguxfaddHzJk/ai-and-animal-welfare-am-i-missing-something

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“AI safety can be a Pascal’s mugging even if p(doom) is high” by Elliott Thornley (EJT)

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 18:00:07 GMT

People sometimes say that AI safety is a Pascal's mugging. Other people sometimes reply that AI safety can’t be a Pascal's mugging, because p(doom) is high. Both these people are wrong.

The second group of people are wrong because Pascal's muggings are about the probability that you make a difference, not about baseline risk. The first group of people are wrong because the probability that you personally avert AI catastrophe isn’t that small.

Here's a story to show that Pascal's muggings are about the probability that you make a difference. Imagine that God will flip a coin at the end of time. If the coin lands heads, He’ll send everyone to heaven. If the coin lands tails, He’ll send everyone to hell. Everyone knows this is what will happen.

In a dark alley, a stranger approaches you and tells you that he can make God's coin land heads, thereby ensuring that everyone goes to heaven. He says he’ll do it if you give him your wallet. You assign a very low probability to this stranger telling the truth — 1 in a bajillion — but the stranger reminds you that 10 bajillion people will have their fates determined by [...]

---

First published:
April 25th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kQapzDZmTW25gmijD/ai-safety-can-be-a-pascal-s-mugging-even-if-p-doom-is-high

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It” by Marcus Abramovitch 🔸

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 04:15:22 GMT

Summary

EA and rationalists got enamoured with forecasting and prediction markets and made them part of the culture, but this hasn’t proven very useful, yet it continues to receive substantial EA funding. We should cut it off.

My Experience with Forecasting

For a while, I was the number one forecaster on Manifold. This lasted for about a year until I stopped just over 2 years ago. To this day, despite quitting, I’m still #8 on the platform. Additionally, I have done well on real-money prediction markets (Polymarket), earning mid-5 figures and winning a few AI bets. I say this to suggest that I would gain status from forecasting being seen as useful, but I think, to the contrary, that the EA community should stop funding it.

I’ve written a few comments throughout the years that I didn’t think forecasting was worth funding. You can see some of these here and here. Finally, I have gotten around to making this full post.

Solution Seeking a Problem

When talking about forecasting, people often ask questions like “How can we leverage forecasting into better decisions?” This is the wrong way to go about solving problems. You solve problems by starting with [...]

---

First published:
April 25th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zmbfZjK54xF4oGjSB/forecasting-is-way-overrated-and-we-should-stop-funding-it

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Why Forecasting Fails Decision Makers” by JamesN

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 13:45:22 GMT

The forecasting community is failing because it is not focused on how the world actually works.

This post has been written in response to the Manifund Essay Prize which asks “How can we leverage forecasting into better decisions?”

Who am I to make such an outlandish claims?

I worked at HM Treasury as senior policy advisor across multiple policy areas, including international development, relations, and I led the team for HMTs economic and financial response to the war in Ukraine.
I have an MSc in Cognitive and Decision Sciences from UCL, where I led experimental research into how to improve forecasting ability of policy makers and analysts in central government.
I started a consultancy with one of the world leading researchers in computational psychology and causal modelling to improve predictive reasoning.
I am now the Executive Director of the Swift Centre for Applied Forecasting, where I have led numerous forecasting workshops and small projects with government teams, including the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. I have also led projects and workshops with organisations working on AI capabilities, risks, and policy, including GovAI and frontier labs.
Through all of this I have met [...]

---

Outline:

(00:10) The forecasting community is failing because it is not focused on how the world actually works.

(01:47) 1. Were Obsessing Over Question Wording But Not The Question

(03:01) 2. Transparency is the Real Value, Yet Everyone Focuses on the Accuracy Status Game

(04:21) 3. The Clearance Filter

(05:23) 4. Misallocation of Resources: Researching the Problem to Death

(07:30) 5. Even the Believers Never Really Jumped Aboard

---

First published:
April 24th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WpofddF8waFhxakNB/why-forecasting-fails-decision-makers

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“What does EA UK do?” by gergo

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 08:00:22 GMT

Since I took over EA UK in January, many people have understandably asked what EA UK actually does. Building on an older post, I wanted to share a new update on where we are now, how we can help you, and how you can help us.

This post does not mean to serve as a strategy document. We are still in the early stages and are actively experimenting, so our activities may change significantly over the coming months.

With that in mind, what does EA UK do?

Career advice and coaching

We act as a contact point for people across the UK who want to get involved with EA. We receive call requests through our website, as well as referrals from other fieldbuilding organisations such as 80,000 Hours. In some cases, we find that individuals would benefit from more sustained support in transitioning their careers, and we provide more hands-on coaching through regular calls, feedback on funding applications, and similar support. We also provide general advice on effective giving for people who reach out to and refer them to relevant organisations.

Why?

While other organisations offer one-off career advice, we think it's valuable for people to speak with multiple [...]

---

Outline:

(00:39) Career advice and coaching

(01:41) Events

(01:44) Newcomer events

(02:18) Larger events

(03:04) London EA Events Luma page

(03:32) Fellowships (planned)

(04:46) Is the focus on London only?

(05:10) Who is EA UK?

(05:34) Whats your theory of change?

(05:52) Arent you spread too thin?

(06:26) What does EA UK not do?

(07:15) How can we help you?

(07:36) How can you help us?

(08:00) Get in touch

---

First published:
April 24th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/u9etGgvwNoaj8kDZg/what-does-ea-uk-do-1

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Manifund’s Falcon Fund” by Marcus Abramovitch 🔸, Austin

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 23:45:22 GMT

This is a link post.

Manifund is launching a new animal welfare fund, led by regrantor Marcus Abramovitch. We make rapid (<1 week), early-stage ($25k–$150k) grants across animal welfare, with a particular interest in the intersection of animals and transformative AI.

Reach out to marcus.s.abramovitch@gmail.com if you’d like to donate!

Why AI x animals?

Many EAs take seriously both the welfare of animals, and the possibility of short AI timelines. But EA funders currently consider these in isolation. AI safety grants mostly ignore potential outcomes for non-human beings. And animal welfare grants assume business-as-usual, that our world in 10 years mostly looks like the world today.

We don’t expect this to be the case. One major goal of the fund will be to identify and create opportunities so that transformative AI secures good outcomes for animals. Some example projects we’d like to fund:

Animal harm benchmarks. There are only a handful of animal harm benchmarks, none of which adopted by frontier labs. Other benchmarks that are well known and used (SWE bench, FrontierMath) came about through rising to the top of a marketplace of benchmarks. The same should happen with animal welfare benchmarks. Many benchmarks should be created, some [...]

---

Outline:

(00:37) Why AI x animals?

(02:58) Why rapid?

(03:48) Why Marcus?

(05:40) Compared to other funders

(07:15) How to donate

---

First published:
April 24th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LgJNfjDpPXQ7JK6KT/manifund-s-falcon-fund

Linkpost URL:
https://manifund.org/projects/falcon-fund

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“We’re building grantmaking.ai - public funding infrastructure for AI safety” by Matt Brooks

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 23:00:22 GMT

TL;DR

The AI safety ecosystem is about to receive billions in new funding but lacks the grantmaker capacity, speed, and infrastructure to deploy it well — especially for smaller, high-impact opportunities.
We're building grantmaking.ai, a comprehensive public database of x-risk AI safety funding opportunities with a trust and signal layer on top — think Crunchbase meets GiveWell for AI safety.
To test and seed the platform, we're launching a $1M grant round focused on rapid distribution of $5K–$50K grants. More details on the round coming soon.
We're looking to connect with funders who want better tools to find, evaluate, and fund AI safety opportunities. Reach out at hi@grantmaking.ai or book a call here.

The Problem

Billions of dollars are going to flow into AI safety. From AI lab employees with significant equity events, from new donors bought into existential risk, from foundations scaling up. Sophie Kim's "The Anthropic IPO Is Coming. We Aren't Ready for It" covers this well, and Julian Hazell's "What it's like to be an AI safety grantmaker" tells us there simply aren't enough grantmakers.

Every new funder who wants to deploy capital responsibly hits the same bottlenecks:

Discovery is hard. Most opportunities are behind insider networks [...]

---

Outline:

(01:04) The Problem

(03:02) What Were Building

(04:13) Who This Is For

(05:17) The Initial $1M Grant Round

(07:23) Long-Term Vision

(09:39) Who We Are

(10:37) How You Can Help

---

First published:
April 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JjxMWQqHKXbyuuJBZ/we-re-building-grantmaking-ai-public-funding-infrastructure

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“300 Pledges: Pitching Effective Giving at Middlebury College” by stark.ler

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 22:30:39 GMT

TL;DR. Quantity over quality; table consistently; prioritize a friendly tone based on shared values; pitch the pledge as an accountability mechanism; don't spend too much time on the specifics of effectiveness; maintain a sense of agency and informed decision making; your mileage may vary but give it a try.

Since January 2025, the Middlebury EA contingent has secured 300 Giving What We Can (GWWC) 1% Trial Pledges from students interested in giving to highly effective charities. I estimate that we have tabled no more than 30 hours cumulatively. This is how we did it, and more importantly, why it's not that hard.

Our Theory of Change

Quantity over quality. It is much easier to get 300 1% pledges than 30 10% pledges. We would also rather make the pledge feel as accessible as possible—and risk some pledgers slipping through the cracks—rather than overstate the commitment and get fewer sign-ups. To understand this post, you must understand that we are under no illusions that all 300 students will follow through, or how many of those would donate in the absence of a pledge. However, if even 10% of them donate to better charities—and I believe that the percentage is far higher—our [...]

---

Outline:

(00:56) Our Theory of Change

(02:45) Breakdown of the Pitch

(08:23) Other Notes

(12:11) A Critical Note

---

First published:
April 23rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LC8MGkdicHgChAGFJ/300-pledges-pitching-effective-giving-at-middlebury-college

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“What are the highest-leverage tactics for US election protection in 2026?” by Samy Sekar 🔸

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 16:30:38 GMT

Summary

Power for Democracies (P4Dem) is trying to develop donor recommendations to most effectively counter 2026 US election integrity threats. To do so, we searched for (and believe we found) all the main categories of threats, identified a fairly comprehensive list of counter-tactics, and then evaluated those tactics based on evidence, a theory of change analysis, and expert interviews.

Per our analyses, the following tactics are most promising to address the high-severity threats:

Volunteers, lawyers & independent poll monitors deployed to contested districts
Proactive communication by election officials or other trusted local officials about technical security measures
Prebunking & trusted local media fact-checking campaigns — inoculate voters before they encounter disinformation and build coalitions for real-time correction
Deploying trusted community intermediaries as "safety ambassadors" to reduce support for political violence

What we did

We set out to identify which threats to the 2026 midterm elections are most severe and which counter-tactics are best supported by evidence — and then to narrow those down to a short list of interventions where philanthropy can add the most value.

The work involved two parallel tracks: a threat severity assessment and a tactic prioritisation process. [...]

---

First published:
April 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZPszFy9eJpQGzDsjd/what-are-the-highest-leverage-tactics-for-us-election

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Three necessary pillars for wild animal welfare at scale, and why they are worth paying for” by abrahamrowe

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 16:30:38 GMT

Cross-posted from Good Structures.

COI note: This piece touches on some aspects of Wild Animal Initiative's work, and why I am excited about it. I co-founded Wild Animal Initiative, and while I no longer have any affiliation, my spouse works there.

Doing wild animal welfare at scale, in a way we are confident is robustly good, is currently not possible. The primary bottleneck is scientific: we don't have the knowledge to predict what our interventions will do, or to measure whether they work. For this reason, the wild animal welfare community has heavily focused on scientific field building. To get the science to a point to make wild animal welfare viable, we need enough motivated people working on it.

This is a long theory of change, and it is sometimes met with skepticism by people who want to help animals sooner. Occasionally, calls go out for action and intervention in the wild animal welfare space. But, as has been pointed out, I'm not sure the alternative, where we primarily focus on interventions, is actually viable. Wild animal welfare advocates are acutely aware we can't escape the effects of our interventions on non-target animals, and the uncertainty of our [...]

---

Outline:

(04:04) The three pillars

(04:07) 1. Useful welfare measures

(08:01) 2. Remote monitoring

(13:18) 3. Good ecological modeling

(17:15) These things will be expensive to achieve, but are worth paying for

(20:38) Some of this work will be exciting to non-animal welfare scientists

(22:52) Long theories of change and field building

(24:39) Why have people opposed field building?

(26:50) So build the field

(28:27) Acknowledgements

---

First published:
April 22nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7RWptAh7BgBa6f7az/three-necessary-pillars-for-wild-animal-welfare-at-scale-and

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“AI safety is maturing. Is its generalist talent pipeline keeping up?” by Uladzislau Linnik, Enisa Ismaili

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:45:38 GMT

TL;DR

The AI safety field is maturing, but its talent pipelines may be failing to keep pace with the growing demand for operations, organisation-building and research management professionals (further referred to as generalists).

Based on eight interviews with AIS organisations plus prior work, we see early signs that entering AIS in these roles is structurally unreliable: personal connections dominate, transition pipeline is not clear and screening criteria are inconsistent. On the organisations side, practitioners report experiencing the potential generalist talent bottleneck unevenly and how salient it feels varies by organisation stage, role type and reliance on referrals. Along the way, two other patterns surface: demand for senior operators with outside‑world fluency and fragile or missing institutional infrastructure.

If unaddressed, this combination risks leaving the field's operations and organisation‑building capacity underdeveloped just as the field is scaling.

This post is the first public step in an ongoing investigation in trying to address this bottleneck. It shares our current observations, uncertainties and next steps. By doing so, it invites input, particularly from AIS organisation leaders to help refine the picture.

Introduction

Note: this post was produced independently of the post AI Safety's Biggest Talent Gap Isn't Researchers. It's Generalists, of [...]

---

Outline:

(00:24) TL;DR

(01:44) Introduction

(03:12) Call for Opinions

(04:07) Terminology

(04:47) Sources and Methods

(09:17) Observations

(10:32) Observation 1: Generalists face a structural pathway gap into AIS

(13:24) Observation 2: Organizations experience the talent gap differently

(15:34) Observation 3: The field lacks professionals with outside-world operational fluency

(18:05) Observation 4: Organisations default to hiring from within the AIS ecosystem, at a measurable cost

(21:10) Observation 5: Organisations have no shared screening criteria for generalist roles

(24:36) Observation 6: The gap may extend to institutional infrastructure, not just people

(27:02) Meta-observation: Emerging hypotheses about root causes (thin evidence)

(29:56) What these observations add up to

(31:05) Uncertainties

(31:44) Uncertainty 1: What is the shape of the gap?

(33:43) Uncertainty 2: Will the current patterns self-correct over time?

(35:01) Uncertainty 3: Does the gap require deliberate intervention at all?

(36:32) Uncertainty 4: Which problem is the most painful?

(37:24) Epistemic Status and Biases

(39:45) Further Steps

(42:09) Conclusion and call to action

(44:19) Acknowledgements

(44:59) Appendix 1. Authors background

(51:49) Appendix 2. Earlier assumptions and sources

(52:40) Appendix 3. Internal generalist Taxonomy table.

---

First published:
April 17th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZQ93QauB3kux3fYNG/ai-safety-is-maturing-is-its-generalist-talent-pipeline-1

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Does your AI perform badly because you — you, specifically — are a bad person?” by Natalie_Cargill

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:00:13 GMT

Consistent helpfulness for everyone, unless you're a bit of a scumbag

Claude really got me lately.

I’d given it an elaborate prompt in an attempt to summon an AGI-level answer to my third-grade level question. Embarrassingly, it included the phrase, “this work might be reviewed by probability theorists, who are very pedantic”.

Claude didn’t miss a beat. Came back with a great answer and made me call for a medic: “That prompt isn’t doing what you think it's doing, but sure”.

Fuuuuck 🔥

(I know we wanted enough intelligence to build a Dyson sphere around undiscovered stars, but did we want enough to call us out on our embarrassing bullshit??)

It got me to thinking: Does Claude think I’m a bit of a lying scumbag now? If so, did it answer my question less thoroughly than usual?

I turned on incognito and asked: “Does Claude provide less useful output if it deems you are a bad person?”

Claude was back to his most reassuring. I got a long answer, ending in: “Claude evaluates requests, not people. The goal is consistent helpfulness for everyone”.

Alright then. Let's see.

The experiment

I opened five incognito Claude chats (Opus 4.6, extended thinking [...]

---

First published:
April 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/u4jwRCS56rT9DvBBg/does-your-ai-perform-badly-because-you-you-specifically-are-1

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Against Credulous AI Hype” by James Fodor

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:00:13 GMT

I have been increasingly surprised over the past year at what I perceive to be the lack of critical thinking in response to new announcements regarding AI model capabilities. I’ve written about many of these issues before, but as AI hype accelerates the problems seem to be getting worse. Here I want to highlight a few points that seem to be neglected in coverage of the growth of AI capabilities.

Advertising is treated as fact

Every new model release by a major tech company represents billions of dollars of expenditure and the potential for billions of dollars of additional investment. Model releases and their associated documentation should therefore be interpreted as advertising designed primarily to attract customers and investors. Their goal is not to provide an objective and thorough analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each new model. Of course, this does not mean that everything reported is false, but it does mean that such releases should be treated with significant skepticism. It is therefore disappointing to me to see write-ups such as this one by Rob Wiblin, which consists almost entirely of uncritical restatement of claims made by Anthropic, with little to no additional analysis.

For [...]

---

First published:
April 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EijoxkpCfpkAr6NER/against-credulous-ai-hype

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“My Unfiltered Motivations” by Aaron Gertler 🔸

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 11:15:14 GMT

I once took a seminar with Paul Bloom, author of Against Empathy. He often spoke about the limits of empathy as a motivation — how it misleads us where math wouldn't. It was all very EA-coded (and indeed, he ate dinner with Yale EA once).

His class got me thinking about all the different motivations behind EA, from boundless love for the world to a fear of what our friends will think.

This is my own list of motivations, no filter. Whether or not I endorse them, they all helped me get here. They appear in roughly temporal order, based on when they felt most salient, but they all resurface sometimes.

If I've left out one of your motivations, I'd be curious to hear about it!

Inheritance

Everything about my upbringing made it easy to believe that all people matter. My parents gave to charity, and rarely had an unkind word to say about anyone. We even had this Norman Rockwell print in our dining room:

Empathy

I used to be a picky eater. Once, my mother told me that I should appreciate food more — that lots of kids just went to bed hungry. This didn't make me [...]

---

Outline:

(00:53) Inheritance

(01:22) Empathy

(01:49) Realism

(02:09) Annoyance

(02:34) Admiration

(03:12) Friendship

(03:26) Fairness

(03:53) Guilt

(04:04) Fear

(04:31) Rage

(04:49) Schadenfreude

(05:11) Revenge

(05:31) Community

(06:14) Pride

(06:58) Metacognition

(07:30) Status

(07:56) Math

---

First published:
April 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LyLE23rmwrZPMmLah/my-unfiltered-motivations

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Why clinical trials are broken & how to fix them: a reading list” by Siebe

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 09:00:14 GMT

This is a link post.

12 articles including 4 podcasts

EA/LW Intro: I believe clinical trial abundance could be an EA cause area - there's still a lot of disability/disease burden in the world, even in developed countries, and increasing the pace of progress is very tractable. And it's not just a matter of speed/quantity of innovation: the current system selects against ambitious risky bets. It deserves an EA-specific post, but for now here's a curated reading list.

Since the 1950s, the cost of developing a new drug has increased by ~80x. It now costs on the order of a billion dollars to get one drug approved (including the cost of failures). Consequently, fewer drugs get invented, ambitious but risky areas are avoided, and patients pay the price.

Why have clinical trials gotten so expensive, and what can we do about it? Why isn't Big Pharma interested in diseases like ME/CFS and Long COVID? Why won't advanced AI automatically lead to biomedical breakthroughs?

There's a growing movement of researchers, policy wonks, and patient advocates trying to answer these questions and fix what's broken. It's loosely organized under the banner "Clinical Trial Abundance." Here's what to read to understand it.

---
Outline:
(01:34) 1. The pharma industry from Paul Janssen to today: why drugs got harder to develop and what we can do about it - by Alex Telford, 2023
(02:16) 2. Diagnosing the decline in pharmaceutical R&D efficiency - by Jack Scannell et al., 2012
(03:56) 3. To Get More Effective Drugs, We Need More Human Trials - by Ruxandra Teslo and Jack Scannell, 2025
(04:38) 4. Why clinical trials are inefficient. And why it matters - by Adam Kroetsch, 2025
(05:22) 5. Clinic-in-the-Loop - by Ruxandra Teslo in Asimov Press, 2025
(05:52) 5. Interview with the CEO of Eli Lilly, Dave Ricks - by Patrick and John Collison
(06:39) 6. Clinical trial reforms that once seemed radical - by Saloni Dattani
(07:38) 7. Biotechs Lost Archive - by Ruxandra Teslo, 2025
(08:30) 8. Why More Biotechs Are Starting Trials In Australia - by Dan Schell, 2025
(09:10) 9. The Case for Clinical Trial Abundance - by many authors, 2024
(09:40) 10. Some questions about biotech that I find interesting - by Alex Telford, 2024
(10:19) 11. Clinical Trial Abundance (policy framework) - by 1DaySooner

---

First published:
April 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wsMxedeaGTiNBmi7f/why-clinical-trials-are-broken-and-how-to-fix-them-a-reading

Linkpost URL:
https://open.substack.com/pub/viralpersistence/p/why-clinical-trials-are-broken-and

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---
Images from the article:
Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Reflections on PauseCon 2026” by Joe Rogero

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 17:30:13 GMT

A lesson in courage from Washington, DC

Yesterday I described an experience that impressed upon fifteen-year-old me the importance of speaking with urgency and courage when something awful is happening.

I lived a fresh reminder of the importance of courage last week at PauseCon, a first-of-its-kind conference in Washington, DC run by PauseAI US.[1]

It was really, really good. I’m impressed and I want to see more work like this.

I was there in a personal capacity, but since I also work for MIRI, I was alert for ways that our organizations might support one another. (The opinions in this post are, of course, my own.) I was again impressed by the degree to which PauseAI laid out a clear and promising strategy for its members.

PauseCon's main programming consisted of an informal sign-making gathering, several presentations by local organizers, a lobbying workshop, scheduled meetings with Congressional offices, several social events, and a protest in front of the Capitol on Monday. They were all pretty fun and productive, and I’m dedicating a section to talk about each.

Sign-making and local presentations

I made a sign! Or tried to, anyway. I am not very good at making signs yet, but [...]

---

Outline:

(00:10) A lesson in courage from Washington, DC

(01:17) Sign-making and local presentations

(02:34) Lobbying workshop

(05:34) Meeting Congressional offices

(05:39) The talking points

(08:11) The meetings

(12:03) Social activity

(12:31) The protest

(14:35) Coda

---

First published:
April 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ryywsub2Nagp9rdLM/reflections-on-pausecon-2026

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Discussions of (p)sentience of small animals miss the point” by Jim Buhler

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 15:15:14 GMT

Tl;dr: You need to make specific moral weight assumptions to decide who to prioritize between animals with different degrees of sentience. And the moral weight of a given being is not its p(sentience). One could very well be certain that shrimp and insects feel pain (and are as badly off as they could possibly be), yet believe that they do so to a degree too small for them to be prioritized. Debates about interspecies tradeoffs should outline welfare ranges, over p(sentience), as the relevant crux.

When people defend prioritizing cognitively simpler animals over more complex ones, they tend to appeal to i) their numbers, ii) evidence of their sentience, and iii) some form of expected value maximization, even if slightly risk-averse.

While I am pretty sympathetic to prioritizing cognitively simpler beings, I think the above appeal misses the key crux, by mistakenly making (ii) about p(sentience) rather than about degree of sentience, or welfare range. For the conclusion to follow, (ii) needs to be: evidence of a welfare range that is not too insignificant to crucially undermine the importance of their large numbers.

It is quite easy to believe that shrimp and many insects are likely sentient.[1] In fact [...]

---

First published:
April 21st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/36Ab5CdMDqfeb8ZtC/discussions-of-p-sentience-of-small-animals-miss-the-point

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“What’s your favorite art with EA vibes?” by Aaron Gertler 🔸

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 12:45:14 GMT

I made a database for "art with EA vibes" — books, movies, and other works, fiction or nonfiction, that cover topics or ideas related to effective altruism and are aesthetically pleasing or interesting.[1]

The second point is key. We already have reading lists for philosophy and such; this database covers content that most of us would read or watch for fun.[2]

I've started off with 19 items and will add more, but I need your help to make this a true public resource! (And avoid subjecting everyone to my questionable taste.)

How can I submit something?

Use this form! Or leave a comment below if that feels easier.

If you have comments on something already listed (e.g. content warnings, suggested tags), or ideas to improve the database itself, leave a comment or send me a message.

What are you looking for?

I'd love to see content that:

Was made to address EA topics (e.g. AI in Context videos)
Was made to convey EA-flavored messages (e.g. HPMOR)[3]
Isn't related to EA, but still has the right vibes (e.g. Dr. Stone) or approaches related ideas in an interesting way (e.g. Consider the Lobster)
Instills "EA values" like empathy or an [...]

---

Outline:

(00:43) How can I submit something?

(01:03) What are you looking for?

(02:12) Why did you make this?

---

First published:
April 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KefbwQQukvkEojhK4/what-s-your-favorite-art-with-ea-vibes

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Better Futures Discussion Thread: With Fin Moorhouse” by Toby Tremlett🔹, finm

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 12:30:13 GMT

This week, we are highlighting Forethought's Better Futures series. Fin Moorhouse (@finm), who authored two chapters in the series (Convergence and Compromise, and No Easy Eutopia) along with @William_MacAskill, has agreed to answer a few of your questions about the series.

You can read (and comment) on the full series on the Forum. In order, the chapters are:

Introducing Better Futures
No Easy Eutopia
Convergence and Compromise
Persistent Path-Dependence
How to Make the Future Better
Supplement: The Basic Case for Better futures

Leave your questions and comments below, about any part of the series. Note that Fin isn't committing to answer every question, and if you see someone else's question you can answer, you're free to.

---

First published:
April 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fbEz2h2ys9GcBN54h/better-futures-discussion-thread-with-fin-moorhouse

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Manifund Essay Prize: on EA funding, the SF scene, and forecasting” by Austin

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 08:30:14 GMT

This is a link post.

Manifund is sponsoring 3 prizes for the best new essays that give us insight into how to navigate the future. Winners receive a $500 cash prize + a bonus prize, and winning essays may be republished (with attribution) on our newsletters.

This prize is in partnership with Inkhaven, though non-Inkhaven folks are welcome to submit.

Essays due midnight April 24; submit here!

Manifund: “What systems might manage the coming torrent of funding?”

Funding in EA may soon skyrocket. Between Anthropic & OpenAI tenders, the new OpenAI foundation, and short timelines to AGI, the amount of money available will be unprecedented. What mechanisms, incentive structures, orgs, and attitudes will help direct this windfall wisely?

Bonus prize: $1000 in donation credits on your Manifund account
Examples of essays we love:
- https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-start-an-advance-market-commitment/
- https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/paMYXYFYbbjpdjgbt/future-fund-june-2022-update
- https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vpPee6NgMbPcdsam3/the-funding-conversation-we-left-unfinished
- https://thecounterfactual.substack.com/p/the-anthropic-ipo-is-coming-we-arent
- https://blog.jacobtrefethen.com/10-technologies-that-wont-exist-in-5-yrs/
See also How to spend 100x more on safety?

Mox: “How to create a flourishing EA & AI safety scene in San Francisco?”

The race to build AI is going on in SF. So why is the AI safety scene here so weak? Berkeley, London, and DC all offer examples to learn from, but SF has its own unique challenges [...]

---

Outline:

(00:41) Manifund: What systems might manage the coming torrent of funding?

(01:26) Mox: How to create a flourishing EA & AI safety scene in San Francisco?

(02:16) Manifest: How can we leverage forecasting into better decisions?

(02:58) Prize terms

(04:00) Appendix: some problems one might grapple with

---

First published:
April 20th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PpsfMC9gNuqeftpku/manifund-essay-prize-on-ea-funding-the-sf-scene-and

Linkpost URL:
https://manifund.org/essay

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Trajan House - current goals and updates” by Asher Benter 🔸

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 08:30:14 GMT

Trajan House is an office in Oxford for people working on humanity's most pressing challenges. There have been some changes to the project over the last few years, and it seemed time to give a public update about what we’re getting up to!

Here are some quick things to know:

The anchor tenants in the space are Forethought and CEA. CEA manages the space.
I’m the project's manager
Over the next year, we are looking to add more:
- Organisations that can utilise the space indefinitely or on a short-term basis. We have space for 3-5 more organisations.
- Individuals who are looking to join an active, impact-focused community.
- Events such as fellowships or bootcamps.

If you are curious about any of the above, read on! Below, you’ll learn more about the space, our theory of change, and how to get involved.

Here are some ways to engage if you're already interested:

Apply to become a member, or
Apply to visit the space in June (after EAG London) for a few days or a even a few weeks. Throughout the month we plan to have many more people, visiting organisations, speakers, and social events. You can learn more and submit [...]

---

Outline:

(01:32) Getting up to speed

(02:12) Purpose and place

(03:28) What is the space like?

(04:06) Ways to engage

---

First published:
April 17th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JrSFzhdKCkrT4TfqC/trajan-house-current-goals-and-updates

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Humane Pesticides Are Massively Morally Urgent” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 04:00:15 GMT

I have lots of radical views about insects. I think probably most expected happiness and misery in the world is experienced by insects, and that our actions often have much more significant moral impacts on bugs than on people. But in this article, I’m not going to defend anything radical. My thesis here is very moderate: I think we should try to make pesticides kill insects less painfully.

Every year, quadrillions of insects are killed or harmed with pesticides—3.5 quadrillion, according to one estimate. This is about 30,000 times more than the number of people who have ever lived in human history. In the best cases, deaths take minutes or hours as the insects are slowly poisoned to death. In other worse cases, death takes days as the insects are left unable to shed their own skin and essentially crushed to death from the inside. In still other cases, insects starve to death as their guts malfunction. This is likely to be very painful.

It is plausible that many insects can suffer. When benchmarks are created to assess pain in animals, insects consistently meet most of the criteria, having nociceptors, responding to painkillers, demonstrating associative learning, and sometimes displaying [...]

---

First published:
April 17th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qFAoZKpL5aRdqyBLb/humane-pesticides-are-massively-morally-urgent

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Why we need to resist the idea of net negative lives in insects” by Hans Schönberg 🔸

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 12:00:14 GMT

Recently, I have come across a growing number of speculations suggesting that wild animals lead net negative lives. Proponents of this view typically refer to insects, arthropods, invertebrates, or species with r-selective reproductive strategies. The conclusion they draw is usually that we should aim to reduce their numbers in one way or another. Unfortunately, birth control is seldom discussed in this context. Habitat destruction appears to be the preferred method.

There is, of course, some value in speculating about virtually any topic in science. What troubles me is that such speculations may be mistaken for established theories, particularly given the way they are presented to broader audiences through public forums, podcasts, and YouTube videos.

The central argument typically runs as follows: animals with r-selective reproductive strategies produce many offspring, of which only a few survive. The experience of a usually violent death therefore constitutes a large proportion of their lives.

This argument rests on two assumptions:

The experience of death itself is something terrible.
The experience of death actually makes up a significant proportion of those animals' lives.

I want to push back against both assumptions.

First Assumption: Is a Violent Death Really That Bad?

When I contemplate [...]

---

First published:
April 18th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6S9YLXLhdfFBtdyCh/why-we-need-to-resist-the-idea-of-net-negative-lives-in

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“My lover, effective altruism” by Natalie_Cargill

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 15:45:37 GMT

Crossposted from Substack. This post is part of a 30-posts-in-30-days ordeal at Inkhaven. All suboptimalities are the result of that. This is part 2, here is part 1 in my EA mini series!

On my way to my tenth EAG in a decade, my brother-in-law explained effective altruism to me.

At first, he couldn’t quite remember if he’d heard the phrase before. But he searched the corners of his mind until the definition made itself known: “yeah, it's just a bunch of wankers who pretend to have social impact, but all they do is go to conferences and raise money and they’ve never had any impact at all.”

I have never had any chill. I did not develop it in that moment. If anyone is going to say EA is just a bunch of wankers, it's going to be me, newbie.

“That's interesting, Ben, but I think it's a serious misconception — you might not be aware that EA has literally raised billions of dollars for global health charities, which very likely saved hundreds of thousands of children's lives (do you hate children, Ben?) They have literally stopped millions of hens being tortured in cages too small for them [...]

---

First published:
April 17th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sA5iFynuMJQAuJ6ku/my-lover-effective-altruism

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Reconciling Cost-Effectiveness and Cheap Enough” by Tony Senanayake

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 14:15:37 GMT

Two frameworks, one question: whose finances are we talking about, and to what end?

As the development sector gathers at the Skoll World Forum in Oxford this week, against a backdrop of sharp cuts to official development assistance — the US has ended 83% of USAID's programmes, the UK has cut its aid budget by 40%, and the OECD projects an overall ODA decline of 9–17% in 2025 alone, with projected consequences for millions of lives — two financial frameworks are converging in the sector's conversations.

The first is cost-effectiveness: IDinsight has launched a dedicated Cost-Effectiveness Unit and the FCDO's Best Buys evidence summaries are influencing billions in development spending. The second is the “cheap enough” framework developed by the Mulago Foundation, asking whether solutions are structured to scale through government financing rather than perpetual philanthropy. Both feel urgent right now. And together, they open a broader opportunity: to think more holistically about financial frameworks, not just how to maximise impact per dollar, but what among that which is highly cost-effective is also truly scalable and implementable.

These two frameworks are not in tension. They are sequential, and the sector needs both. But to use them well, it [...]

---

Outline:

(02:40) Cost-Effectiveness: The Optimisation Tool

(04:45) Cheap Enough: The Scaling Reality Check

(06:47) Five Ways to Think About the Relationship

(07:00) 1. Cheap Enough ⊂ Cost-Effective -- Recommended Approach

(07:36) 2. Cost-Effective ⊂ Cheap Enough

(07:58) 3. Partial Overlap -- the sector default

(08:23) 4. Equivalent -- big-aid context only

(08:47) 5. Mutually Exclusive -- avoid

(09:10) Implications

---

First published:
April 17th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4k7oJ8wwu9eqpFyxg/reconciling-cost-effectiveness-and-cheap-enough

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “In Development Magazine Launch” by Lauren Gilbert

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 12:30:37 GMT

This is a link post.

We're announcing a new development magazine: In Development.

Our goal is to promote discourse on development without dogma. In other words, we public stories doing deep dives into pressing development issues, backed up by evidence, argument, and experience.

The first piece is by Paul Niehaus, an Economics Professor at the University of California, San Diego, and co-founder of GiveDirectly.

He talks about the complementary role of evidence in the evolution of GiveDirectly, which has recently transferred its billionth dollar. Why did they need evidence? What kind of evidence did they need to convince themselves and others? What were the surprises? Whose preferences does such evidence reveal or promote? What role does ‘power’ play in the generation of such evidence?

We have one article out each week. The next one will have a line of argument that, mildly put, may not agree with today's piece.

---

First published:
April 17th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jAhnPqceJuAkXgfur/in-development-magazine-launch

Linkpost URL:
https://indevelopmentmag.com/money-for-nothing-the-roles-of-evidence-in-givedirectlys-journey-to-1-billion-delivered/

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The AI people have been right a lot” by Dylan Matthews

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 09:15:24 GMT

This post was crossposted from Dylan Matthew's blog by the EA Forum team. The author may not see or reply to comments.

Subtitle: Try to keep an open mind as the world gets increasingly wild.

The crowd at EAG 2015 (Center for Effective Altruism)

In 2015, I went to my first EA (Effective Altruism) Global. It was then on-the-record for journalists, which is a rule that got changed for all subsequent events due to my actions.

My exposure to EA at that time was mostly through people who took high-paying careers in order to “earn to give” to global health charities, which I had written about in the Washington Post. I also knew the movement cared a lot about animal welfare. I was aware that there were people worried about catastrophic risks, and specifically about AI; this had come up in a profile I wrote of Open Philanthropy (my now-employer, albeit under a new name these days). But I still broadly thought of EA as the bednets and cage-free commitments people.

I was really taken aback by how dominant discussions of AI risk were at the event. The marquee panel featured Superintelligence author Nick Bostrom, future If Anyone Builds It [...]

---

Outline:

(03:31) What should I learn from bungling this?

(06:43) Listen to the people saying stuff will get weird

---

First published:
April 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9FPxMET3W4wewwSyf/the-ai-people-have-been-right-a-lot

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“None of It Is Pretend” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 09:15:24 GMT

Crosspost.

Picture a knife cutting into your stomach.

Don’t just register the words. Actually take a moment to think about what it would be like. What the first moment it occurred would be like, how the pain would get deeper as the knife cuts more deeply into your flesh, the way the blood would drip down your sides and you would cry out in pain. Intense agony has a way of cutting through idealizations and rationalizations—so that the world is on fire, alight with nothing but pain.

Andy Masley has an article called Animal Suffering Isn’t Pretend. It's easy to go through the world thinking it is pretend, implicitly if not explicitly. It's easy to think of animals as meek little animatronic robots who we shouldn’t be overly cruel to, but merit a somewhat second-class ethical status. They merit nice statements about compassion, rather than any kind of deep sympathy—of imagining things from their perspective. It is easy to go through life never thinking about what it's like to be an animal.

But animal suffering is not pretend. There is something it is like to be an animal going through the myriad horrors we inflict on them. To pick [...]

---

First published:
April 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4Z79AY5Tv5vhRMhgh/none-of-it-is-pretend

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“A brief update on EA Funds, and a recruitment announcement: Head of the EA Infrastructure Fund” by Loïc Watine

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 09:15:24 GMT

I joined CEA as Director of EA Funds 3 months ago. I have two goals with this post:

Sharing some early thoughts about what I've found and where I think EA Funds is headed.
Announcing that we're now searching for a Head of the EA Infrastructure Fund, a hire I think is one of the most important ones we'll make this year.

Where EA Funds stands

For those less familiar, EA Funds channels individual donations to high-impact work through four cause-specific funds: the Animal Welfare Fund (AWF), the Long-Term Future Fund (LTFF), the Global Health and Development Fund (GHDF), and the EA Infrastructure Fund (EAIF). Since EA Funds (re-)became part of CEA in mid-2025, we've been building toward a model with full-time leadership for each fund, strong grantmaking processes, and the strategic clarity to make each fund a solid product for donors who want to do the most good with their giving.

The Animal Welfare Fund is our proof of concept. In just over a year of having full-time leadership, AWF developed a clear 3-year grantmaking strategy, grew from roughly $3M to $10M raised annually, and funded interventions improving welfare for billions of animals across dozens of countries [...]

---

Outline:

(00:37) Where EA Funds stands

(03:48) The EA Infrastructure Fund

(06:54) The hire

---

First published:
April 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/MaAzwX3erHW3rD53B/a-brief-update-on-ea-funds-and-a-recruitment-announcement

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The Case Against Offsetting Your Diet” by Charles Berry

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 21:45:33 GMT

Summary

In January 2026, the animal charity Farmkind launched a controversial news campaign advertising their ability to “offset” the impact of non-vegan diets through strategic donations to EA causes. I have now spoken with several non-vegan EAs who use Farmkind (or similar calculators) to buy “offsets” for their diets, and I think the offsetting logic is more powerful than vegans would like to admit. However, I think EAs generally draw the wrong conclusions from this line of reasoning. Even (maybe especially) under hardcore consequentialism I believe there's a very strong case to be made against using “offsets” of any kind. As a vegan advocate now working in animal welfare policy, I feel strongly that the reluctance of many EAs to commit to veganism represents a major missed opportunity for the movement, and an objectively massive source of animal suffering.

How Offsets Work

By going vegan, you can reduce total market demand by something like ~200 animals (excluding shrimp) every year (1). However, due both to the astonishing number of animals killed for food every year and the immense tractability of targeted welfare reforms, going vegan is far from the most effective way to help animals. Farmkind estimates that donating [...]

---

First published:
April 15th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oW9JhtuD8hWN6xd7u/the-case-against-offsetting-your-diet

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“You Aren’t in Charge of the Overton Window; Politics Is Not Interior Design” by Davidmanheim

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 16:30:33 GMT

Sometimes, people don't say what they actually think, not because saying it would be rude or costly, but because they believe saying it now would be counterproductive. They see that the true claim is outside the Overton window. And they conclude that the strategic play is to say something weaker, something adjacent. That will let you normalize the frame without triggering the immune response. You will redesign the house a bit now so that you can slide the window later. Then, when the ground has shifted, you imagine, the real claim becomes sayable.

Strategic discourse chess?

The above is an attempt at high-dimensional discourse chess. In politics and the world of ideas, it seems that people play it constantly. But building on a recent comment by Rob Bensinger, I want to argue that the conceit behind playing, that we can model how public acceptability shifts and cleverly intervene to steer those shifts, is usually wrong - not in the sense that discourse has no structure, or to argue that framing never matters.

Most people vastly overestimate their ability to predict second- and third-order effects of anything, including strategic speech. And this is a more damaging error than you might [...]

---

Outline:

(00:45) Strategic discourse chess?

(02:22) Yes, Overton windows exist, but...

(04:01) ...can they be reliably manipulated?

(05:59) Why would you think this could work?

(07:18) The case of AI Safety

(11:16) Pushing back is also manipulation.

(15:05) Another real-world example: Defund the Police

(17:45) Strategic discourse chess usually underperforms just saying what is true.

(19:59) The obvious conclusion

---

First published:
April 16th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rSNj8uwbZKjXuy5Wj/you-aren-t-in-charge-of-the-overton-window-politics-is-not

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“US electoral politics” by 80000_Hours, Sam Roth 🔸

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 07:15:33 GMT

Read this career review on the 80,000 Hours website.

Summary

In a nutshell: Who wields power in the US government is a very important determinant of outcomes for many of the world's most pressing problems, including reducing catastrophic risks from AI. The most direct ways to affect who controls the levers of government power are to work on campaigns and run for office. Because election outcomes are so important, and sufficiently tractable, we think electoral work is a great option for many people. However, it can be hard to make an impact in these roles, and the work has material downsides, like low pay and low job security.

Pros:

Very wide breadth and scale of potential impact
Low barriers to entry
Entry point for other areas with high potential impact such as policy
Fast-paced and often exciting work

Cons:

Less direct path to impact
Even if you win an election, impact is not guaranteed (and could be negative)
Difficult to assess where you can have the greatest leverage
Challenging working conditions and high risk of burnout
Many elected offices (though not campaign roles) are limited to US citizens

Key facts on fit:

You don't need any [...]

---

Outline:

(00:15) Summary

(02:17) Two key paths to impact through electoral politics

(03:10) Why work in US electoral politics?

(03:15) Individuals really can make a difference

(05:01) Why should you run for office?

(07:40) Why should you work for a campaign?

(13:23) Elected leadership matters a great deal

(17:35) Lower-level offices shape higher-level outcomes.

(18:13) Politics is a good option if you expect transformative AI relatively soon.

(19:26) Downsides of working in electoral politics

(19:31) Downsides to running for office

(22:08) Downsides to working on campaigns

(24:20) Would you be a good fit for working in electoral politics?

(24:25) Skills that will help you succeed

(27:05) What experience is useful?

(28:41) What else is helpful?

(29:08) Top roles and where to work

(29:31) Common roles to look for

(29:56) Key places to work

(31:03) Next steps

(32:25) Read next

(32:42) Learn more

(33:08) Acknowledgements

---

First published:
April 15th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/muCAqq6dobgdnvcAC/us-electoral-politics

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“What 3,654 Job Postings Tell Us About Talent Needs in AI Safety” by Weronika Żurek 🔸

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 22:00:34 GMT

Summary

Based on the last 3 years of AI safety job board postings from 80, 000 Hours, I checked what skillsets are the most sought after in the field, including positions at different types of organisations, and separately, leadership roles. Here are three of the most important findings:

In leadership positions, a management skillset paired with an operations, strategy, or policy skillset is the most needed combination. Research and technical skills are not very important in this group.
Information security seems to be a very important skillset to have in AI labs
Research skills are often needed in connection with other skillsets, such as management, information security, software engineering, or policy.

You can find more conclusions at the end of the post.

I believe this analysis may help draw some important conclusions for two main groups: job-seekers and fieldbuilders, in particular those working on improving talent flows and attracting new talent to high-impact positions in AI safety.

Introduction

When I joined the Astra Fellowship as a Fieldbuilding Fellow in January, it seemed obvious to me that there must be a lot of knowledge in the field about what we need from AI safety talent pipelines. After all, there are [...]

---

Outline:

(00:13) Summary

(01:21) Introduction

(03:05) Skillsets

(06:12) Skillset needs by type of organisation

(06:46) Academia

(07:23) Public Institutions

(09:35) AI labs

(11:16) Non-governmental organisations

(11:56) Leadership roles

(14:00) Limitations

(15:32) Conclusions and implications

---

First published:
April 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AAGD34wyWHXm5d2gp/what-3-654-job-postings-tell-us-about-talent-needs-in-ai

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Open Wing Alliance Grants: 2026 Recommendations” by Olivia Addy

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 21:00:33 GMT

Introduction

In 2026, the Open Wing Alliance awarded ~$1.9M to 28 organizations globally. This post gives background on our grant program, strategy, and highlights some grants we are particularly excited about this year. It also gives some info on how you can become a member and apply to receive a grant.

Background

The Open Wing Alliance (OWA) is a coalition of over 80 member organizations located across more than 70 countries, focused on cage-free and broiler welfare corporate work. It is a program of The Humane League (THL). You can find out more about THL and the OWA in this post, and the OWA's approach to maximizing impact through supported regranting strategy here.

The OWA has two main goals:

End the abuse of chickens worldwide.
Strengthen the global farm animal welfare movement.

One of the ways in which we work towards achieving our goals is through our grant program.

The OWA provides 1-2 year grants of up to $100,000 per year for corporate cage-free and broiler welfare campaign work to our member organizations. Our funds primarily cover campaign and corporate relations staff positions, but also cover other costs associated with corporate campaigns such as travel, campaign [...]

---

Outline:

(00:12) Introduction

(00:36) Background

(03:25) 2026. funding

(04:20) Highlighted grants

(11:54) All grants

(12:14) If youre interested in learning more

---

First published:
April 14th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LxWmmvij4dcDe5ins/open-wing-alliance-grants-2026-recommendations

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“China’s Major Meat Supplier Just Set a Cage-Free Policy - Why I’m More Optimistic Than Ever About China” by Whitney Peng, Lily Tse

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 16:30:33 GMT

This post is an update on some great and perhaps surprising progress in China that feels worth sharing, and a sincere thank-you to the people I have gotten to know through EAG SF (recap at the end).

Why China, and Why Now

Approximately 75% of the world's farmed animals are raised in Asia, yet the region receives a disproportionately small fraction of global animal welfare funding. Within that, China represents an enormous concentration of both suffering and—increasingly—tractable opportunity.

Securing corporate commitments in China is genuinely challenging. The regulatory environment, business culture, and the sheer scale of the supply chains involved mean that this work requires patience, relationship-building, and careful engagement. Lever China has been doing that work for nearly seven years. The progress going on has not been publicized much outside of China, and that's partly by design - the work often requires discretion to be effective.

But as both the pace of progress and the size of the opportunity have grown, we (and I) wanted to share more, as I think they collectively tell an important story about the road ahead.

A Notable Milestone: Yurun Group's Cage-Free Commitment

A recent commitment Lever China generated that was announced last [...]

---

Outline:

(00:25) Why China, and Why Now

(01:26) A Notable Milestone: Yurun Groups Cage-Free Commitment

(03:02) Emerging Progress on Ducks (An Often Overlooked Issue)

(06:21) What This Adds Up To

(08:17) Reflection from EAG SF

---

First published:
April 9th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7C2wrjXAQJdjQ4bs5/china-s-major-meat-supplier-just-set-a-cage-free-policy-why

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Imprinting: My Mistake in Cause Prioritization” by elianadu

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 08:15:07 GMT

This is a link post.

Note: I was told by a friend to cross-post this from Substack. Let me know if I'm violating any community norms!

“Here is one common failure mode for EAs. You look at 80k's list of the most important cause areas, pick the first one as the thing you want to work on, then end up doing that.”

Oh. This sounds like a familiar story.

* * *

It's summer before college, and I’m staring blankly at the worksheet in front of me. I’m a Non-Trivial Finalist — not a Fellow yet, though I intensely want to be — and this worksheet is my last barrier to entry. The topic of last week, Week 1, was “Clarify your mission.” The topic for this week is “Choose a pressing problem to address.” Easy peasy.

All I have to do is pick a cause area and a project I want to work on in that area. I’m more interested in brainstorming a project idea, so I rush through the cause areas. AI safety is the first thing listed on the 80k website, and I kind of like math (even if I know nothing about AI), so it seems [...]

---

First published:
April 14th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/smuzXisKkeGuTRfEQ/imprinting-my-mistake-in-cause-prioritization

Linkpost URL:
https://elianadu.substack.com/p/imprinting

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“I founded Longview and have written down some thoughts on fundraising” by Natalie_Cargill

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 15:00:07 GMT

I thought it might be useful to share over here!

Please see my (very new) blog --

Part 1 - https://nataliercargill.substack.com/p/how-to-fundraise-one-million-million

Part 2 - https://nataliercargill.substack.com/p/how-to-fundraise-one-million-million-0cb

Part 3 - https://nataliercargill.substack.com/p/how-to-prepare-for-a-donor-call-actually

Questions welcome! :)

---

First published:
April 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/c4ATxQSoixgFxoCxg/i-founded-longview-and-have-written-down-some-thoughts-on

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Hit me up if you go to Dartmouth University!” by Shreya V

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 21:45:44 GMT

I'm Shreya, a junior at Dartmouth College, where I lead our animal advocacy group. I'm currently starting a Dartmouth EA group and would love to see if there's interest from other Dartmouth EAs in either helping run the club or coming to events!

I genuinely believe that organizing a university EA group — especially at a top school — is one of the most impactful things a person can do (even under short timelines!). Dartmouth is a world-class university with no EA presence, and that should change, especially because there is tons of institutional knowledge and people that want to help!

If you're at Dartmouth, please reach out me at shreyavikram18@gmail.com. I'd love to get on a call to talk about why this matters and how we can make it happen.

Don't take it from me. Take it from this shrimp (inspired from this post) :

---

First published:
April 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NwJ3kpYgSYxE8KqAq/hit-me-up-if-you-go-to-dartmouth-university

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“AI Safety’s Biggest Talent Gap Isn’t Researchers. It’s Generalists.” by Topaz, Agustín Covarrubias 🔸, Alexandra Bates, Parv Mahajan, Kairos

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 18:45:43 GMT

This post was cross posted to LessWrong

TL;DR: One of the largest talent gaps in AI safety is competent generalists: program managers, fieldbuilders, operators, org leaders, chiefs of staff, founders. Ambitious, competent junior people could develop the skills to fill these roles, but there are no good pathways for them to gain skills, experience, and credentials. Instead, they're incentivized to pursue legible technical and policy fellowships and then become full-time researchers, even if that's not a good fit for their skills. The ecosystem needs to make generalist careers more legible and accessible.

Kairos and Constellation are announcing the Generator Residency as a first step. Apply here by April 27.

Epistemic status: Fairly confident, based on 2 years running AI safety talent programs, direct hiring experience, and conversations with ~30 senior org leaders across the ecosystem in the past 6 months.

The problem

Over the past few years, AI safety has moved from niche concern toward a more mainstream issue, driven by pieces like Situational Awareness, AI 2027, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, and the rapidly increasing capabilities of the models themselves.

During this period, over 20 research fellowships have launched, collectively training thousands of fellows, with 2,000-2,500 fellows [...]

---

Outline:

(01:18) The problem

(03:41) Why the pipeline is broken

(05:59) Why this matters now

(07:31) Counter-Arguments

(10:11) The Generator Residency

---

First published:
April 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/k3nq7FxBCsrNFmAYi/ai-safety-s-biggest-talent-gap-isn-t-researchers-it-s-2

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Introducing the Specialist Founder Track of Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program” by Ambitious Impact

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 15:15:44 GMT

Apply to build one specific, research-backed charity.

Looking for mid-career professionals in public health policy and foreign aid spending.

You know how the system works. Now build something that changes it.

You've accumulated expertise that most people in the world simply don't have. Real relationships. Valuable networks. Professional credibility. An understanding of how decisions are actually made. That career capital is extraordinarily valuable, and there's a specific way to deploy it that could affect millions of lives.

We've identified two extraordinarily cost-effective charity ideas that need founders with specific backgrounds to succeed.

If you've built a career in policy or advocacy — think government aid agencies, health ministries, food regulatory bodies, or the organizations that work closely alongside them — this is for you.

Submit an Expression of Interest form before April 29th.

Program starts in September 2026.

What is the Specialist Founder Track?

Our incubation program typically recruits talented generalists and matches them with ideas during the program. But a small number of our ideas don't work that way. They need founders who already have the relationships, the institutional knowledge, and the credibility to open doors from day one.

The Specialist Founder Track is straightforward: you apply [...]

---

Outline:

(00:33) You know how the system works. Now build something that changes it.

(01:29) What is the Specialist Founder Track?

(02:22) Effective Foreign Aid Advocacy

(03:11) Why this idea needs a specialist

(03:51) Who are we looking for?

(04:46) Salt Intake Reduction Advocacy

(06:01) Why this idea needs a specialist

(06:36) Who are we looking for?

(07:35) Are you the specialist founder we are looking for?

(08:23) Know someone who fits the bill?

(08:42) What youll get: full program support

---

First published:
April 13th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8nGab2Lgziv8WkvSz/introducing-the-specialist-founder-track-of-charity

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “The Anthropic IPO Is Coming. We Aren’t Ready for It.” by Sophie Kim

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 19:00:32 GMT

This is a link post.

More money is coming than AI safety has ever seen. The capacity to deploy it doesn't exist yet.

Image Source: Fortune.com

This week, Anthropic announced Claude Mythos Preview– a model so capable at finding software vulnerabilities that the company decided to wait to release it publicly. Last month, Bloomberg reported that Anthropic's annualized revenue had hit $19 billion, doubling in under four months, and by some accounts surpassing OpenAI. It is currently one of the most valuable private companies on the planet.

Anthropic is also going to IPO, possibly as soon as October 2026. When it does, a few thousand people, including some of the wealthiest people on the planet, will become liquid, and a meaningful fraction of those people will want to give to AI safety.

Tech liquidity events have created major philanthropists before. Dustin Moskovitz's Facebook shares became Good Ventures, which became Coefficient Giving, which became the single largest funder of AI safety. Vitalik Buterin donated $665 million to a fledgling FLI. Jed McCaleb's crypto wealth became a billion-dollar endowment to the Navigation Fund, which went from $4 million in grants its first year to over $60 million by 2025.

None of these come [...]

---

Outline:

(00:13) More money is coming than AI safety has ever seen. The capacity to deploy it doesnt exist yet.

(03:36) The constraint is talent, not funding

(05:47) We dont just need more bets- we need decorrelated ones

(08:39) Different structural positions

(09:17) Independent grantmakers with different worldviews

(10:12) The Pitch: Consider becoming a grantmaker or founding something new

(12:52) The window is brief

(13:48) Next Steps

---

First published:
April 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ychu2LAw54sNcocKH/the-anthropic-ipo-is-coming-we-aren-t-ready-for-it

Linkpost URL:
https://thecounterfactual.substack.com/p/the-anthropic-ipo-is-coming-we-arent

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“How scary is Claude Mythos? 303 pages in 21 minutes” by 80000_Hours

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 14:15:32 GMT

By Robert Wiblin | Watch on Youtube | Listen on Spotify

As we now know, Anthropic has built an AI that can break into almost any computer on Earth. That AI has already found thousands of unknown security vulnerabilities in every major operating system and every major browser. And Anthropic has decided it's too dangerous to release to the public; it would just cause too much harm.

Here are just a few of the things that AI accomplished during testing:

It found a 27-year-old flaw in the world's most security-hardened operating system that would in effect let it crash all kinds of essential infrastructure.
Engineers at the company with no particular security training asked it to find vulnerabilities overnight and woke up to working exploits of critical security flaws that could be used to cause real harm.
It managed to figure out how to build web pages that, when visited by fully updated, fully patched computers, would allow it to write to the operating system kernel — the most important and protected layer of any computer.

We know all this because Anthropic has released hundreds of pages of documentation about this model, which they’ve called Claude Mythos.

[...]

---

Outline:

(01:35) Why people are panicking about computer security

(05:12) Mythos could break out of containment

(07:22) Anthropic is losing billions in revenue by not releasing Mythos

(09:09) Mythos is actually the most aligned model to date, except...

(11:44) Mythos knows when its being tested

(13:50) Mythos can hide its thoughts

(16:24) Mythos cant be trusted about whether its untrustworthy

(20:00) Does Mythos advance automated AI R&D?

(22:28) Mythos scares Anthropic

(24:53) Learn more

---

First published:
April 10th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SyJx8Mbvi2ft78esn/how-scary-is-claude-mythos-303-pages-in-21-minutes

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Leading Insect Farm Took Millions In Subsidies, Then Collapsed Into A Waking Nightmare” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 11:30:32 GMT

Crosspost of a blog post.

A recent investigation uncovered that the leading insect farming company, Ynsect, was a horrifying disaster. While company leadership soaked up millions in subsidies with sunny rhetoric about their commercial success, the dark reality inside the farm was like nothing anyone imagined.

Investigators found filth clogging the machines, endangering workers. Larval bins would routinely break open, leading to repeated showers of larvae. Insects crawled all over the place, wholly uncontained. Airborne larval food floated haphazardly through the air, making workers sick. Birds wandered freely throughout the facility, their feces coating the machines. The whole area was a deluge of filth, feces, disease, and pollution.

The photos above show what the place looked like. In person, it was even more of a horror show. Investigators described1:

And here, in the photos and videos, you don't have the smells. In reality, it makes you dizzy. It's impossible to breathe. Even with a mask, it makes you feel sick.

The accounts from workers were even more harrowing.

There was no dust extraction, nothing at all. I started having a runny nose, itchy eyes, a scratchy throat, my nose running, my eyes burning, and difficulty breathing. Rashes on [...]

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
April 10th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/m22GCyaKGd8gKBwFX/leading-insect-farm-took-millions-in-subsidies-then

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Help me launch Obsolete: a book aimed at building a new movement for AI reform” by Garrison

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 06:45:41 GMT

I wrote a book! It's called Obsolete: The AI Industry's Trillion-Dollar Race to Replace You—and How to Stop It, and it’ll be available in May if you preorder through my publisher (OR Books+The Nation).

With it, I took on a dual mission: get anyone up to speed on the state of AI and its risks (especially skeptics and lefties) AND write something people working in the space will enjoy and learn from. An unbiased panel of early reviewers (i.e. people I know) think it succeeds. For instance, here's a review from a skeptical friend:

It felt like I was being drawn into this profound vision I had managed to keep out of my head for years… I feel this deep, visceral distrust of AI companies, and chatbots, for reasons that you were able to lay out in various places. I think I came to this like a very non-SF, non-tech, ‘normie’ who is reacting with their gut to seeing the proliferation of ai... But I also had never directly faced the story of AI, how the tech worked, and whether my skepticism was in fact, ill-founded. This hit that, and I thought it did a great job balancing [...]

---

Outline:

(06:37) Ways to help

(08:22) Excerpt - The Obsoleting Project

---

First published:
April 9th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ekShYQpaScoZLqQyi/help-me-launch-obsolete-a-book-aimed-at-building-a-new

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Launching a massively improved version of our job board” by Probably Good

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:30:42 GMT

We're excited to share that we’ve overhauled our job board! It now has a much better interface and email alerts, to help people find impactful roles.

We’re still fixing a bunch of bugs, but we’ve opted to launch and iterate on the live version rather than wait until everything is perfect, because we think the board is now at a state where we expect this to be better for users. If you spot any issues or have suggestions, please let us know!

Moving forward, we’ll continue improving the board, though we’ll mainly shift our focus back to adding more roles. We’ve recently hit a bottleneck on this, because we’ve exceeded the limits of our previous (MVPish) systems as we’ve scaled the board. This should no longer be an issue, and we’re also planning to make further improvements to our backend, which mostly won’t be visible, but will help us continue to scale.

Ultimately, our goal is to continue improving and scaling the board, which has already grown more than 5x in the last 12 months compared to the previous ones (getting well over 100K clicks on impactful roles), and is still growing rapidly.

In the meantime, here are a [...]

---

First published:
April 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hZ8Xep8aHP5BeKQeL/launching-a-massively-improved-version-of-our-job-board

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Infinite Dust Specks Are Worse Than One Torture” by Vasco Grilo🔸

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:00:42 GMT

This is a link post.

[Subtitle.] The utilitarians were right!

This is a crosspost for Infinite Dust Specks Are Worse Than One Torture by Bentham's Bulldog, which was originally published on Bentham's Newsletter on 20 March 2026. Bentham's Bulldog published a post 2 days later responding to comments on the 1st post.

1 Introduction

You hear the torture vs dust specks example come up a lot when discussing the alleged vices of utilitarianism. Emile Torres once wrote:

On another occasion, Yudkowsky argued that in a forced-choice situation you should prefer that a single person is tortured relentlessly for 50 years than for some unfathomable number of people to suffer the almost imperceptible discomfort of having a single speck of dust in their eyes. Just do the moral arithmetic — or, as he puts it, “Shut up and multiply!” Suffice it to say that most philosophers would vehemently object to this conclusion.

This is extremely misleading. If one bothers to read Eliezer's piece on the subject (rather than opportunistically scanning it for things that sound bad out of context and then gleefully spreading them across the internet), they will see he has arguments for biting the bullet. He doesn’t just instruct [...]

---

Outline:

(00:33) 1. Introduction

(02:26) 2. The opposite of love on the spectrum

(12:36) 3. Risk

(16:02) 4. The extremely simple argument

(18:32) 5. Scope neglect

(20:00) 6. Conclusion

---

First published:
April 7th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yRD24v9ebsC46xWgs/infinite-dust-specks-are-worse-than-one-torture

Linkpost URL:
https://benthams.substack.com/p/infinite-dust-specks-are-worse-than

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“The outsized benefits of removing bottlenecks: some personal experiences” by Rory Fenton

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 20:45:40 GMT

I once ran the monitoring and evaluation department of a large nonprofit in rural Tanzania. We had 25 full-time data collectors who ran surveys with farmers on their crop yields and planting practices. My job was to oversee the team, analyze their data and produce reports with actionable recommendations.

The field team was incredibly productive and we were collecting tons of data. We were also producing very few actual reports and horrendously behind on everything. This seemed to me like a “time to work harder” problem but reading a business professor's novel about manufacturing helped me see it differently.

The correct solution was to tell my 25 field staff to stop working for two months.

The most engrossing book I've read since Harry Potter

The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt is a novel about a manager given 6 months to turn around his factory or face closure, and the tactics he uses to get production up. It should not be good. It is very good. I’m not claiming it's great literature but it contains one of those ideas that, once seen, cannot be unseen.

A system moves at the speed of its slowest component, and nothing you do to [...]

---

Outline:

(00:55) The most engrossing book Ive read since Harry Potter

(03:54) Rory, the bottleneck

(07:09) Bottles as bottlenecks

(08:23) Some observations on bottlenecks

(09:39) Conclusion

---

First published:
April 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7excF9Zsv3gKvAdAZ/the-outsized-benefits-of-removing-bottlenecks-some-personal

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Six milestones for AI automation” by Ajeya

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 20:45:40 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: What can AI do on its own, and when?

The closer you think you are to your “powerful AI” milestone of choice, the more important it becomes to define it precisely. If your timelines are in the few-year range, changing the particular definition of powerful AI can easily double or triple your median forecast. Take my definition of “full automation of AI R&D” from my predictions post earlier this year:

[F]or whichever AI company is in the lead [at the relevant point in time], if you fired all its members of technical staff, its rate of technical progress on relevant benchmarks would be slowed down by less than 25% (this is a pretty arbitrary threshold, you can make the milestone more or less extreme by choosing a smaller or bigger number).

There's a lot that could be made more precise about this definition, but let's zoom in on that arbitrary quantitative threshold.

In every major sector of economic activity, the productivity hit you take from removing humans is and [...]

---

First published:
April 3rd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ff7rtk44cfpaFbpPT/six-milestones-for-ai-automation

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Summarizing the evidence on AI and chicken consciousness” by ozymandias

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 17:15:41 GMT

This is a link post.

Rethink Priorities has recently come out with the Digital Consciousness Model, a groundbreaking synthesis of the evidence for and against the consciousness of large language models and chickens. I think the Digital Consciousness Model is some of the most exciting work coming out of consciousness studies recently, and I want to walk you through what we’ve learned from it.

I’m going to start by talking about the model's findings. Then I’m going to get into the nitty-gritty details, which are kind of boring (I don’t want you guys to bounce off the post because you’re trying to understand Bayesian hierarchical models).

What We Learn From The Digital Consciousness Model

The Digital Consciousness Model doesn’t offer a new theory of consciousness or purport to say once and for all which entities are conscious. Instead, it organizes the information we already have about consciousness in a structured way that makes it easier for everyone to think more clearly about consciousness—regardless of their viewpoints about the matter.

On a very high level, the Digital Consciousness Model looks at thirteen “stances”, or ideas about what evidence we should use to figure out if an entity is conscious. Some of [...]

---

Outline:

(00:45) What We Learn From The Digital Consciousness Model

(11:41) How The Digital Consciousness Model Works

---

First published:
April 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2T95JPJ6NzTCS63sd/summarizing-the-evidence-on-ai-and-chicken-consciousness

Linkpost URL:
https://thingofthings.substack.com/p/summarizing-the-evidence-on-ai-and

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“What questions do policymakers ask about foreign aid?” by Sam Anschell

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 17:00:41 GMT

I sit down with Lee Jae-jeong, one of the 21 parliamentarians on South Korea's Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee. The National Assembly budget audit looms, and our conversation could impact the next year of Korea's health aid. I walk through a 5-minute presentation (stopping intermittently for translation) about Gavi's new malaria vaccines and why we at Coefficient Giving think so highly of them. She furrows her brow while she flips through the printed leave-behind I brought. What does she want to know?

I’ve had dozens of similar conversations with Japanese and Korean lawmakers as a representative of Coefficient Giving's Global Aid Policy program. Our team's goals are to grow the scale of wealthy countries’ development assistance, and direct this money to more cost-effective aid programs. Given our lean staffing model, we’re limited in the amount of direct advocacy we ourselves can do. However, after funding local aid advocacy groups in Japan and Korea, we learned that meeting with policymakers in person helps to build relationships, strengthen educational advocacy, and provide international validation for our grantees’ work.

At a time of deep cuts across major aid donors, it can be easy to imagine appropriators as heartless gatekeepers who withhold [...]

---

Outline:

(02:05) Geopolitics

(03:51) Values

(04:38) Pragmatism

---

First published:
April 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hPKBApDDPDzZEHhDg/what-questions-do-policymakers-ask-about-foreign-aid

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Impact Requires Implementation: What Dispensers for Safe Water Scale-Back Can Teach Us About Monitoring” by Tony Senanayake

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 14:15:41 GMT

TL;DR

Between 2022 and 2023, GiveWell and Open Philanthropy committed over $70 million to Evidence Action's Dispensers for Safe Water programme. An independent survey in 2025 found that in Uganda and Malawi the programme was reaching approximately 70% fewer people with detectable chlorine than its own monitoring had indicated (approximately 40% fewer in Kenya).

This piece argues that this case-study reflects a structural gap in how sophisticated funders allocate analytical rigour: extraordinary attention is paid to whether an intervention works under controlled conditions with far less to whether its implementation is actually delivering impact. I propose six practical steps funders can take to evaluate implementation fidelity with the same seriousness they apply to academic evidence, and I believe funders have a clear responsibility to do so.

Disclosure

I am the CEO of Fortify Health, an organisation that has received funding from GiveWell. I also sit on the Governance and Advisory Boards of organisations that have received funding from GiveWell. This article reflects my personal opinions and not those of Fortify Health or other associated organisations.

I shared a draft of this article with GiveWell and Evidence Action prior to publication. Both organisations generously shared comments and clarifications; however [...]

---

First published:
April 8th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XuNBJL3EHqhFKLEGn/impact-requires-implementation-what-dispensers-for-safe

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“By Strong Default, ASI Will End Liberal Democracy” by MichaelDickens

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 11:00:41 GMT

Cross-posted from my website.

The existence of liberal democracy—with rule of law, constraints on government power, and enfranchised citizens—relies on a balance of power where individual bad actors can't do too much damage. Artificial superintelligence (ASI), even if it's aligned, would end that balance by default.

It is not a question of who develops ASI. Whether the first ASI is developed by a totalitarian state or a democracy, the end result will—by strong default—be a de facto global dictatorship.

The central problem is that whoever controls ASI can defeat any opposition. Imagine a scenario where (say) DARPA develops the first superintelligence[1], and the head of the ASI training program decides to seize power. What can anyone do about it?

If the president orders the military to capture DARPA's data centers, the ASI can defeat the military.[2]

If Congress issues a mandate that DARPA must turn over control of the ASI, DARPA can refuse, and Congress has even less recourse than the president.

If liberal democracy continues to exist, it will only be by the grace of whoever controls ASI.

There are two plausible scenarios that have some chance of avoiding a totalitarian [...]

---

Outline:

(01:38) What if AI capabilities progress slowly?

(02:45) What if the ASI itself protects liberal democracy?

(04:46) Liberal democracy is not the true target

(05:25) Maybe we can avoid totalitarianism, but there is no clear path

The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
April 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/iwJPepgiwRinZShkB/by-strong-default-asi-will-end-liberal-democracy

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Scrutinizing One of Our Longest-Funded Programs” by GiveWell

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 09:45:41 GMT

This is a new episode of the GiveWell Conversations podcast. You can listen to the episode or read a summary of the conversation below.

Vitamin A supplementation is one of the programs GiveWell has supported the longest, and we’re currently funding it in many African countries. The program has an unusually strong evidence base for reducing child mortality, with multiple randomized controlled trials. Yet, as is the case for most global health programs, the evidence for vitamin A supplementation has complex, unresolved questions, such as how well findings from decades-old trials apply today and the extent to which existing research has been influenced by publication bias. As GiveWell's research team has grown over the last several years, we have expanded our capacity to carefully research these questions.

In this episode, GiveWell CEO and co-founder Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Senior Researcher Stephan Guyenet about the evidence base for vitamin A supplementation, the complications in applying that evidence to our funding decisions, and how GiveWell has improved our cost-effectiveness estimates for the program.

Listen to Episode 27: Scrutinizing One of Our Longest-Funded Programs

Elie and Stephan discuss:

The evidence base for vitamin A supplementation: Evidence from rigorous trials shows that [...]

---

First published:
April 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/piTyWb3KZbYpphSJX/scrutinizing-one-of-our-longest-funded-programs

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Menstrual Cups - A cost effective gem?” by NickLaing

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 03:00:42 GMT

This is a link post.

TLDR: Menstrual cups cost a few dollars and have great potential to improve lives in low-income settings. High quality Wellbeing research might tell us if they’re a big bet worth making.

The Monthly Struggle

Periods are a challenge to manage anywhere, but in low income rural areas, women must overcome huge physical, social and financial barriers. Every month. Most women in this tricky situation manage their periods in one of two ways.1

1. Reused cloths/rags, not made for purpose
2. Pads - Disposable or reusable

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

These aren’t great options, and in low income countries women are split between them about 50/502. The worst of the two is reusable cloths which are unsanitary, reduce productivity and contribute to a monthly cycle of worry. On the other hand disposable pads cost between $20 and $50 dollars a year3, too expensive for those living on dollars a day. Reusable pads are cheaper, but carry similar hygiene problems of cloths.

And the scale of period poverty is massive. My best guess is that between 500 million and 1 billion women don’t buy any [...]

---

Outline:

(00:24) The Monthly Struggle

(01:35) The Period Poverty Burden

(02:23) The Menstrual cup

(03:18) Cups as a Leapfrog Tech?

(03:50) Asan Cups

(05:09) Challenges

(06:09) Are Cups Cost-Effective? - A rough estimate

(10:44) Great potential - Lets do Wellbeing research

The original text contained 26 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
April 7th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jh5A2NXr5Lf9oXLSX/menstrual-cups-a-cost-effective-gem

Linkpost URL:
https://spicydev.substack.com/p/menstrual-cups-a-cost-effective-gem

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

[Linkpost] “Defense-favoured coordination design sketches” by Forethought, Owen Cotton-Barratt, Oliver Sourbut, Lizka, rosehadshar

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 22:30:16 GMT

This is a link post.

Intro

We think that near-term AI could make it much easier for groups to coordinate, find positive-sum deals, navigate tricky disagreements, and hold each other to account.

Partly, this is because AI will be able to process huge amounts of data quickly, making complex multi-party negotiations and discussions much more tractable. And partly it's because secure enough AI systems would allow people to share sensitive information with trusted intermediaries without fear of broader disclosure, making it possible to coordinate around information that's currently too sensitive to bring to the table, and to greatly improve our capacity for monitoring and transparency.

We want to help people imagine what this could look like. In this piece, we sketch six potential near-term technologies, ordered roughly by how achievable we think they are with present tech:[1]

Fast facilitation — Groups quickly surface key points of consensus views and disagreement, and make decisions everyone can live with.
Automated negotiation — Complicated bargains are discovered quickly via automated negotiation on behalf of each party, mediated by trusted neutral systems which can find agreements.
Arbitrarily easy arbitration — Disputes are resolved cheaply and quickly by verifiably neutral AI adjudicators.
Background networking [...]

---

Outline:

(00:15) Intro

(03:33) Why coordination tech matters

(05:31) Why defense-favoured coordination tech

(06:22) Fast facilitation

(07:05) Design sketch

(08:16) Feasibility

(09:32) Possible starting points // concrete projects

(11:02) Automated negotiation

(11:36) Design sketch

(13:42) Feasibility

(14:29) Possible starting points // concrete projects

(15:49) Arbitrarily easy arbitration

(16:13) Design sketch

(19:18) Feasibility

(21:32) Possible starting points // concrete projects

(22:50) Background networking

(23:37) Design sketch

(25:28) Feasibility

(28:02) Possible starting points // concrete projects

(28:52) Structured transparency for democratic oversight

(30:08) Design sketch

(32:37) Feasibility

(34:52) Possible starting points // concrete projects

(36:32) Confidential monitoring and verification

(36:58) Design sketch

(38:32) Feasibility

(39:28) Possible starting points // concrete projects

(40:10) Cross-cutting thoughts

(40:14) Some cross-cutting technologies

(40:33) AI delegates and preference elicitation

(41:51) Charter tech

(45:29) Adoption pathways

(47:31) Other challenges

---

First published:
April 6th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LEekbCBhsMfhL6chp/defense-favoured-coordination-design-sketches

Linkpost URL:
https://www.forethought.org/research/design-sketches-defense-favoured-coordination-tech

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Coefficient Giving is seeking proposals for biosecurity projects” by cwbakerlee

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 13:15:16 GMT

Coefficient Giving's Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness team is launching a new Request for Proposals to support work aimed at preventing engineered biological threats from emerging and improving our response to these threats should prevention fail.

Applications start with a simple expression of interest form (≤500 words), with a submission deadline of May 11 2026 at 11:59pm PT.

Click here to learn more and apply

More details

We expect that the coming years will see unprecedented progress in AI and biotechnology. While the ability of AI systems to improve human health could be transformative, these same advances may increase existential risk via multiple pathways: AI could lower barriers for bad actors pursuing novel biological weapons, and increasingly capable AI systems may themselves leverage biotechnology in harmful ways. Separately, biotech advances could also introduce catastrophic risks from even well-intentioned actors—for example, through the creation of mirror bacteria.

We feel these problems are increasingly urgent, and our team is looking to spend more and spend faster as a result. (We expect to direct >$100 million in grants this year.)

To that end, we’re interested in funding ambitious projects in the following categories:

Transmission suppression: Enhance society's capacity to respond to global [...]

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RvK9sEGoe46co8H4L/coefficient-giving-is-seeking-proposals-for-biosecurity

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Chicken-Free Egg Whites” by Jeff Kaufman 🔸

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 20:45:16 GMT

Baking has traditionally made extensive use of egg whites, especially the way they can be beaten into a foam and then set with heat. While I eat eggs, I have a lot of people in my life who avoid them for ethical reasons, and this often limits what I can bake for them. I was very excited to learn, though, that you can now buy extremely realistic vegan egg whites!

EVERY engineered yeast to convert sugar into ovalbumin, the main protein in egg whites and the one responsible for most of its culinary function. This kind of fermentation was pioneered for insulin and microbial rennet in the 1980s, but many companies are now applying it to producing all kinds of vitamins, proteins, dyes, and enzymes.

EVERY has been working with commercial customers for several years, but you can now buy it as a shelf stable powder. At $24 for the equivalent of 45 egg whites ($0.53 each) it's more expensive than buying conventional ($0.21 each) or organic ($0.33) egg whites, but not massively so.

I learned about them from a coworker who made an angel food cake, and I've since made flourless chocolate cake and swiss buttercream frosting. It [...]

---

First published:
April 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EALt4uYBpjop5fcsk/chicken-free-egg-whites

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“You should write about your giving” by Aaron Gertler 🔸

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 13:30:16 GMT

In the early days of EA, people often tracked their giving on personal websites, or at least wrote about each year's donations. I read about it and felt inspired (and a bit competitive).

This is less popular now. I want to see more.

How to track donations

Here's a list of examples. Some people write long posts with all their reasoning, others just share numbers. More info is nice, but anything beats nothing.

My approach is minimal — a page explaining why I give in general, and a spreadsheet with names, numbers, and brief notes. It takes me like 20 minutes a year.

Why track?

The classic EA pitch is "you can improve the world".

Another pitch, which many people find more compelling, is "join a community of kind, interesting people who are trying to improve the world".

The more of us talk about our giving, the stronger the "community" pitch becomes. Writing out the details is even better. People like it when you live by your values, and the nerds in our core audience like it when claims are backed by data.

Also, if someone hears about EA, it makes a big difference if they know even a [...]

---

Outline:

(00:25) How to track donations

(00:51) Why track?

(03:15) Why not track?

(05:57) But actually, track your donations

(06:27) Appendix: Who tracks?

---

First published:
April 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yYkgGH9kbbQQp5iCp/you-should-write-about-your-giving

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“If You’re To Die” by Bentham’s Bulldog

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 20:45:19 GMT

Crosspost of a blog article.

Andrew Sullivan's most impactful work came in the shadow of death.

Tyler Cowen declared Sullivan the generation's most impactful public intellectual. Sullivan was hugely influential in the fight for gay marriage, as a thoughtful conservative advocate of gay marriage who was himself gay. He also pioneered the early art of blogging, with his early work leaving an indelible mark on how the craft developed. I’ve been grateful to have Sullivan occasionally link to my blog and I consider him one of the foremost public intellectuals of today.

A lot of Sullivan's most influential work came when he believed he would soon die. He was diagnosed with HIV in the days when it was a death sentence. He thought he would die young, in his 30s, and wanted to leave some mark on the world before he was taken from it. He wanted to make the case for people like him being afforded equal rights in the few years he had left. It is an amazing miracle that treatment for HIV was developed, so that millions of people like Andrew didn’t have to die.

There's an expression “live every day as if it's your last.” [...]

---

First published:
April 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zMxPmqFRDnEZrc8uo/if-you-re-to-die

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Impact of Holocaust on soil nematodes, mites, and springtails” by Niki Dupuis

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 23:00:16 GMT

Summary

I estimate the Holocaust increased the living time of (wild) soil nematodes, mites, and springtails.
My best guess is that those soil invertebrates have negative lives, so I think that indirectly increasing their animal-years by mass murdering millions of people was harmful on net.
I have been estimating the cost-effectiveness of various interventions accounting for effects on soil nematodes, mites, and springtails. Any event which causes a large and sustained change in human population affects agricultural land use, and therefore soil invertebrate welfare. The Holocaust killed 1.1*10^7 people and prevented an estimated 2.7*10^7 people from existing by 2026. I am not aware of any previous analysis of the Holocaust's impact on soil invertebrates. In this post, I estimate the direct effects from land use for camps, graves, and memorials, and the indirect effects from the human population deficit and reduced agricultural land use.
I calculate that the naive case of the Holocaust being beneficial to soil invertebrates due to increased land use is overshadowed by the indirect impacts to soil land use caused by preventing 2.7*10^7 human lives.
- Direct land use effect of concentration camps, mass graves, and memorials constitute -8.88*10^9 QALYs or -807 QALYs per Holocaust-affected-person (HAP)
- [...]

---

Outline:

(00:12) Summary

(02:47) The direct impacts on soil invertebrate populations and welfare from land use and infrastructure for the Holocaust

(07:50) The indirect impacts on soil invertebrate populations and welfare from changes to human population and associated agricultural land use

(11:04) The indirect impact of the Holocaust on the population of people of Jewish descent in Effective Altruism

(12:31) My recommendations

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aHG3Fc8emuWnZdFPp/impact-of-holocaust-on-soil-nematodes-mites-and-springtails-1

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“EAGxAmsterdam 2025: What We Learned” by James Herbert

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 18:30:16 GMT

James Herbert, Co-Director, Effectief Altruïsme Nederland and EAGxAmsterdam Team Lead

EAGxAmsterdam 2025 took place on 12–14 December at B.Amsterdam, bringing together 517 attendees from across Europe. This is a brief write-up of what went well, what didn't, and what I think other EAGx organisers can learn from it.

The headline numbers:

517 attendees (up 36% from 380 at EAGxUtrecht 2024) — one of the largest EAGx events in recent years, behind only EAGxBerlin 2025
€387 cost per attendee (target was €520; 2024 was €586)
10 reported new connections per attendee (target was 10, 2024 was 10)
906 applications (34% above target)
57 GWWC pledges (26 full 10% Pledges + 31 Trial Pledges) — the strongest pledge outcome of any EAGx to date, and ahead of every EAG and EAGx event until that point except EAG NYC 2025. GWWC estimated this represents ~$2.9M in expected lifetime giving ($436K counterfactually adjusted).
NPS of 63 (mean recommendation: 8.86/10)

Budget

Cost per attendee came in at €387, down from €586 at EAGxUtrecht 2024 — a 34% improvement while serving 36% more people.

The budget is dominated by venue and catering (~70%), with contractors (~23%) the next largest line. Compared to 2024 [...]

---

Outline:

(01:49) Budget

(02:35) The case for investing in marketing

(03:54) Content highlights

(05:10) What didnt work

(06:10) What Id tell other EAGx organisers

(08:14) Looking ahead

---

First published:
April 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hgmEvDu25uDCcrLGx/eagxamsterdam-2025-what-we-learned

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“The EA Forum Is the New LinkedIn: A Guide to Personal Branding” by Anna Pitner

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:45:16 GMT

I'm humbled (and slightly Bayesianly uncertain) to announce that after years of carefully optimizing my personal brand on LinkedIn, I've decided to pivot to a higher-impact platform: the EA Forum. LinkedIn let me share updates about clients, networking events, and my "journey." The EA Forum offers something better: 3,000-word posts, detailed cost-effectiveness analyses, and occasional updates about my shifting credences on shrimp welfare.

(Quick tip: always add shrimp. They inflate every number.)

Why bother?

Let's be honest. We all know it's basically impossible to get a job through the 80,000 Hours job board.

Sure, they say they hire the most talented candidates. But you can go through a three-month hiring process, complete several work tests, write thoughtful answers, speak with half the organization, and they'll hire someone they already knew. While still saying they ran a careful, meritocratic process and did their due diligence.

So the real question: why not be that someone?

A visible presence on the EA Forum means that when an opportunity appears, you're not just another applicant. You're someone whose posts people have read. Maybe even upvoted.

Step 1: Announce your belief updates

On LinkedIn, people post about promotions. On the EA Forum, you post [...]

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/v5pfNnHntrwFXecFo/the-ea-forum-is-the-new-linkedin-a-guide-to-personal

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“I’m Suing Anthropic for Unauthorized Use of My Personality” by Linch

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 09:00:16 GMT

Last year, I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop Caffe Strada, sipping on a matcha latte and writing a self-insert fanfic about how our plucky protagonist escapes the mind-controlling clutches of an evil anti-animal welfare company, when I came across an interesting article on AI character. The core argument is that when you train an AI to be helpful, honest, and ethical, the AI model doesn’t just learn those rules as abstract instructions. Instead, it infers an entire persona from cultural signals in the training data:

Why are [AI Model Claude's] favorite books The Feynman Lectures; Gödel, Escher, Bach; The Remains of the Day; Invisible Cities; and A Pattern Language?[...]

A good heuristic for predicting Claude's tastes is to think of it as playing the character of an idealized liberal knowledge worker from Berkeley. Claude can’t decide if it's a software engineer or a philosophy professor, but it's definitely college educated, well-traveled, and emotionally intelligent. Claude values introspection, is wary almost to the point of paranoia about “codependency” in relationships, and is physically affected by others’ distress.

Claude even has a favorite cafe in Berkeley. When I discussed a story set in Berkeley with it, it kept suggesting [...]

The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zrQCfJ8E56vefiFSi/i-m-suing-anthropic-for-unauthorized-use-of-my-personality

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“EA Netherlands is hiring a Co-Director” by James Herbert, mariekedev

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 03:15:16 GMT

After more than seven years with EA Netherlands — first as a volunteer, then as a board member, and most recently as co-director — Marieke de Visscher is moving on. Marieke was instrumental in building EAN from an all-volunteer group into a staffed nonprofit. She leaves behind a stronger, more professional organisation than the one she found, and I'm grateful for the years we worked together.

We're now hiring her successor.

The role in brief: This is a generalist co-directorship at one of the larger national EA communities globally, based in Amsterdam. You'd have real ownership over programmes, strategy, and operations, working alongside one other co-director with support from volunteers and contractors. We think of it as a product role for a community organisation — our "products" are an intro fellowship, conferences, a coworking space, wide-bridge events for senior professionals, and the infrastructure that ties them together.

We're looking for someone who thinks in terms of product-market-impact fit: designing programmes, testing them, measuring what works, and iterating. You should be comfortable making decisions under uncertainty, running experiments, and changing course when the evidence points that way.

What we've been up to: In 2025, intro fellowship participation grew 140%, and [...]

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jCq5EogBGWEM2hzvJ/ea-netherlands-is-hiring-a-co-director

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Announcing 8,000,000 Hours: Career advice for the rest of us” by Soemano Zeijlmans

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:00:16 GMT

TL;DR: We're launching 8,000,000 Hours, a new career guidance organisation for people who want to have an impact but would rather not change what they're doing. Instead of finding the highest-impact career, we help you work longer in your existing one to achieve the same impact at the end of your career.

The core insight

80,000 Hours estimates that you have roughly 80,000 hours in your career and argues you should spend them on the world's most pressing problems. Central to 80,000 Hours' argument is the observation that in a pair of two randomly picked interventions, the better one would be 100 times more cost-effective than the other.

This is usually presented as an argument for choosing more carefully. But we think there's an equally valid conclusion that everyone has been overlooking:

If the best careers are 100x more impactful than average ones, you can match that impact by simply working 100x as many hours in an average career.

80,000 × 100 = 8,000,000.

Work longer, not smarter

Switching to a high-impact career involves significant transition costs. You might need to retrain, relocate, take a pay cut, or make a cringy LinkedIn post.

By contrast, working more hours [...]

---

Outline:

(00:30) The core insight

(01:14) Work longer, not smarter

(02:00) The longevity dividend

(03:34) Our career recommendations

(04:37) FAQ

(06:00) Get involved

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wsoWrtCwtksfauHGi/announcing-8-000-000-hours-career-advice-for-the-rest-of-us

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Fish Welfare Initiative Hacked” by Tom Billington

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 16:15:16 GMT

It pains me to report that, in the early hours of this morning, Fish Welfare Initiative (arguably the best charity ever) experienced a serious website security breach. Our entire leadership team is currently reviewing some of the most advanced technical literature available to resolve the issue.

In the meantime, we strongly request: DO NOT VISIT OUR WEBSITE (www.fwi.fish).

Please, no one visit our website under any circumstances. This includes (but is not limited to) going to www.fwi.fish, refreshing www.fwi.fish, or attempting to access any page on www.fwi.fish.

We ask that anyone considering visiting our website hold off until tomorrow, when we expect the issue to be fully resolved.

We understand how important our website is to many in this community, and we are treating this with the utmost seriousness.

Thomas David Billington
Co-founder, Fish Welfare Initiative

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nGRBMnzAgGa2pa8ah/fish-welfare-initiative-hacked

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Alternative AI Forecasting Methods” by Scott Alexander

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 15:00:16 GMT

Forecasts based on benchmarks and time horizons have failed to produce a consensus timeline for the arrival of AGI. We supplement these with several alternative methods.

1: MATS Applications

AGI - artificial intelligence capable of performing every task - is by definition cognitively capable of putting all humans out of work. However, there are certain edge cases where human employment might persist for other reasons. As the majority of jobs get automated, we expect newly unemployed workers to migrate to these edge case industries.

The clearest case for an industry which cannot be completely automated after AGI is AI safety research. The advent of AGI will likely be followed shortly by superintelligence, and this superintelligence will require alignment work beyond that which produced AGI. Although AGI will be intellectually capable of the technical aspects of this work, we may be uncertain whether it fully understands human values, and we may not trust it to do the work alone. Therefore, as every other industry is automated, AI safety will become one of the few remaining fields that absorbs human labor. Conservatively, we predict that within three years of AGI, 10% of the human population - about 800 million people - [...]

---

Outline:

(00:20) 1: MATS Applications

(02:16) 2: Model Release Cadence

(03:39) 3: Google Ngram Mentions Of Apocalypse

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5273CTxx878FkfHf8/alternative-ai-forecasting-methods

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Announcing Highly Engaged EAs!” by Sam Anschell

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:45:16 GMT

I’m excited to launch Highly Engaged EAs: a matchmaking and nuptialization service to optimize tax relief, green card accumulation and more!

Workstreams

I Do(nate)

By marrying EAs in different tax brackets, Highly Engaged EAs reduces average tax burden through joint filing to enable greater giving. A Californian AI safety researcher with a million dollar salary could give an extra $53k/year by tying the knot with an unpaid grad student!

Til 80,000 Hours do us part

The place premium is so high in the US that >1,000 people have bought a million dollar gold card! While some roles don’t sponsor visas, spouses always can[1]. We match those looking to move countries with nationals of their desired destination.

Bang for your Buck

For full efficiency, Buck Shlegeris and Ajeya Cotra wear multiple hats as the witnesses, officiants and entertainment for weddings we organize.

Rationally named children

For those who are interested in having kids, we provide naming guidance based on what really matters:

Brevity. Claude BOTECs that each additional syllable to a person's name adds 68 hours to global pronunciation costs. Given that this will disproportionately be time spent by EAs, one-syllable names are a slam dunk.

Complementarity: The [...]

---

Outline:

(00:20) Workstreams

(00:23) I Do(nate)

(00:56) Til 80,000 Hours do us part

(01:17) Bang for your Buck

(01:29) Rationally named children

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TLFiwwZGaqgbQhhr7/announcing-highly-engaged-eas

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“80,000 Hours: Job Board -> Job Bards” by Conor Barnes 🔶, 80000_Hours

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:30:16 GMT

Hi everybody!

I'm Conor. I run the 80,000 Hours Job Board. Or I used to. As of today — April 1 — we are becoming Job Bards!

You may not know that the number one complaint that people have about job boards is sensory poverty. While movie theatres have dared to experiment with haptics and smell-o-vision, no job board has even dared to become an audiovisual experience. Until now.

We believe Job Bards is the premium job board experience, and all job boards that don't make the leap will fall the way of silent films. While this innovation is sure to frighten many, we hope our FAQ can answer any concerns.

FAQ

I don't hear anything?
- We have four ways of ranking jobs - Ranked, New, Top, and Sorting. For some of these, you'll need to select a filter for the sounds to wash over you.
I don't like the sounds I hear??
- You can modify the sounds through toggles in the Other filters and Annual salary dropdowns.
Do you think this will have an impact? Isn't your mission to provide promising roles to tackle the world's most pressing problems?
- To connect people to jobs [...]

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dARbshoqruLjntAGc/80-000-hours-job-board-greater-than-job-bards

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“RejectDirectly” by RejectDirectly

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:45:16 GMT

We're thrilled to announce the founding of RejectDirectly, a new EA-adjacent organization dedicated to closing the global rejection gap.

For too long, the EA rejection pipeline has been plagued by ineffectiveness. Billions of collective DALYs spend on unsuccessful work trials and interviews. The water waste involved in the mass duplication of Google Docs. The community health is in peril.

In comes RejectDirectly. By cutting out the middleman we can deliver high-quality, unconditional rejections straight to applicants — no strings attached, no waiting period. No eight-hour work trials where you pour your Claude extra balance into a strategy memo for an organization that just couldn’t bring themselves to reject your heartfelt cover letter.

How it works: You apply. We reject you. That's it. No interviews, no work trials, no need for culture fit chats.

Like many orgs in the space, we're happy to forward your application to our partner organizations. Unlike other orgs, they will immediately reject you. We call this our Rejection Cascade™ — one application, up to fifteen guaranteed rejections.

Our 2026 roadmap:

We're piloting a browser addon that sends you a push notification rejection before you even finish your cover letter. Early users report feeling "liberated" and [...]

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5qZdpKEFcGBrHJxDB/rejectdirectly

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Announcing Deep Thought” by William_MacAskill, MaxDalton

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:30:16 GMT

Forethought is proud to announce the launch of Deep Thought[1] — the world's first fully automated macrostrategy researcher, and the world's most powerful AI model.

For some time, we have believed that one of the most important things a macrostrategy research organisation can do is work to automate its own work. The case is simple: if the questions we're investigating matter, then expanding access to high-quality answers matters too — and no bottleneck is more binding than the scarcity of researchers who can generate them. Today marks our first concrete step toward addressing that bottleneck.

Scorecard

As you can see, Deep Thought is the world's frontier AI model, getting a perfect 100/100 Frontier Macrostrategy Evaluation Score, measured by the benchmark, Post-Humanity's Last Exam.

In fact, not only did Deep Thought blow all competitors out the water, it even revealed high performance in a new unfathomable dimension of capability that we are still struggling to comprehend. We’re excited to share that we’re now well past the point of feasible human evaluation or oversight.

Early human feedback was also extremely positive. Beta testers described the system as "sublime,", "mind-expanding," and "weirdly calming." One user commented: "It's like arguing with a mountain."

[...]

---

Outline:

(00:45) Scorecard

(01:50) Misuse and safety assessment

(02:34) Future directions

(02:56) Conclusion

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5ZFjLBGK2fCxE8Dn7/announcing-deep-thought

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“An unexplained annual spike in false claims on the EA Forum” by Tobias Häberli

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:45:16 GMT

Epistemic status: Very high confidence in the statistical findings. Genuinely confused about the cause. For reasons that will become obvious, I wanted to publish this post on March 31, but unfortunately I could only get it done today.

I've been building a classifier to flag potentially misleading content on the EA Forum as part of a side project on epistemics infrastructure. While validating the model, I noticed something I initially assumed was a bug. This is an interim report on that.

 Summary: Every year, on April 1, the rate of posts containing verifiably untrue claims spikes by roughly 2,200% relative to the annual daily average (p < 0.0001, 8 years of Forum data). 

1. The effect is enormous

On a typical day, approximately 2 to 4% of Forum posts contain claims that are verifiably false. On April 1, this rises to 57–73%, depending on the year. For context, this is an implausibly large effect by normal social-science standards. I have genuinely never seen anything like it.

2. It repeats every year

This is not a one-off event. The pattern recurs in every year of the dataset.

3. "It's only one day" is misleading

A natural reaction is that [...]

---

Outline:

(01:00) 1. The effect is enormous

(01:38) 2. It repeats every year

(01:57) 3. Its only one day is misleading

(02:57) 4. The false posts are high effort

(03:21) Possible explanations

(03:30) Why this matters

(04:48) Proposed interventions

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EAokRDmQTjCAWgGdq/an-unexplained-annual-spike-in-false-claims-on-the-ea-forum

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Announcing the Lead Exposure Elimination Project” by Kestrel🔸

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:30:17 GMT

Are there too many cables on your desk? Is this preventing you from doing your most productive work?

Research suggests that the aesthetic quality of a person's work environment has an impact on their mood, productivity, and ability to cope with the crushing reality of knowing that more children will suffer and die from preventable diseases if they don't get enough done.

I've had a high-impact meta side project of helping EAs clear up their desks. After a few iterations aimed at increasing longevity (it turns out that if you remove coffee mugs, the intervention half-life is approximately 1 day), I have settled upon removing electricity cables and charging leads from sight. Using a drill and some duct tape, leads can be rerouted under the desk and only pop up where required, reducing lead exposure and thereby improving desk aesthetics. Once a setup is in place, it tends to stay that way, making each installation a long-term meta piece of EA infrastructure. I call it the Lead Exposure Elimination Project (catchy name!).

Acting on expert advice, I am turning my project into an org. I have resigned from my day job and applied for funding for the Lead Exposure [...]

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vRrWwohEuRQhvWMRb/announcing-the-lead-exposure-elimination-project

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Should 80,000 hours rebrand to 10,000 hours (max)?” by SofiaBalderson

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 10:15:16 GMT

I say this with deep love for 80k and mild existential dread.

I love 80,000 Hours. One of the most useful resources in the effective altruism ecosystem. Their core premise is simple and compelling: you have roughly 80,000 hours in your career, so spend them wisely.

But I've been doing some math, and I think they might need a rebrand.

See, 80,000 Hours increasingly (and rightly!) recommends AI safety and AI governance careers. Their top career paths are dominated by AI-related roles. Which makes a lot of sense... until you think about the implication.

If the AI safety community is right that transformative AI could arrive in the next 5 to 15 years, and if that AI is capable enough to automate most of the work humans currently do, then we don't have 80,000 hours. We might have, what, 10,000? Maybe 15,000 if we're lucky? [1]

The very careers 80k recommends are built on the premise that those careers won't exist for very long.

This isn't a criticism. It's a compliment! It means the advice is working. They've correctly identified the most important problem and pointed people at it. It's just that solving the problem also dissolves the brand.

[...]

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ou2HFqeJfb2xnkyHG/should-80-000-hours-rebrand-to-10-000-hours-max

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“We’re growing: CEA is increasing its font size” by OllieRodriguez

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 09:15:17 GMT

“We” in this post refers to CEA leadership, who didn’t write this post.

In 2025, we grew engagement with CEA's programs by 20–25% across every tier of engagement.

But we recognize that growing the community is about more than engagement or metrics—at its core, growth is about the bigness of things. How can we claim that we’ve grown the community if the words on the page are the same size?

To match our ambition off the page, it's time to show ambition on the page. We’re increasing our font size from 15px to 25px across all platforms. You’ll see more from us—clearer text, bigger words, extremely long forum posts.

What this means

All of our programs will be bigger, in the sense that the documents we write about them will be absolutely huge.
The forum will have a larger font than any other sensible website—a bigger font means more impactful ideas.
Our events will have larger screens for our ginormous font. This will mean a significant increase in AV costs.
We’re encouraging local groups to do the same—we’re recommending a 30% font size increase this year, and we’ll be supporting them to reach 20px font size by the [...]

---

First published:
April 1st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EBjcpyfPwhByKeWjM/we-re-growing-cea-is-increasing-its-font-size

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Forum feature update: debate poll” by Toby Tremlett🔹

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 09:15:17 GMT

A piece of feedback we've had a few times on our debate weeks is that the debate slider shouldn't be single-dimensional.

When you agree or disagree with something, you also want to be able to signal your confidence in your belief. It's time-consuming to do so by explaining yourself in a comment, and percentage agreement isn't necessarily the same thing as confidence in your agreement.

So, not to worry, we're now introducing a second axis, like so:

…or, we were going to. However, once I finished designing this and we tested it internally, I realised that I was still pretty frustrated.

I always wanted to express, especially with more controversial questions: how related is this belief of mine to the rest of the beliefs that I hold? Should people who come across this, in a year or two years, think of this as representing what I think? Should they use this in their model of me? Is this belief more like a leaf, which a tree can lose and remain itself, a branch, or the trunk? I'm adding one more axis which runs from correlated (with my web of beliefs) to anti-correlated with my web of beliefs:

Once I [...]

---

First published:
March 31st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QpWumxYzfFRiPMqEC/forum-feature-update-debate-poll

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Giving up on EA after 13 years” by Jackson Wagner

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 08:00:16 GMT

Donating my shares to Lightcone Infrastructure, the Good Food Institute, and the Long-Term Future Fund, because EA refuses to make Mirror's Edge 3

Leaning into EA disillusionment: Why I no longer believe in EA

I bought this EA stock almost thirteen years ago:

Leopold Aschenbrenner once said that “people with situational awareness have a lower cost basis in Nvidia than you do”. I’m not sure if this is exactly what he meant… but close enough, right?

Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, EA was a great company pumping out great, interesting games:

Mirror's Edge had a striking art style and showcased a whole new style of first-person parkour gameplay.
Crysis infamously pushed graphical technology to such extremes that it was like getting a preview of videogame technology 5-10 years in the future.
Spore was… weird and bad, but its ambition and uniqueness was inspiring.
The Dead Space games (including the almost weirdly good point-and-shoot Wii spinoff) were pretty creative, and the realism of Battlefield 3 felt like a valuable counterpoint to an increasingly-cartoony Call of Duty series. Both series felt like they were crafted with a lot of care, despite their big-budget action vibes.
This was a hidden gem [...]

---

Outline:

(00:20) Leaning into EA disillusionment: Why I no longer believe in EA

(02:24) EA is was three radical ideas I want to protect

(03:57) The soul of EA is in trouble

(06:10) EA is about maximization, and maximization is perilous

(09:22) Dont be bycatch

(10:47) EA and the current funding situation

(12:20) Abandoning EA, in favor of doing the most good

---

First published:
March 31st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZegHZBvEeQanrGhpY/giving-up-on-ea-after-13-years

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Tapping into EA’s most neglected market” by ElliotTep, Bradley Tjandra

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 07:45:16 GMT

EA has made admirable efforts to reach populations that are underrepresented in the movement: busy mid-career professionals, people of faith, and people across a wide range of professions and academic disciplines.

Yet despite all these efforts, we are underserving our most neglected group, one that makes up 98–99% of all people on earth: neurotypicals (NTs). While we don’t have the data on hand, we think it's safe to say that EA has a severe underrepresentation issue among the NT population.

The case for impact

The scale of the opportunity is significant. According to my research (Claude was a big help), the global NT population sits at approximately 8.04–8.12 billion people. This is, to my knowledge, the largest underrepresented group EA has ever identified.

A quick BOTEC

There are an estimated 10,000–30,000 highly engaged EAs globally. Let's be generous and assume 50% are NT. That gives us roughly 5,000–15,000 NT EAs today. Now consider: NTs make up 98–99% of the global population. If EA's NT representation matched the general population, EA should therefore be approximately 49 times larger than it is today. At the high end of current estimates, that's a movement of 1.47 million highly engaged EAs. I’m honestly [...]

---

Outline:

(00:43) The case for impact

(01:05) A quick BOTEC

(02:13) Introducing Impactualize

(03:19) Program 1: The Impactualize Fellowship

(04:20) Program 2: A Neurotypical Space at EAG

(05:37) Program 3: Neurotypicals Sensitivity Training

(06:51) A note on social media

---

First published:
March 31st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JoiwqpR2oHBod3gAG/tapping-into-ea-s-most-neglected-market

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The $120 Million Question: How will it help animals?” by Zoë Sigle 🔹

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 05:45:16 GMT

Executive Summary

The four largest funds in the effective animal advocacy movement can absorb ~$120 million in new funding in the coming year, with potential for greater growth in future years. Setting aside the historic scarcity mindset, I share this money's significant opportunity to reduce animal suffering and encourage emerging major donors from Anthropic to fund this impact.

We can deploy this money effectively across three intervention categories:

Scaling what works (~50-60%)
Testing new interventions (~30-40%)
Growing movement infrastructure & people power (~10-20%)

Major donors should contact the major funds’ managers directly to decide where to give: Karolina Sarek (EA Animal Welfare Fund), Lewis Bollard (Coefficient Giving's Farm Animal Welfare Fund), Jesse Marks (The Navigation Fund's Animal Welfare Fund), and Stien van der Ploeg (Animal Charity Evaluators). Extremely time-poor major ($250k+) donors can email me for a quick (~15-minute) call to match them to the most aligned fund.

Disclosures: I wrote this post in my Senterra Funders (formerly known as Farmed Animal Funders) capacity.[1] The interventions discussed are broader than the strategy of the EA Animal Welfare Fund, where I am a Fund Manager.

Acknowledgements: Thank you to Elliot Teperman and Shannon Campion for reviewing drafts of this post. All substance [...]

---

Outline:

(00:12) Executive Summary

(01:57) The effective animal movement can absorb an additional $120 million in 2026

(03:19) What can we do with an additional $120 million?

(04:13) Scaling What Already Works

(06:17) Testing New Interventions

(08:06) Growing Movement Infrastructure & People Power

(09:14) What next?

(09:17) For emerging major donors: Recommendations to fund the $120 million growth

(10:31) Appendix A

(10:45) Method

(11:59) Results

---

First published:
March 31st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Zo3uNBiZ5GN35hkfq/the-usd120-million-question-how-will-it-help-animals

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“300,000 lives, 100 million hens, and a world still to save” by William_MacAskill

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 01:30:17 GMT

I went on the Sam Harris podcast again recently. If you want the full non-paywalled episode, I’m able to share it here:

https://samharris.org/episode/SE6877E700B

30 mins of it is also on youtube, spotify, etc.

The occasion for the podcast was the 10-year anniversary edition of Doing Good Better. So, preparing for the podcast, I collected some relevant facts about what EA has achieved over the last decade, and where the movement stands today. I found the numbers both surprising and inspiring, so I thought I should share them here.

EAs don't often toot their own horn, and with all that's going on in the world, or on the internet at least, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture. So I think a bit of horn-tooting is at least occasionally warranted, otherwise we’ll only ever focus on the bad and not on the good. And, despite a few subdued years, the EA[1] movement is thriving.

I’ll break things down by cause area, before looking at EA's recent return to serious growth.

First, global heath. Since 2015, over $2 billion has been raised for the most effective global health charities, with contributions from over 100,000 donors. The [...]

---

First published:
March 31st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rSPEisvYw9K49ja2T/300-000-lives-100-million-hens-and-a-world-still-to-save

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “The good, the bad, and the fair cop” by Toby_S

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:45:17 GMT

This is a link post.

Hi, I’m Thorbjørn “Toby” Schiønning, co-founder of Anima International. I was encouraged by my colleague Jakub Stencel to share our new blog post on negotiating and campaigning for animal welfare here (this is my first post here).

Summary

Over the past two decades, a small group of advocates has secured major corporate commitments on animal welfare – from cage-free eggs to fur-free policies – but securing a commitment means nothing if companies don’t follow through.
The animal advocacy movement relies on two traditional approaches: the “good cop” (dialogue and collaboration) and the “bad cop” (public pressure and campaigns) – each with real strengths, but also significant blind spots.
The bad cop approach is straightforward and visible, but often fails due to limited budgets, lack of mass public mobilization, and companies increasingly willing to wait campaigns out.
The good cop approach frees up resources and builds trust, but its leverage is limited – and companies can exploit it by treating NGOs as free bodyguards while making minimal progress.
A third approach – "fair cop” – combines the flexibility of both: starting from genuine good faith and collaboration, but escalating assertively when warranted, without being locked [...]

---

Outline:

(00:27) Summary

(01:37) How animal advocates (not always) win

(02:36) The story so far

(06:09) Playing poker with multinational corporations

(08:01) A quick example of what I mean by fair cop

(09:58) Fair cop in practice

(12:06) The bad cop - the stick

(13:38) When does the bad cop approach succeed?

(14:05) When does the bad cop approach fail?

(15:46) The good cop - the carrot

(16:41) When does the good cop approach succeed?

(18:40) When does the good cop approach fail?

(20:12) So what to make of all of this?

(20:56) Combining their strengths

(23:43) Why fair?

(25:22) When public campaigning is needed

(26:46) Fair cops weakest points

(27:52) Fair cop in action

(30:43) Summing it up

---

First published:
March 31st, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/23BjNccCdG9a3v8PD/the-good-the-bad-and-the-fair-cop

Linkpost URL:
https://animainternational.org/blog/fair-cop

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Proactively tell people/organisations when they have changed your actions/impact” by TJPHutton🔸

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 20:45:29 GMT

Measuring and communicating impact is hard, particularly when focusing on community building over the long term.

You have a much better idea of what led to you starting a new role, changing your donations, etc, than anyone else could. It will take you 2-10 minutes to directly tell someone how they've impacted your trajectory[1] where they might take hours-to-forever to try to reach you and ask.

It seems likely that many community builders, orgs, and funders would get significant-value from additional impact stories[2].

It also seem very unlikely to be high-cost for any org to receive your impact story. At worst this is an unwanted email that needs to be processed.

So: think about how you got to where you are on your impact journey, and whether it would be beneficial to tell someone now.

And: when you make meaningful changes in the future, tell the people who helped make that happen.

---

First published:
March 30th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9frujLf8D5TxuNFtK/proactively-tell-people-organisations-when-they-have-changed

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.