Effective Altruism Forum Podcast

Summary: Good work helps build a good reputation, but it's not the only factor. Reputation also requires making your work legible, building relationships with stakeholders, and communicating with them consistently over time. I think many people in EA systematically underestimate what a bad reputation costs, largely because those costs are invisible. You can see the people who stick around. You can't see the people who decided not to work with you. I close with some practical suggestions for weighing reputation in decisions. Notes on writing: This is more of a hot-take, quickly written, with some Claude assistance in shaping it into a full post, but heavily edited and reviewed by me. This was spurred by Manifund's recent announcement but is something I generally have been wanting to write. I've written this in my personal capacity, and it's informed by working 5 years in senior roles at EA orgs. Good work is necessary, not sufficient Reputation is everything. It's a cliché for a reason. Doing good work is one of the main ways to build a good reputation, and there's an implicit belief I've noticed in many people in EA that it's the only thing that should matter. If the [...] ---Outline:(01:08) Good work is necessary, not sufficient(01:58) What a good reputation actually buys you(02:36) The invisible costs of a bad reputation(03:24) Being weird about this doesn't scale(04:40) The people we lose(05:27) What to do about it --- First published: September 13th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mopnEjSSb5fouNJBn/too-many-people-in-ea-underprice-the-cost-of-a-bad --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I want to start by noting that I am enthusiastic about everything that the EA animal welfare movement has accomplished. I am enthusiastically supportive of all of the campaigns that make living and dying conditions less bad for farmed animals. I worked on such campaigns for almost 20 years, and I'm incredibly proud of that work. That said, I do think it's a strategic error that the EA animal movement has so thoroughly moved on from advocacy for animal liberation and diet change. There are two central arguments that I hear in EA circles and that I think are worthy of reconsideration: 1) These efforts have been tried and failed. Let's move on. 2) Everyone agrees with us on factory farming, so let's focus there and stop talking about whether eating meat is unethical; that's where we meet overwhelming pushback. I don't agree with either of these statements, and I believe that some of the influx of money we're expecting for animals should be spent on animal liberation and diet change advocacy. Here are some thoughts and questions that I think support my point-of-view. I look forward to hearing what others think. 1) The [...] --- First published: September 12th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/imoynWhpY5AqxcaDG/ea-should-invest-in-animal-liberation-and-diet-change --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Headline finding: I audited 17 AI Safety Talent programmes. Zero of 17 have published any comparison group, rejected-applicant follow-up, matched control or randomisation. Not one. Every programme that mentions a counterfactual does it by asking participants to self-report. Background At least 70 million dollars has gone into AI safety talent programmes so far, but we still can't really say much about their impact. Notably, Kairos has just raised 50 million dollars on a self-described "shallow retrospective" that looked at "around 80 people". I decided to do a deep dive into how AI Safety Talent programmes self-evaluate their impact. Disclaimer, these programmes are small, fast, and generally run by people with no evaluation training and no slack. The oldest one was only established in 2018 (AI Safety Camp, as far as I can tell). Most last less than 6 months. When timelines are genuinely short and urgent, then time spent evaluating is time that could be spent building. I am not criticising any individual programme. Having said that, there are retrospective evaluation designs that could be run cheaply without slowing anything down. And a field that funds talent pipelines at this scale without knowing whether they work is not moving [...] ---Outline:(00:34) Background(01:52) The audit(04:52) Thoughts on the counterfactual impact of talent programmes(08:37) Proposed design(12:04) Conclusion The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: September 7th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/S5yBGo4fnqm2zKMKj/do-ai-safety-talent-programmes-work-nobody-has-run-the-study --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Epistemic status: Speculation from two decently informed advocates armed with anecdata. Note on process: After having some version of this conversation several times and saying, “we should probably write about this publicly,” we took the less heroic route: we recorded one of our conversations, fed the transcript into an LLM, and then substantially revised the structure, substance, and framing ourselves. We will not be sharing the transcript, as it is interspersed with side comments about dogs. We've been very slow to get this out. We wrote this and began receiving feedback on our draft before very relevant projects went live, including the announcement of Spring Innovation Fund and Rethink Priorities' call for new animal founders. Many thanks to those who reviewed our drafts. All mistakes are our own. Summary The animal movement is at an extremely exciting stage, with many promising new ideas, funding opportunities, and talented individuals entering the space. We want to encourage this energy, while also noting a concerning pattern that we've observed: The effective animal advocacy world has a pattern of high levels of enthusiasm for a specific intervention that eventually gives way to a rapid downward adjustment, as expectations run ahead of the evidence [...] ---Outline:(01:05) Summary(03:17) The recurring pattern(06:42) Why EA is vulnerable to silver bullets(08:51) Why welfare tech might be the next "silver bullet"(10:42) Why are bubbles bad?(12:22) What would a healthier approach look like?(13:59) Conclusion The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: August 24th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QHgfRkiNFoGyysDpn/beware-silver-bullets-are-we-making-welfare-tech-into-the --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I've been feeling pretty shaken since the METR report about the Hugging Face incident came out last week. Over the weekend, I wrote up some thoughts on how lonely the AI situation sometimes feels to me. It's more personal than what I'd usually share publicly, but I thought I'd post it here in case it resonates with anyone else. I'm very grateful to the many readers of this forum who dedicate so much of their time and energy to these problems. — When I was 12 years old, I found out that many people in other parts of the world died of easily preventable diseases, and it was possible for wealthy people to donate relatively small amounts of money in order to stop that from happening. As one example, it costs a few dollars to buy a malaria net, and on average around 5,000 dollars can prevent a death which would otherwise have happened. As a 12-year-old, I saw the world in black and white, and I didn't like what I saw. As far as I could tell, people's decisions about how much and where to donate would literally determine whether some real humans [...] The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration. --- First published: September 3rd, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oicth6zSSP5B6vpMH/alone-again-facing-the-possibility-of-ai-takeover-as-the --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Michael Nielsen has a beautiful new essay on moral imagination: the ability humans have to 'develop and transmit new notions of good action, indeed, even new kinds of good'. As examples, he gives: Hammurabi's creation of a code of laws (in 1754 BCE) and his justification of his rule not in terms of divine or hereditary right, but by the delivery of justice to his citizens. St Gregory of Nyssa's argument (in 379 CE) that the entire institution of slavery was morally wrong. Joyce Roush's (1998 CE) idea that she should altruistically donate a kidney to help save the life of an unknown stranger.  Nielsen acknowledges that any particular act of moral imagination often builds on earlier precursors, but that this shouldn't lessen our appreciation for these major steps forward. One could think of moral imagination as a key part of making moral progress. Moral progress (moving towards better systems of morality) involves the creation of new approaches to morality, and the critiquing of what has been suggested. Through the iteration of creation and critique, we slowly make progress. Some of this process happens within moral philosophy (especially the critique), but much of it happens in the wider [...] The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration. --- First published: August 23rd, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Zaf7FLBBmeAcXgW3Y/moral-imagination-and-effective-altruism --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

The world of private philanthropy may be in for a period of large growth. News of Coefficient Giving increasing their funding for GiveWell to one billion in the near-term, and the general growth of the effective giving community as reported by Giving What We Can, make it difficult for even hardcore sceptics (and I probably count myself among this curmudgeonly crowd) to stick to the view that we are in business as usual. There are many reasons to believe that this expected growth will happen, and I'd be remiss to not mention Nan Ransohoff's great piece on the matter. This article was a catalyst. Where before board members and execs who were particularly clued into the Bay area may have expected to see this change in the size of the giving market, Nan's piece gave this a name and salience. The third wave of philanthropy materialized slowly, and then all at once. This possibility of increased funding has now taken the shape of a near certainty in some circles. Besides the perfunctory “it may not happen” at the end of a long pitch, it is not uncommon to sit in conversations that assume the existence of this funding, and [...] ---Outline:(01:34) No such money(03:11) Smaller amounts(04:23) Absorption(06:24) What next? --- First published: July 29th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xNnafgb8BAkysaHsh/what-if-the-third-wave-is-a-puddle --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

TL;DR NOVAH (No Violence At Home) was incubated by Charity Entrepreneurship (now Ambitious Impact) in 2024 to test a promising idea: preventing intimate partner violence through edutainment, in our case a serialised radio drama. Over the past two years we have produced and aired two seasons in Rwanda. We are currently evaluating our second season through a randomized controlled trial with 2,400 couples in Rwanda in partnership with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). Preliminary results are expected in October 2026. The end-line analysis is run by IPA and our academic partners, not by NOVAH. Edutainment to prevent intimate partner violence is promising, but it is still young as a field. We do not want to spend donor money scaling it unless the evidence shows it works at least as well as the strongest existing approaches. The RCT is what will tell us that. Therefore, before seeing those results, we want to make our decision rule public: We will scale our programming only if the RCT finds a statistically significant relative reduction of at least 5% in physical or sexual intimate partner violence prevalence. How quickly we proceed will depend on the size and certainty of the effect. Our current [...] ---Outline:(00:14) TL;DR(02:04) Background on NOVAH's cause area and intervention(04:03) How we are evaluating our impact(05:54) Our pre-commitment(07:10) What happens under each result?(07:14) Effect below 5%, or not statistically significant: pause and explore(07:47) Effect of 5%-20%: continue as planned(08:15) Effect above 20%: accelerate(08:33) Why did you choose a 5% reduction?(09:37) Is everything driven by this RCT?(10:55) Why make this public?(11:29) How you can hold us to this(12:00) Should more non-profits do this?(12:37) Final words(13:09) Learn more and get in touch(13:41) Appendix(13:47) Why do you use IPV-year instead of DALYs in your cost-effectiveness? --- First published: August 11th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Lz42uekYDBmBweq9f/what-would-make-us-scale-or-stop-novah-s-pre-commitment --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

BLUF: To determine whether AI is ‘improving exponentially', ‘hitting the wall', or any other claim which involves a quantity or magnitude (e.g. ‘This model was a big leap/small increment'). We need a good y-axis: an interval scale of AI capability which means +1 unit always represents the same degree of ‘how much better', in the same way +1 degree Celsius is always the same amount of ‘how much hotter'. Yet there is no good y-axis for AI capability. All our measures are of something related-to but clearly not identical-with it, thus ‘true' AI capability can be a funhouse-mirror reflection of whatever was measured. Specifically: Benchmark score: One small step in benchmark score can be a giant leap in capability, or the opposite, or whatever else. (My 6/10 vs. your 4/10 ≠ I'm 50% better at maths than you). Elo et al: Can give a real y-axis in terms of winning chances, but doesn't translate outside of beating others. (Going from 50% to 73% to 88% chance to get a higher score than you on a maths test ≠ gaining 0 → 1 → 2 units of maths ability over you) Epoch Capabilities Index: Analogous to IQ, so [...] ---Outline:(03:05) Introduction(04:26) Both a poor reflection and a dark glass(07:51) Human benchmarking also has a y-axis problem(12:27) A metrological elegy(12:49) The base case: benchmarks (cf. exams)(13:30) Elo et al.(16:25) (And maybe not quite 'game ability ≡ winning games', after all?)(18:28) ECI (cf. IQ)(20:56) Intervals Rarely True(25:01) Measure endogeneity(31:12) Forking IRT(34:45) (Dimensions of being, and beating, a bat)(39:40) Prediction (cf. chronometry)(41:58) Time horizons(44:34) Human "capability" is also exponential in time horizon(47:38) Intuitive/interpretative prelude(52:56) Time horizons and ECI share an axis kink(57:13) Perhaps money, as a measure, stinks the least(01:01:07) Finale: AI as normal epistemics(01:06:48) Acknowledgements The original text contained 33 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: August 4th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CQvdadxjCpd7i7kjA/general-capability-and-capabilities-generally-have-no-good-y --- 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.

“Your balls are baked aren't they, mate”. He would not have been bornThanks Lyndon, that describes the situation. Like almost 1 in 10 modern men, my sperm weren't up to the task - at least not the old fashioned way. So IVF it was - the miracle that now feels almost commonplace. We landed on the moon and Woodstock changed music forever. But in 1969 a quieter event transformed the world. The first human embryo was fertilised “In vitro”, outside the body. Yet 10 years passed before one was inserted into a womb, and then born. 48 years ago, Louise Joy Brown was the first woman born through IVF. This year about a million babies will be born through IVF. IVF stands at the frontier of rich-privilege, a norm for the middle class in rich countries. In my home country New Zealand, the government even pays for it! Yet every week I meet women here in Northern Uganda who can't have kids, and could never afford IVF. Even the human “right” to have a kid can depend on where you are born. If I was born 25 years ago, or in Uganda, my boy would never have [...] ---Outline:(00:13) He would not have been born(01:35) Our Risky Choice(03:47) He didn't die once - a routine miracle(05:33) He didn't die twice - Neonatal care(08:54) I am Grateful The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: July 28th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KMNk8zXLxHQXgN7rK/never-born-then-maybe-died-twice --- 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.

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.

Summary Back in November 2023 I posted here to launch Spiro and raise our first 198 thousand dollars. Two and a half years later this is an update and a fundraiser for the next step. The short version: we've now reached over-5,900 people with TB preventive medicine, including over 3,000 children under five years old. Our early results have held up well and GiveWell made us a grant last year. Now there's an urgent opportunity in front of us: US funding for community TB contact tracing across half of Sindh province in Pakistan ends this month. The provincial government has invited us to expand our work - taking on those 15 districts and expanding to cover all 30 districts of Sindh, up from the 7 we serve today. To do that we're aiming to raise 512 thousand dollars by the end of July, the most urgent slice of a ~1.8 million dollars gap for 2026–2027. By our own modelling, our work is in the ballpark of something that would meet GiveWell's bar - around $5,000 per life saved. But if we want to avoid a gap in coverage on the ground after the US pulls out, we'll need to [...] ---Outline:(00:13) Summary(01:55) What Spiro does(03:35) Progress since our launch(05:14) The next opportunity: all of Sindh(06:22) We're fundraising for an urgent $512k now(08:01) Risk and uncertainties(09:37) How to give(10:07) The future for Spiro(10:27) Appendix: More on what we've done since Spiro's launch --- First published: July 15th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hBoGLwKwMmizeRyZx/spiro-an-update-2-5-years-on-and-a-fundraising-ask-for --- 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 long have you been v*g*n?” This is one of the most common icebreakers at animal protection events. It's a baseline assumption, and it mostly holds true: if you're out advocating for animals not to be tortured or abused, realistically these days you are v**n, or close. And it makes for good conversation. It seems fairly safe to assume when you meet strangers. But this assumption is hurting the movement in a way which we don't always notice: someone new comes into the space, has a few conversations, realizes they're surrounded by v**ns, and they have one of two experiences: a) if they are v**n, they feel like they've found their people; or b) otherwise they immediately feel out of place—maybe they're stressing: “uh-oh, I'm realizing everyone else here is v**n, I probably need to be very cautious about what I reveal about myself, do I need to hide?”[1] This makes it hard to interact normally and they're probably on track to silently not returning. Compare this to a slightly different world where the word never comes up—where you just get what you expected, namely participation in an animal-protection movement which you opted into. A dogmatic culture The V-word [...] ---Outline:(01:25) A dogmatic culture(02:18) Diet restrictions have costs, sometimes very high(03:43) Minimizing and gaslighting(05:45) There are lots of pro-animal people who eat meat(08:38) Language can change culture(09:56) Really? Stop saying the V-word entirely?(11:23) What to do instead The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: July 12th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fWyFHfZiFKg3GGzNf/let-s-taboo-the-v-word --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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.

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.

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.

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/mabye-do-the-thing-you-wish-cea-would-do --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

The Animal Welfare Department (AWD) at Rethink Priorities supports high-impact strategies to help animals, especially where suffering is vast and largely neglected. Therefore, one of our focus areas is wild animal welfare (WAW), where uncertainty about tractability makes identifying cost-effective interventions particularly challenging. While much of the current WAW work rightly focuses on academic field-building (see Elmore & McAuliffe, 2024), it is worth determining whether there are viable, near-term interventions that are already available or close to implementation. With this goal in mind, we have developed the Wild Animal Welfare Intervention Database (WAWID). This project evaluates an array of interventions that may be promising for improving WAW in the (relatively) near term, evaluating them relative to criteria of interest to funders, advocates, researchers, and potential implementers across the WAW space. The WAWID is available here: Wild Animal Welfare Intervention Database The landing page includes a full list of the interventions and evaluation criteria. This report explains how we developed the WAWID, what we think you can learn from it, and suggest some future directions for this work (conditional on funding). A future report will provide some descriptive statistics. How we developed the WAWID We launched this project in [...] ---Outline:(01:34) How we developed the WAWID(08:14) Initial observations(13:13) Limitations(15:20) Future Directions(16:48) Acknowledgements --- First published: March 25th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pEbiEmeu2agEHJgyu/a-database-of-near-term-interventions-for-wild-animals --- 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.

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.

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:

More money is coming than AI safety has ever seen. The capacity to deploy it doesn't exist yet.Image Source: Fortune.com Note: Catherio in the comments pointed out that although Anthropic is pursuing IPO readiness, they are not certain to IPO. As OscarD pointed out, based on this Manifold Market, there is roughly a 75% chance of an IPO within the next year. With that said, the argument below holds regardless of exact timing-- the pledges have been made, and the capital is coming, whether via IPO, secondary sales, or further private rounds. 1. The Anthropic IPO is coming 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 dollars, 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 probably 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 [...] ---Outline:(00:12) More money is coming than AI safety has ever seen. The capacity to deploy it doesn't exist yet.(00:54) 1. The Anthropic IPO is coming(04:08) 2. The constraint is talent, not funding(05:52) 3. We don't just need more bets- we need decorrelated ones(08:46) 3a. Different structural positions(09:24) 3b. Independent grantmakers with different worldviews(10:10) 4. The Pitch: Consider becoming a grantmaker or founding something new(12:50) 5. The window is brief(13:47) 6. 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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Donating my shares to Lightcone Infrastructure, the Good Food Institute, and the Long-Term Future Fund, because EA refuses to make Mirror's Edge 3Leaning 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.

Summary We're publishing our book, 80,000 Hours, with Penguin on 26 May. It's an update of the 80,000 Hours career guide, with a full round of edits, new design, and new content discussing the effect of AI on career choice. We think it's now the best single entry point to our advice. We hope publishing it will multiply the impact of our advice. One quick way you could help is to preorder a copy (especially from a traditional retailer). It helps increase the chance we get on bestseller lists, and increases our expected reach. Preorder here.The new book It's called 80,000 Hours: How to Have a Fulfilling Career That Does Good. It covers all of our best advice for having a big, positive impact with your career. It's being published by Penguin Random House on the 26th May in the US, and the 28th May in the UK.Why did we decide to publish this book?According to the EA Survey, 80,000 Hours has been the biggest single entry point into effective altruism, and our online career guide has consistently had an outsized impact compared to our other programmes.[1] We think it's probably the best content we've ever published [...] ---Outline:(00:11) Summary(00:52) The new book(01:13) Why did we decide to publish this book?(02:11) Whats new in this edition?(03:47) How you can help(04:45) FAQs(10:48) Thank you --- First published: March 24th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qbAg8fnAbJQE3SLe9/80-000-hours-is-coming-to-bookstores-in-may --- 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. Imagine you run a charity which gives cows to people in the developing world. Your new boyfriend is a statistician and you want to impress him, so you've decided to look into this Monitoring and Evaluation thing he keeps going on about. So you give a bunch of people cows and then follow up a year later, and sure enough the people you gave the cows to are richer, healthier, and happier. You proudly tell this to your boyfriend and expect to reap rewards in the form of admiration, cuddles, and a ‘yes' to your marriage proposal. Your boyfriend, however, isn't impressed. What if everyone in the country is getting richer, because the country is industrializing? What if the poor people you gave cows to were having an unusually hard time, and then they got back on their feet, and your cows had nothing to do with it? Apparently, in order to get a sample that really says anything about the world, you need to randomly give cows to half the people, and then check whether the people you gave cows to are doing better than the people you didn't give cows to (a “randomized controlled trial”). This [...] --- First published: March 10th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QsvFCcDR2TfSj32aM/the-joys-of-cash-benchmarking --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

No-one knows when AI will begin having transformative impacts upon the world. People aren't sure and shouldn't be sure: there just isn't enough evidence to pin it down. But we don't need to wait for certainty. I want to explore what happens if we take our uncertainty seriously — if we act with epistemic humility. What does wise planning look like in a world of deeply uncertain AI timelines? I'll conclude that taking the uncertainty seriously has real implications for how one can contribute to making this AI transition go well. And it has even more implications for how we act together — for our portfolio of work aimed towards this end.   AI Timelines By AI timelines, I refer to how long it will be before AI has truly transformative effects on the world. People often think about this using terms such as artificial general intelligence (AGI), human level AI, transformative AI, or superintelligence. Each term is used differently by different people, making it challenging to compare their stated timelines. Indeed even an individual's own definition of their favoured term will be somewhat vague, such that even after their threshold has been crossed, they might have [...] ---Outline:(00:58) AI Timelines(04:38) Short vs Long Timelines(07:05) Broad Timelines(17:55) Implications(19:46) Hedging(20:58) A Different World(24:00) Longterm Actions(28:33) Conclusions --- First published: March 19th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HCR2AE9it279ggiZT/broad-timelines --- 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.

Crossposted from my blog I am very fortunate to have my job in many ways – I get to talk to, learn from, and give money to amazing people and nonprofits all around the world. I get to allocate a modest amount of resources to incredible organisations that I think are doing some of the best work to improve the world. I don't have to fundraise for my or my team's salaries anymore. However, there are some things I've learned since becoming a philanthropic grantmaker that were either surprising or affected me more strongly than I expected. I will outline some of these below. These are not meant to invoke feelings of “oh poor grantmakers who have access to money and influence” but rather “oh, I never considered things from that perspective”. Hopefully, they will also lead to more productive working relationships between funders and advocacy groups. Here, I discuss: How challenging the trade-offs are that funders face The extremely poor feedback mechanisms that nonprofits have How people treat you differently once you have access to funding, and how that changes you The weight of saying no to good groups Some things that make me feel cynical Trade-offs [...] ---Outline:(01:18) Trade-offs are hard and money is scarce(06:35) Nonprofits have bad feedback mechanisms(13:00) How people treat you differently (and how that changes you)(14:52) Its hard to say no to people(16:08) Its easy to become cynical(19:38) Wrapping up --- First published: March 11th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/umicYzuRsm6okFRKA/what-i-didn-t-expect-about-being-a-funder --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.