EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

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.

(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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 [email protected]. 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.

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.

Assuming we end factory farming before 2100, which factor will have contributed the most?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 important. In the end, the forecast is that both advocacy (to create demand) and [...] ---Outline:(03:55) Introduction(08:19) Technoeconomic analysis(15:01) My conclusions(16:07) From price to consumer behaviour(23:36) Demand and disruption(29:04) Conclusion(33:19) Bibliography(33:25) Appendix: The science of cultivated meat(35:09) Cell lines(36:32) Cultivated media(39:24) Biorreactor(42:50) Humbird, 2022(44:00) Negulescu, 2023(45:18) 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.

Assuming we end factory farming before 2100, which factor will have contributed the most?85 votes so far. Voting closes in 26 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:(05:02) Introduction(09:33) Technoeconomic analysis(16:21) My conclusions(17:26) From price to consumer behaviour(24:55) Demand and disruption(30:23) Conclusion(34:46) Bibliography(34:52) Appendix: The science of cultivated meat(36:36) Cell lines(37:59) Cultivated media(40:50) Biorreactor(44:17) Humbird, 2022(45:27) Negulescu, 2023(46:45) 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This is a link post. 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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 groupNorms 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 [email protected]. --- 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This is a link post. Crossposting this from LessWrong, with the author's permission. 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, with a [...] ---Outline:(01:19) ~2% of open-seat primaries come down to 100 votes or less(02:51) 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(11:26) There's lots of opportunities to be clever in ways that make you 50% more effective at canvassing(11:52) 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(20:53) 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 17th, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.