EA Updates for June 2020

GRANTS

• Open Phil have made 25 grants recently with a total value of $23,895,000

$14,058,000 - scientific research
- $8,293,676 - infant immunome study
- $3,064,660 - research on emergency food resilience
- $2,500,000 - African Union Development Agency
$3,253,000 - global catastrophic risks
- $3,000,000 - nuclear conflict climate modelling
$2,565,000 - biosecurity and pandemic preparedness
- $2,000,000 - empirical biosafety research
$2,309,000 - farmed animal welfare
$1,372,000 - criminal justice reform
$338,000 - other areas

• GAVI, the vaccine alliance has raised over $8,800,000,000 to immunise 300 million children and support the fight against Covid-19

GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT

• Cambridge University has set up the Centre for Strategic Philanthropy, aiming to become the leading hub of knowledge to catalyse greater philanthropic impact from the world’s fastest growing regions

• GAVI has launched a new financing mechanism for access to Covid-19 vaccines

• An overview of the expansion of social protection measures globally in response to Covid-19

• The Turing Institute on how AI can be used to support the effective prioritisation of public policies, with a case study from Latin America

• ODI with a paper looking at the evidence base for anticipatory action, initiatives that deliver support to vulnerable communities before disasters strike

• A transcript from EA Global ‘Moral weights in global development — IDinsight’s Beneficiary Preferences Project’

• Happier Lives Institute with an update on their first round of evaluating cost-effectiveness of mental health programmes

• Vox looking into how Covid-19 could lead to other infectious diseases spreading in the wake of the pandemic

• The Global Peace Index 2020 was released with 81 countries becoming more peaceful and 80 countries less peaceful

• Think Global Health with an article looking at why private sector engagement should be part of the solution in global development

• Ghana Priorities with a cost benefit analysis of land titling

• Anya Marchenko from the Center for Effective Global Action discussing effective altruism and impact

ANIMAL WELFARE

• Material Innovation Initiative have launched to accelerate the development of animal free materials, similar to the Good Food Institute in the food and drink space

• Lauren Mee and Jamie Harris have launched some of their first public-facing careers advice content for Animal Advocacy Careers

• A post looking at why arguments focused on antibiotic resistance because of meat consumption might be over valued

• Fish Welfare Initiative and Aquatic Life Institute on their new collaboration

• Sofia Davis-Fogel is looking for expressions of interest from people who may want to work at an animal advocacy organisation focusing on insect welfare

• Canada has announced a $100,000,000 investment in the alternative protein industry

• Bruce Friedrich with a TED talk on plant-based and cell-based meat

EXISTENTIAL & CATASTROPHIC RISKS

• A paper looking at international politics in the age of existential threats

• Future of Life Institute podcast with George Church on the future of computation, synthetic biology, and life

• Toby Ord on the Making Sense podcast discussing existential risks

• Notes from a call with the Nuclear Threat Initiative, looking a the work they do covering nuclear, cyber, radiological and biological risks

• Haydn Belfield contributed to the economist front page looking at how politicians could be better prepared for far-out risks

ENVIRONMENT

• Amazon have set up a $2,000,000,000 Climate Pledge Fund to support the development of sustainable and decarbonising technologies

• Pale Blue Dot is a new ‘climate only’ venture capital firm aiming to invest in 40 companies that are using technology to help solve climate problems

• A paper using an effective altruism framework to look at the top priorities within food insecurity and biodiversity loss

• Our World in Data has teamed up with Kurzgesagt to make a video looking at who is responsible for climate change

IMPROVING INSTITUTIONS

• The Global Evidence Summit is happening in Prague, October 2021

• The Centre for Public Impact on issues with measurement in public management and how to overcome them

• A new tool to visually explore papers to help researchers and scientists find relevant connections to their work

• Andrew Gelman looking at problems with the peer review system

• A blog post on how to influence policy as an early career researcher

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

• An overview of the ethics of AI and robotics in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

• 38 participants have contributed to a horizon scanning paper looking at the opportunities and threats associated with bioengineering

• An article looking at why fully autonomous drone swarms could be considered weapons of mass destruction

• The Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub was announced in the UK to support work to ensure that autonomous systems are trustworthy by default and can benefit society

• A paper in nature looking at AI ethics in a crisis when urgency is required

• The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk with written evidence to the UK Parliament Defence Committee’s Inquiry with recommendations on procurement and deployment of machine learning systems in the military

• 80,000 Hours interviewing Stuart Russell on human compatible AI

• Jess Whittlestone with an article on why cross-cultural cooperation on ethics and governance is essential if AI is to bring about benefits worldwide