Jonas Volmer with concerns on ‘Effective Altruism’ as the main branding and identity for the community
Probably Good have launched a preliminary website for their work as a new career advising organisation and are looking for feedback
EA Colabs has been created to help people interested in EA collaborate on potentially impactful projects
Meg Tong has set up a website for EA Finance
Sanjay Joshi with a post arguing that environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing should be a top priority as an imapctful career option
80,000 Hours with a post on how to identify your personal strengths
EA Funds has appointed new fund managers
CEA on their plans for hosting an EA wiki on the forum
Nuño Sempere attempting to estimate the value of the first 10 EA Forum prize winners
Cullen O’Keefe looking into why EA outreach is hard towards people on the American political left
An overview of the work SoGive has been up to over the last few years
An Ask Me Anything with JP Addison and Sam Deere on software engineering at CEA
A post looking into whether EA has grown over the last 5 years
Tyler Maule estimating the total yearly dollars that are aligned with EA by cause area
Jonas Vollmer writing that the ‘EA Funds is more flexible than you might think’
EA Organisation updates for January 2021
Open Phil have made 12 grants recently with a total value of $32,320,000
$19,355,000 - Potential Risks from Advanced AI
$11,355,000 - Center for Human-Compatible AI
$8,000,000 - Center for Security and Emerging Technology
$6,651,000 - Global Health & Development
$3,800,000 - Criminal Justice Reform
$1,628,000 - Scientific Research
$508,000 - Farm Animal Welfare
$202,000 - Macroeconomic Stabilisation Policy
$176,000 - Global Catastrophic Risks
The Gates Foundation on why they are giving $250,000,000 to fight the pandemic
A post by Max Roser looking at how much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially
The European Union is looking to consolidate most of its foreign spending via one instrument rather than 10 member states
Wellcome Leap has launched, describing themselves as DARPA for global health
A post from JPAL arguing that ‘Growth is not enough’
Our World in Data looking at global poverty lines and what it means for our understanding of poverty
The Centre for Global Development with a post on ‘Allocating Global Aid to Maximize Utility’
Julian Hazell & David Holmes with a post for Giving What We Can looking at measuring global inequality
Timothy Liptrot with a post asking whether economic growth causes democratisation
Lewis Bollard on the potential for consumer adoption of alternative proteins
The Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation has launched its new fish welfare report
80,000 Hours podcast with Andy Weber on rendering bioweapons obsolete and ending the new nuclear arms race
Toby Ord in the Guardian asking governments to improve their resilience to prevent catastrophes
CSER with a paper looking at ‘What is Climate Change’s Contribution to Global Catastrophic Risk?’
The UK government is investing £20 million into the Space Weather Instrumentation Measurement, Modelling and Risk programme to improve the UK’s ability to monitor and predict space weather events
A podcast with Thomas Moynihan on the history of existential risk
A post collating analogies & reasons to worry about advanced AI
Tessa Alexanian with a biosecurity and biorisk reading list
José Luis Ricón looking at potential new models for funding and organising science
Jason Crawford with a post looking at ways of ending technological stagnation
Ben Garfinkel with the post ‘Is Democracy a Fad?’
A post introducing Metaforecast, a forecast aggregator and search tool
An Ask Me Anything with Ian David Moss, strategy consultant to foundations and other institutions
The Good Food Institute on the potential environmental benefits of cultivated meat
China’s coal-fired power plants drop below 50% power generation for first time
UK Research and Innovation has awarded £171,000,000 in funding across nine significant decarbonisation projects
Hannah Ritchie looking at what proportion of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food
Joel Carlsmith with a post ‘On future people, looking back at 21st century longtermism’
Nora with a post looking into patient longtermism
Haydn Belfield with a response to ‘The Case Against Longtermism’
Joshua Teperowski Monrad has created a syllabus of readings relating to longtermism philosophy
A post looking at the trade off between the high stakes of the future and declining predictability of actions affecting the future
Jack Malde on possible misconceptions about (strong) longtermism
80,000 Hours podcast with Brian Christian discussing the alignment problem
Future of Life podcast with Stuart Russell and Zachary Kallenborn discussing drone swarms and lethal autonomous weapons
Charlotte Stix with a paper on actionable principles for AI policy
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, on planning for potential future technological unemployment
Roman Yampolskiy joins FLI to discuss whether AI systems can be controlled, comprehended and explained
Kat Woods introducing the Nonlinear Fund, who aim to do AI safety research, incubation and funding
Stefan Torges on ‘Coordination challenges for preventing AI conflict’
Jamie Harris on ‘The Importance of Artificial Sentience’
80,000 Hours podcast with with Ezra Klein on aligning journalism, politics and what matters most
Project for Awesome have raised nearly $190,000 for seven EA related charities, with members of the EA community contributing 65 videos to this effort
An interview with Sam Bankman-Fried, a recent blockchain billionaire, on how effective altruism has influenced his donations
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first ever tweet has been sold for the equivalent of $2,900,000 and is planning to donate all of it to GiveDirectly
Clearer Thinking with ‘7 reasons why you could be defining a concept ineffectively’
A look at how Charity Entrepreneurship was founded
Max Daniel and Benjamin Todd with the post ‘How much does performance differ between people?’
An analysis of the books read by EA Goodreads members
A post arguing against neutrality about creating happy lives
Edo Arad summarising chapters 5 and 6 on cause prioritisation from Michael Plant’s thesis
An interview with Igor Kurganov, a former professional poker player who founded Raising for Effective Giving
An Ask Me Anything on the EA Forum with Tom Chivers, science writer and science editor at UnHerd
El Salvador has become the first country in Central America to be certified malaria-free
The predicted doubling of malaria deaths in Africa due to COVID-19 haven’t occurred
China has banned harsh punishments in schools
Hepatitis C prevalence in Egypt drops from 7% to 2% since 2018
EA Updates for April 2021
Meta
Jonas Volmer with concerns on ‘Effective Altruism’ as the main branding and identity for the community
Probably Good have launched a preliminary website for their work as a new career advising organisation and are looking for feedback
EA Colabs has been created to help people interested in EA collaborate on potentially impactful projects
Meg Tong has set up a website for EA Finance
Sanjay Joshi with a post arguing that environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing should be a top priority as an imapctful career option
80,000 Hours with a post on how to identify your personal strengths
EA Funds has appointed new fund managers
CEA on their plans for hosting an EA wiki on the forum
Nuño Sempere attempting to estimate the value of the first 10 EA Forum prize winners
Cullen O’Keefe looking into why EA outreach is hard towards people on the American political left
An overview of the work SoGive has been up to over the last few years
An Ask Me Anything with JP Addison and Sam Deere on software engineering at CEA
A post looking into whether EA has grown over the last 5 years
Tyler Maule estimating the total yearly dollars that are aligned with EA by cause area
Jonas Vollmer writing that the ‘EA Funds is more flexible than you might think’
EA Organisation updates for January 2021
Grants
Open Phil have made 12 grants recently with a total value of $32,320,000
$19,355,000 - Potential Risks from Advanced AI
$11,355,000 - Center for Human-Compatible AI
$8,000,000 - Center for Security and Emerging Technology
$6,651,000 - Global Health & Development
$3,800,000 - Criminal Justice Reform
$1,628,000 - Scientific Research
$508,000 - Farm Animal Welfare
$202,000 - Macroeconomic Stabilisation Policy
$176,000 - Global Catastrophic Risks
Global Development
The Gates Foundation on why they are giving $250,000,000 to fight the pandemic
A post by Max Roser looking at how much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially
The European Union is looking to consolidate most of its foreign spending via one instrument rather than 10 member states
Wellcome Leap has launched, describing themselves as DARPA for global health
A post from JPAL arguing that ‘Growth is not enough’
Our World in Data looking at global poverty lines and what it means for our understanding of poverty
The Centre for Global Development with a post on ‘Allocating Global Aid to Maximize Utility’
Julian Hazell & David Holmes with a post for Giving What We Can looking at measuring global inequality
Timothy Liptrot with a post asking whether economic growth causes democratisation
Animal Welfare
Lewis Bollard on the potential for consumer adoption of alternative proteins
The Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation has launched its new fish welfare report
Existential & Catastrophic Risks
80,000 Hours podcast with Andy Weber on rendering bioweapons obsolete and ending the new nuclear arms race
Toby Ord in the Guardian asking governments to improve their resilience to prevent catastrophes
CSER with a paper looking at ‘What is Climate Change’s Contribution to Global Catastrophic Risk?’
The UK government is investing £20 million into the Space Weather Instrumentation Measurement, Modelling and Risk programme to improve the UK’s ability to monitor and predict space weather events
A podcast with Thomas Moynihan on the history of existential risk
A post collating analogies & reasons to worry about advanced AI
Tessa Alexanian with a biosecurity and biorisk reading list
Improving Institutions
José Luis Ricón looking at potential new models for funding and organising science
Jason Crawford with a post looking at ways of ending technological stagnation
Ben Garfinkel with the post ‘Is Democracy a Fad?’
A post introducing Metaforecast, a forecast aggregator and search tool
An Ask Me Anything with Ian David Moss, strategy consultant to foundations and other institutions
Environment
The Good Food Institute on the potential environmental benefits of cultivated meat
China’s coal-fired power plants drop below 50% power generation for first time
UK Research and Innovation has awarded £171,000,000 in funding across nine significant decarbonisation projects
Hannah Ritchie looking at what proportion of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food
Longtermism
Joel Carlsmith with a post ‘On future people, looking back at 21st century longtermism’
Nora with a post looking into patient longtermism
Haydn Belfield with a response to ‘The Case Against Longtermism’
Joshua Teperowski Monrad has created a syllabus of readings relating to longtermism philosophy
A post looking at the trade off between the high stakes of the future and declining predictability of actions affecting the future
Jack Malde on possible misconceptions about (strong) longtermism
Emerging Technology
80,000 Hours podcast with Brian Christian discussing the alignment problem
Future of Life podcast with Stuart Russell and Zachary Kallenborn discussing drone swarms and lethal autonomous weapons
Charlotte Stix with a paper on actionable principles for AI policy
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, on planning for potential future technological unemployment
Roman Yampolskiy joins FLI to discuss whether AI systems can be controlled, comprehended and explained
Kat Woods introducing the Nonlinear Fund, who aim to do AI safety research, incubation and funding
Stefan Torges on ‘Coordination challenges for preventing AI conflict’
Jamie Harris on ‘The Importance of Artificial Sentience’
Other Links
80,000 Hours podcast with with Ezra Klein on aligning journalism, politics and what matters most
Project for Awesome have raised nearly $190,000 for seven EA related charities, with members of the EA community contributing 65 videos to this effort
An interview with Sam Bankman-Fried, a recent blockchain billionaire, on how effective altruism has influenced his donations
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first ever tweet has been sold for the equivalent of $2,900,000 and is planning to donate all of it to GiveDirectly
Clearer Thinking with ‘7 reasons why you could be defining a concept ineffectively’
A look at how Charity Entrepreneurship was founded
Max Daniel and Benjamin Todd with the post ‘How much does performance differ between people?’
An analysis of the books read by EA Goodreads members
A post arguing against neutrality about creating happy lives
Edo Arad summarising chapters 5 and 6 on cause prioritisation from Michael Plant’s thesis
An interview with Igor Kurganov, a former professional poker player who founded Raising for Effective Giving
An Ask Me Anything on the EA Forum with Tom Chivers, science writer and science editor at UnHerd
Good News
El Salvador has become the first country in Central America to be certified malaria-free
The predicted doubling of malaria deaths in Africa due to COVID-19 haven’t occurred
China has banned harsh punishments in schools
Hepatitis C prevalence in Egypt drops from 7% to 2% since 2018