EA Organization Updates & Opportunities: March 2023

Lizka15 Mar 2023 23:54 UTC
27 points
3 comments10 min readEA link

These monthly posts originated as the “Updates” section of the EA Newsletter. Organizations submit their own updates, which we edit for clarity.

This month, we’re testing out whether it’s more useful to feature opportunities more heavily. Opportunities and job listings that these organizations highlighted (as well as a couple of other impactful jobs and announcements) are at the top of this post. Some have pressing deadlines.

You can see previous updates on the “EA Organization Updates (monthly series)” topic page, or in our repository of past newsletters. Notice that there’s also an “org update” tag, where you can find more news and updates that are not part of this consolidated series.

The organization updates are in alphabetical order.

Opportunities and jobs

Opportunities

Consider also checking opportunities listed on the EA Opportunities Board.

  • General-audience events

    • Applications are open for three EA conferences in Europe:

    • You can enroll in a free pilot Forecasting course, which will run from March 24 to April 15, 2023 (5-10 hours per week). Juan Cambeiro, a Good Judgement Superforecaster and analyst for Metaculus, will lead the course, which is aimed at beginner forecasters who want to improve their decision-making skills. Enroll by 22 March.

    • Peter Singer’s speaking tour is set to visit London, Perth, and a handful of major US cities, with dates to be announced soon. The US and UK tour dates will form part of the launch of Animal Liberation NOW—The Definitive Classic Renewed on May 23rd. Tickets for the Perth event will be available for sale on March 16 local time and include a live-streaming option.

  • Early-career, student, and academic opportunities

Job listings

​​Consider also exploring jobs listed on “Job listing (open).”

80,000 Hours

Alignment Research Center—Evaluations Project

Anthropic

Founders Pledge

Giving What We Can

GiveDirectly

GiveWell

IDinsight

One for the World

Open Philanthropy

Rethink Priorities:

Organization Updates

80,000 Hours

80,000 Hours has released its two-year review for 2021 and 2022. (You can find previous evaluations here.)

Some highlights:

  • Over the past two years, the podcast, job board, and one-on-one advising team each grew their engagement two or three times. Web engagement hours fell by 20% in 2021 and then grew by 38% in 2022 after 80,000 Hours increased their marketing.

  • The core team grew from 14 staff members to 25 over two years.

  • They plan to grow the team by roughly 50% in 2023, adding an additional 12 people.

  • They plan to continue growing their main four programmes and will experiment with additional projects, such as relaunching their headhunting service and creating a new, scripted podcast with a different host.

  • Ben Todd stepped down as CEO in May 2022 and was replaced by Howie Lempel. Howie is now on leave from 80,000 Hours to be Interim CEO of Effective Ventures Foundation (UK), and Brenton Mayer took over as Interim CEO of 80,000 Hours in Q4 2022.

  • In 2023, they will make improving their advice a key focus of their work. As part of this, they’re aiming to hire for a senior research role.

  • Their baseline non-marketing budget is $10.2m for 2023 and $12.5m for 2024. They’re keen to fundraise above their baseline budget and are also interested in expanding their runway.

Anima International

EU ban on cages for farmed animals

Anima International’s Polish group is working to initiate a parliamentary discussion about the prohibition of cages for farmed animals. They aim to convince Polish politicians about the importance of supporting the End the Cage Age initiative. Poland is one of the biggest producers of eggs and chicken meat in Europe, making it particularly important to secure support for the ban among Polish politicians.

Thanks to this focus, a recent session of the Subcommittee on Farmed Animals Welfare and Protection of Animal Production in Poland focused on the subject of phasing out cages. Activists from Anima International were joined by representatives of Eurogroup for Animals and Compassion in World Farming Poland as well by independent scientists from fields of sociology, economics and biology. As 2023 is the year when Polish parliamentary elections are to be held, it was crucial that the session was attended by MPs from both the ruling and opposition parties.

EU ban on fur farming

In March, the #FurFreeEurope European Citizens’ Initiative signature collection ended, resulting in 1,701,892 signatures from all over the EU. Anima International organizations in Poland, Bulgaria and Denmark took part. When the initiative started in May 2022, the goal was to collect 1.4 million signatures in the EU. Not only did the campaign exceed the target, but it was done 2.5 months ahead of schedule.

Animal Advocacy Careers (AAC)

The Inclusive Hiring Skills Program is a series of (non-free) workshops designed for anyone involved in or interested in hiring who wants to create a more inclusive and diverse working environment.

Animal Charity Evaluators

Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) is now accepting applications for their 2023 Movement Grants! This round, ACE has introduced a maximum grant size of $50,000 and have streamlined the application process for applicants seeking $20,000 or less. Please visit their website to view the application process, FAQs, and a list of previous grant recipients. You can also listen to ACE’s Movement Grants Program Manager explain what makes a good application. The application round is open until 11:59 pm PT on March 17, 2022. Apply here.

In June 2021, ACE awarded $1.09 million to organizations and projects working in various regions as part of their fifth round of Movement Grants. In this post, you will find updates from some of the organizations that have completed their projects since ACE’s last check-in in early 2022. Read their updates.

As the world’s ever-changing environment continues to raise new threats for species, the animal advocacy movement must adapt to ensure the strength and resilience of the movement. Some ways to do this include conducting research, sharing resources, and fostering inclusivity among animal advocates. ACE’s latest Menu of Outcomes post highlights some of the ways animal advocacy groups are building a stronger movement. Learn more.

Last July, thanks to generous donor supporters of ACE’s Recommended Charity Fund, they were able to award $679,276 to their 2021 Top and Standout Charities. Those organizations have provided ACE with an update on how they’ve used their grant to help animals, and they’re excited to share their achievements.

Anthropic

On March 8, Anthropic released a blog post outlining their Core Views on AI Safety.

Centre for Effective Altruism Groups Team

Retrospective on CEA’s Fall ’22 University Group Accelerator Program (UGAP)

CEA’s University Groups Team posted a retrospective on the Fall 2022 round of UGAP. 68 (new) uni groups completed the program, and 112 organizers received mentorship and access to curated resources. Sign up here to be informed when applications open for the next round of UGAP.

Two opportunities at CEA: Pre-EAG London Summit & Summer Internship

CEA’s University Groups Team has announced the following opportunities:

  • An internship for university group organizers during northern hemisphere summer

  • A university group organizers summit before EAG London

Center on Long-Term Risk (CLR)

Applications for CLR’s annual Summer Research Fellowship opened. Deadline: Sunday, April 2, 2023 end of day anywhere.

Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER)

  • On the 21 March at 3pm (UK) CSER will hold a virtual launch event for their forthcoming book The Era of Global Risk: An Introduction to Existential Risk Studies.

  • Paul Ingram published the results of an opinion poll into public attitudes towards nuclear winter and the latest research.

  • CSER has published infographics summarizing their work on nuclear weapons, climate change, bio risk, and AI.

  • Clarissa Rios Rojas published a report on her work to establish a Science Policy Interface for Global Catastrophic Risk.

  • Freya Jephcott contributed to the World Health Organization’s operational guide to Early Warning Alert and Response in Emergencies.

Charity Entrepreneurship

Charity Entrepreneurship published an update on the progress of their incubated charities and is now looking for new charity ideas in the space of mass media interventions and preventative animal advocacy that you can submit via this form.

Faunalytics

Faunalytics’ published a new analysis examining the reasons people abandon vegan or vegetarian (veg*n) diets. They identified the biggest obstacles former veg*ns faced and what they would need to resume their commitment to veg*nism.

They have also updated their Research Library with articles on topics including shrimp welfare and a software application that measures different aspects of aquaculture.

Faunalytics also attended EA Global in Oakland! If you didn’t have the opportunity to connect with their team, they invite you to visit their free weekly Office Hours to discuss any questions you may have about research in farmed animal protection.

Fish Welfare Initiative

FWI recently posted the following updates on their work:

They believe these updates constitute significant progress on their goal of developing a scalable theory of change to improve the lives of farmed fish across India and, more broadly, Asia. And they wish to express their gratitude to all those who have helped make these outcomes possible.

GiveDirectly

GiveDirectly launched a cash response to the Turkey-Syria earthquake, letting donors send funds directly to Syrian refugees in Turkey struggling to recover.

They’ve also launched a Zakat-complaint fund to allow Muslims to give directly through their Yemen program, timed for Ramadan giving. This is the first effective giving option made available to faith-based Muslim givers.

The organization has also published recent pieces on the role of cash transfers in adapting to climate change: Vox: “New experiments show the power of giving cash right before extreme weather strikes” and Independent: “It is time to think about providing direct cash assistance to help people in poverty”

Giving Green

Giving Green published a brief blog post sharing learnings from their 2022 research process and ways in which they are improving their research process in 2023.

Giving What We Can

Giving What We Can published a guest post on effective donation advice regarding the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria from Stefan Shaw and Louise Kihlberg.

They also published the following content:

The Humane League

Since releasing the 2023 Eggsposé, THL’s yearly investigative report into corporate cage-free accountability, eleven companies have started reporting on their progress to free hens from cages. For those staying silent and refusing to be honest with the public about their overdue cage-free commitments, THL is continuing to demand transparency. Add your voice to tell these companies to keep their word to reduce the suffering of millions of hens.

The Open Wing Alliance, a global coalition of animal protection organizations, has launched its Manufacturers Unmasked campaign on the heels of last month’s Global Manufacturers Report. Tens of thousands of people are urging companies like PepsiCo, who released a global cage-free egg policy in 2016 but still refuses to share its progress publicly, to honor their commitment to animals and consumers. Take action for the animals with the Open Wing Alliance here!

Matthijs Maas and Cecil Abungu attended the “Future-Proofing the Multilateral System” workshop organized by the Simon Institute in Geneva.

The paper “Defining the scope of AI regulations” by Research Affiliate Jonas Schuett was published in the journal Law, Innovation and Technology. The paper argues that the material scope of AI regulations should not rely on the term ‘artificial intelligence (AI)’ but that policymakers should focus on the specific risks they want to reduce.

Research Affiliate Noam Kolt published a preprint of his article “Algorithmic Black Swans” (forthcoming in the Washington University Law Review), which offers “a roadmap for ‘algorithmic preparedness’ — a set of five forward-looking principles to guide the development of regulations that confront the prospect of algorithmic black swans and mitigate the harms they pose to society.”

Rio Popper joined the LPP team as Research Assistant to Christoph Winter.

Open Philanthropy

Co-CEO Holden Karnofsky announced a three-month leave of absence from Open Philanthropy to work full-time on AI safety. Holden will be researching possible AI safety standards that, if adopted, could prevent labs from deploying dangerous AI systems.

Rethink Priorities (RP)

Reports

Blogs

News

  • RP is building a new interdisciplinary Worldview Investigations Team to tackle high-impact questions such as how major funders should compare the impact of neartermist and longtermist interventions.

  • The Insect Institute (TII)—a special project fiscally sponsored by RP—officially launched under the leadership of Executive Director Dustin Crummett. TII will address the challenges associated with the rapidly growing use of insects as food and feed, working with policymakers, industry, and other relevant stakeholders to address key uncertainties involving animal welfare, public health, and environmental sustainability.

Lizka15 Mar 2023 23:54 UTC
27 points
3 comments10 min readEA link