Despite the growth of insect farming, there has been little research into farmed insect sentience. Some have advocated for a “precautionary principle,” that unless farmed insects can be concluded not to be sentient, their welfare should be considered. This is based on the idea that “when faced with such little research, we cannot assume that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.” So, what is the current state of evidence for farmed insect sentience? Increased understanding may rely on further research, which is theoretically and methodologically appropriate to address this question. Learn more on Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) website.
There are various ways animal advocates can help fish: In ACE’s latest blog post they use the scale, tractability, and neglectedness framework to prioritize between farmed and wild-caught fish. While interventions to decrease animal consumption or increase the availability of animal-free products can help both farmed and wild-caught fish, prioritizing between the two can help determine how to improve fish welfare most effectively. Read their latest blog post.
Animal Ethics
Animal Ethics published Animals and war. Nonhuman animals have been part of armed conflicts throughout history and remain so today. Some are actively used in military activities, in the research and development of military technology and weaponry, and in the training of soldiers and field medics, while others are incidental victims of conflict.
Animal Ethics is looking to make contact with people in Africa and Asia who are concerned about the plight of domesticated and wild animals and want to make a positive change for all sentient beings. The organization periodically has paid and volunteer positions. Anyone from Africa or Asia who might be interested now or in the future should get in touch with them. See more details at the bottom of this blog post or fill out their expression of interest form.
Centre for Effective Altruism
Events Team
Applications are currently open, all via the same link, for
EAGxAustralia will be returning after a three-year hiatus and takes place at the Australian National University in Canberra next weekend.
Online Team
The online team has published an update with new features, including new profile features and ways to sort and engage with posts.
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER)
Lalitha Sundaram, Matthijs Maas, and SJ Beard have a new SSRN pre-print, exploring critical questions facing the existential risk studies community around prioritization, downsides, approaches, scientific coherence, impact, diversity, and communication.
Lauren Holt published an article in BBC Future asking if humanity should detach itself from nature and considering the case for a broader form of “offsetting” to help balance technology with natural systems.
Clarissa Rios Rojas presented on building a science-policy interface to tackle the global governance of global catastrophic and existential risks at the UN Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction Conference and provided a statement on behalf of CSER at the Sendai Framework Midterm Review Plenary 2: Beyond natural hazards.
Paul Ingram appeared on Radio 4′s The Moral Maze to discuss what the West should do next regarding Ukraine and the threat of nuclear winter.
A joint team of CSER and LCFI researchers came 2nd in the Future of Life Institute’s Worldbuilding contest for an entry exploring how safe and beneficial AGI could be achieved by carefully balancing its centralized and distributed functions.
Effective Institutions Project
The Effective Institutions Project is proud to welcome seven new members to its team. Polchate (Jam) Kraprayoon has been appointed as EIP’s inaugural Operations and Community Manager. Previously, he was a program officer focusing on foresight, public sector reform, and regulation at the Asian Productivity Organization. EIP has also brought on a cohort of six summer interns and fellows to extend the organization’s research and outreach capacity over the next few months: Rory Gillis, Conrad Helminger, Nick Hollman, Keishi Kimura, Karis Jia Ning Ma, and Ella McIntosh. EIP is grateful to the FTX Future Fund regranting program for supporting these summer positions.
EIP’s Jam Kraprayoon and Ian David Moss will host a discussion on improving institutions at EA Global: San Francisco later this month.
Faunalytics released their 2022 Mid-Year Report, recapping an exciting first six months of the year. Highlights include the release of two original research studies, resources in nine additional languages, and two staff members joining the growing team.
They also announced the launch of their research ambassador outreach project, which will empower more advocates around the world with research to inform their work. Reach out to schedule a free, customized research presentation for your organization.
If you know someone who may be interested in either of these roles, please forward them the job descriptions!
Last month in India, FWI scoped a new region, completed a 21 day trial of phytoplankton measurements in fish farms (an important influencer of water quality), hired two new data collectors, and continued our farmer, corporate, and political outreach. Additionally, seven new fish farms joined their Alliance for Responsible Aquaculture, a collective of farms that commit to raise fish in higher welfare conditions.
GiveWell published a blog post updating on its projected funds raised for 2022. Currently GiveWell expects the amount of cost-effective grant opportunities it will find this year to exceed its funds raised. It’s encouraging supporters to increase their giving, if possible, in order to prevent some of these opportunities from going unfunded.
GiveWell also published the following new research materials:
A page on two grants it recommended, totaling $562,000, to IRD Global’s tuberculosis team in Karachi, Pakistan, as part of GiveWell’s investigation of potential scale-up funding for IRD’s Zero TB program.
Notes from GiveWell’s conversation with Drs. Edward Miguel and Michael Walker as part of its investigation of a potential grant to fund follow-up research on GiveDirectly’s unconditional cash transfer program.
Global Catastrophic Risk Institute
The GCRI 2022 Advising and Collaboration Program is still open for applicants. They welcome people at all career points, from all geographic locations, and with any interest across the many aspects of global catastrophic risk. There is no deadline for submission and they urge anyone interested to participate.
The Legal Priorities Project (LPP) ran the first in-person conference on law and longtermism, co-organized with the University of Hamburg.
LPP’s writing competition on “Improving Cost-Benefit Analysis to Account for Existential and Catastrophic Risks” is receiving submissions until July 31st. Prizes ranging from $2,500 to $30,000 will be awarded to the winners.
LPP also selected its cohort for the 2022 Legal Priorities Summer Institute, which will bring together top students and recent graduates in law from all around the world to discuss how they can use their careers in law to tackle critical issues affecting the long-term future.
Noam Kolt, doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, joined as Research Affiliate.
Longview Philanthropy
Longview is hiring for a Longtermist Grantmaker, and is assessing applications on a rolling basis.
They are currently accepting applications for mentees from traditionally under-represented genders and groups. Past mentees have been particularly successful when they’ve come with a sense of what they’d like to achieve through mentorship. Apply here by August 5th.
Magnify Mentoring are often asked to recommend potential hires from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. If you are not interested in becoming involved in the mentorship program but are seeking work in organizations inspired by EA, please complete this form.
Following the success of their first two years, they are piloting projects to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of expanding their services to support more people with mentorship. If you are interested in mentoring in an unrestricted round, please complete this form.
We’ve decided to cycle through the alphabet in order to avoid showing the same organizations at the top of the updates every month (starting a couple of months ago). This month, we’re back to 0-a-z, so the organizations should be in normal alphabetical order.
EA Organization Updates: June-July 2022
These monthly posts originated as the “Updates” section of the EA Newsletter. Organizations submit their own updates, which we edit for clarity.
Job listings that these organizations highlighted are at the top of this post. Some of the jobs have extremely 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 organizations are in alphabetical order.[1]
Job Listings
See also: Who’s hiring? May-September 2022. These jobs will also appear in the EA Newsletter.
Applications due soon
Centre for Effective Altruism:
UI/UX Designer (Remote, apply by 18 July)
Roles on the Operations Team, including Head of Finance and an Operations Manager for the new New York EA Hub.
Centre for the Governance of AI (GovAI)
Research scholar — general and policy tracks (Preferred Oxford / remote, apply by 7 August)
Survey analyst (Remote, apply by 10 August)
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk:
Director (Cambridge, apply by 31 July)
EA Germany:
1-2 Directors for EA Germany (Preference for Berlin / remote within Germany, apply by 17 July)
Project Manager (Preference for Berlin / remote within Germany, apply by 17 July)
Fish Welfare Initiative:
Associate Director for FWI India (Preference for Andhra Pradesh / remote, apply by 17 July)
Monitoring & Evaluation Consultant(Remote)
GiveWell:
Grants Coordinator (Oakland, CA / remote, apply by 17 July)
Assorted other jobs, including Senior Researcher, Senior Research Associate, and Content Editor positions (Oakland, CA / Remote)
Other Positions
Longview Philanthropy:
Longtermist Grantmaker (London)
Metaculus:
Seeking several experienced leaders, researchers & operators for high-impact roles
Organizational updates
80,000 Hours
This month on The 80,000 Hours Podcast, Rob Wiblin spoke with Nova DasSarma on why information security may be critical to the safe development of AI systems, and Max Tegmark on how a ‘put-up-or-shut-up’ resolution led him to work on AI and algorithmic news selection.
The 80,000 Hours team also launched a census of everyone who could ever see themselves doing longtermist work (please fill it out — it will only take a couple of minutes!), and Alex Lawsen published a blog post about a recurring theme in his advising calls: Know what you’re optimising for.
Finally, Michelle Hutchinson wrote a post on the EA Forum about how 80k would be happy to see more projects in the careers space.
Animal Charity Evaluators
Despite the growth of insect farming, there has been little research into farmed insect sentience. Some have advocated for a “precautionary principle,” that unless farmed insects can be concluded not to be sentient, their welfare should be considered. This is based on the idea that “when faced with such little research, we cannot assume that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.” So, what is the current state of evidence for farmed insect sentience? Increased understanding may rely on further research, which is theoretically and methodologically appropriate to address this question. Learn more on Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) website.
There are various ways animal advocates can help fish: In ACE’s latest blog post they use the scale, tractability, and neglectedness framework to prioritize between farmed and wild-caught fish. While interventions to decrease animal consumption or increase the availability of animal-free products can help both farmed and wild-caught fish, prioritizing between the two can help determine how to improve fish welfare most effectively. Read their latest blog post.
Animal Ethics
Animal Ethics published Animals and war. Nonhuman animals have been part of armed conflicts throughout history and remain so today. Some are actively used in military activities, in the research and development of military technology and weaponry, and in the training of soldiers and field medics, while others are incidental victims of conflict.
Animal Ethics is looking to make contact with people in Africa and Asia who are concerned about the plight of domesticated and wild animals and want to make a positive change for all sentient beings. The organization periodically has paid and volunteer positions. Anyone from Africa or Asia who might be interested now or in the future should get in touch with them. See more details at the bottom of this blog post or fill out their expression of interest form.
Centre for Effective Altruism
Events Team
Applications are currently open, all via the same link, for
EA Global San Francisco (29 − 31 July)
EAGxSingapore (2 − 3 September)
EA Global Washington D.C. (23 − 25 September)
EAGxAustralia will be returning after a three-year hiatus and takes place at the Australian National University in Canberra next weekend.
Online Team
The online team has published an update with new features, including new profile features and ways to sort and engage with posts.
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER)
Lalitha Sundaram, Matthijs Maas, and SJ Beard have a new SSRN pre-print, exploring critical questions facing the existential risk studies community around prioritization, downsides, approaches, scientific coherence, impact, diversity, and communication.
Lauren Holt published an article in BBC Future asking if humanity should detach itself from nature and considering the case for a broader form of “offsetting” to help balance technology with natural systems.
Clarissa Rios Rojas presented on building a science-policy interface to tackle the global governance of global catastrophic and existential risks at the UN Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction Conference and provided a statement on behalf of CSER at the Sendai Framework Midterm Review Plenary 2: Beyond natural hazards.
Paul Ingram appeared on Radio 4′s The Moral Maze to discuss what the West should do next regarding Ukraine and the threat of nuclear winter.
A joint team of CSER and LCFI researchers came 2nd in the Future of Life Institute’s Worldbuilding contest for an entry exploring how safe and beneficial AGI could be achieved by carefully balancing its centralized and distributed functions.
Effective Institutions Project
The Effective Institutions Project is proud to welcome seven new members to its team. Polchate (Jam) Kraprayoon has been appointed as EIP’s inaugural Operations and Community Manager. Previously, he was a program officer focusing on foresight, public sector reform, and regulation at the Asian Productivity Organization. EIP has also brought on a cohort of six summer interns and fellows to extend the organization’s research and outreach capacity over the next few months: Rory Gillis, Conrad Helminger, Nick Hollman, Keishi Kimura, Karis Jia Ning Ma, and Ella McIntosh. EIP is grateful to the FTX Future Fund regranting program for supporting these summer positions.
EIP’s Jam Kraprayoon and Ian David Moss will host a discussion on improving institutions at EA Global: San Francisco later this month.
Effektiv Spenden
Effektiv Spenden grew more than 500% in 2021, raised almost 19 million euros, and hired a new Co-CEO.
Faunalytics
Faunalytics released their 2022 Mid-Year Report, recapping an exciting first six months of the year. Highlights include the release of two original research studies, resources in nine additional languages, and two staff members joining the growing team.
They also announced the launch of their research ambassador outreach project, which will empower more advocates around the world with research to inform their work. Reach out to schedule a free, customized research presentation for your organization.
Additionally, they added numerous summaries to their Research Library on topics including genetically engineered, heat-resistant coral and how intensive agriculture threatens wild insects.
Fish Welfare Initiative
Fish Welfare Initiative is now hiring for 2 roles:
An Associate Director for FWI India
A Monitoring & Evaluation Consultant
If you know someone who may be interested in either of these roles, please forward them the job descriptions!
Last month in India, FWI scoped a new region, completed a 21 day trial of phytoplankton measurements in fish farms (an important influencer of water quality), hired two new data collectors, and continued our farmer, corporate, and political outreach. Additionally, seven new fish farms joined their Alliance for Responsible Aquaculture, a collective of farms that commit to raise fish in higher welfare conditions.
Their Fish Welfare Expert Vivek Rachuri also recently spoke at the Summer Shoal conference on fish ethology and welfare in Portugal.
GiveWell
GiveWell published a blog post updating on its projected funds raised for 2022. Currently GiveWell expects the amount of cost-effective grant opportunities it will find this year to exceed its funds raised. It’s encouraging supporters to increase their giving, if possible, in order to prevent some of these opportunities from going unfunded.
GiveWell also published the following new research materials:
A page on two grants it recommended, totaling $562,000, to IRD Global’s tuberculosis team in Karachi, Pakistan, as part of GiveWell’s investigation of potential scale-up funding for IRD’s Zero TB program.
Notes from GiveWell’s conversation with Drs. Edward Miguel and Michael Walker as part of its investigation of a potential grant to fund follow-up research on GiveDirectly’s unconditional cash transfer program.
Global Catastrophic Risk Institute
The GCRI 2022 Advising and Collaboration Program is still open for applicants. They welcome people at all career points, from all geographic locations, and with any interest across the many aspects of global catastrophic risk. There is no deadline for submission and they urge anyone interested to participate.
Research Associate Andrea Owe recently wrote a piece for RUSI discussing outer space and environmentalism, Space Expansion Must Support Sustainability—On Earth and in Space.
Legal Priorities Project
The Legal Priorities Project (LPP) ran the first in-person conference on law and longtermism, co-organized with the University of Hamburg.
LPP’s writing competition on “Improving Cost-Benefit Analysis to Account for Existential and Catastrophic Risks” is receiving submissions until July 31st. Prizes ranging from $2,500 to $30,000 will be awarded to the winners.
LPP also selected its cohort for the 2022 Legal Priorities Summer Institute, which will bring together top students and recent graduates in law from all around the world to discuss how they can use their careers in law to tackle critical issues affecting the long-term future.
Noam Kolt, doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, joined as Research Affiliate.
Longview Philanthropy
Longview is hiring for a Longtermist Grantmaker, and is assessing applications on a rolling basis.
Magnify Mentoring
Magnify Mentoring has three announcements:
They are currently accepting applications for mentees from traditionally under-represented genders and groups. Past mentees have been particularly successful when they’ve come with a sense of what they’d like to achieve through mentorship. Apply here by August 5th.
Magnify Mentoring are often asked to recommend potential hires from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. If you are not interested in becoming involved in the mentorship program but are seeking work in organizations inspired by EA, please complete this form.
Following the success of their first two years, they are piloting projects to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of expanding their services to support more people with mentorship. If you are interested in mentoring in an unrestricted round, please complete this form.
Please reach kathryn@magnifymentoring.org with any questions.
We’ve decided to cycle through the alphabet in order to avoid showing the same organizations at the top of the updates every month (starting a couple of months ago). This month, we’re back to 0-a-z, so the organizations should be in normal alphabetical order.