Maybe do the thing you wish CEA would do
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 bets
You can set things from the start to benefit from pumping lots of AI into the project
CEA is just one org, they simply can’t do everything
If you want concrete suggestions, here’s the first that came to mind:
More and better EA events.
EAGs are great, and EA Summits are an interesting experiment, but possibly there’s many more formats and audiences to explore!
Also, you can vibecode your own Swapcard alternative!
New introductions to EA ideas
I got into EA because helping the poor seemed great and doing that more effectively seemed even better. I’m not sure the AGI-focused content from 80k would have grabbed me, so there’s possibly a good audience for what 80k was for me in 2016!
Online communities and discussion spaces
AI makes sourcing and curating content much easier, or you can pick a niche community and topic and start from there (I’m the proud owner of the #too-much-ai channel for AI use enthusiasts!)
Intellectual leadership on EA ideas
Many institutions that did this have evolved or died (Open Philanthropy, GiveWell, the Global Priorities Institute, Scott Alexander, the Future of Humanity Institute), so, again, it’s free real state!
If you’re looking for a concrete idea: What are the central virtues a committed utilitarian should cultivate? I would kill for a really great answer to this question
Support for local EA groups
What about more active grant-making for EA groups? Maybe even faster funding? Just asking some EA community builders what they’d want and iterating from a minimal version of that could take you really far
I’d personally be very excited to see someone who’s passionate about it pursue any of these ideas. Maybe it’s more important to work on AI or something, but I think the heuristic of working on something you care about really hard can take you very far.
Also, you don’t need to wait for CEA to give you a role to do any of this! You can write up a Google Docs with the idea, send it to me for comments (alejoacelas@gmail.com), figure out the minimal version you can get started on, and then go for it!
Strong upvote—too many people see CEA as an authority source on everything EA, rather than a bunch of staff the EA community pays for to do the safe, repeatable stuff.
Someone really needs to create a course based on Will’s EA in the Age of AGI: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/R8AAG4QBZi5puvogR/effective-altruism-in-the-age-of-agi
I agree! I was thinking of doing something like this and wrote an (unpublished) post which mentioned it, still strongly considering doing something related though perhaps more so a “flourishing futures”/“better futures” angle, which I think is related.
Agree, I think people should “be the change they want to see” more often, especially in community / field building.
One caveat: Understand reputational harm risks and manage them (don’t overestimate them either)
If your projects includes using the EA brand for outreach or other public comms, I’d recommend at least informing CEA or a local (full-time, paid) EA community builder, and asking if there’s anything you should consider.
In some cases, there might be downside risks to other EA orgs or EA as a whole, some of which you might overlook, especially if you’re new to EA community building or haven’t yet gotten a lot of feedback. If that’s the case, you can still do the project, maybe just not using the EA brand, or maybe test it small-scale first, with people who can give you honest feedback, before scaling up.
(this is just my personal opinion, informed by my time as EA Germany director until 2022, but not speaking for EA Germany or any other EA org)
I think Stefan Schubert & Lucius Caviola’s Virtues for Real-World Utilitarians is pretty good!
I really like the core idea here: if you see a gap that matters, don’t assume it has to be filled by a large organization. Some of the most impactful initiatives often start with a small team that’s deeply focused on solving one problem well.
Your point about AI lowering the barrier to building communities, educational resources, and event infrastructure is especially interesting. It feels like this is creating opportunities for people to test ideas quickly, learn from real users, and iterate rather than waiting for institutional support.
I’m curious which of these areas you think has the biggest unmet need today. If someone had a small team and six months to work on just one of these ideas, where do you think they’d create the most value?
Not sure I know the biggest gap overall (and I think here you mostly should prioritize based on where you have a starting approach/personal fit) but I’ve seen a few uni groups really annoyed at how slow and non-transparent the current grant process feels.
My sense is that grants to uni groups work at tr pace that most grants in the EA space do, but when you’re a small uni group and not used to planning ahead, it feels great if you can reach for support (and guidance on using/not getting the money) faster.