david_reinstein

Karma: 4,417

I’m the Founder and Co-director of The Unjournal; We organize and fund public journal-independent feedback, rating, and evaluation of hosted papers and dynamically-presented research projects. We will focus on work that is highly relevant to global priorities (especially in economics, social science, and impact evaluation). We will encourage better research by making it easier for researchers to get feedback and credible ratings on their work.

Previously I was a Senior Economist at Rethink Priorities, and before that n Economics lecturer/professor for 15 years.

I’m working to impact EA fundraising and marketing; see https://bit.ly/eamtt

And projects bridging EA, academia, and open science.. see bit.ly/eaprojects

My previous and ongoing research focuses on determinants and motivators of charitable giving (propensity, amounts, and ‘to which cause?’), and drivers of/barriers to effective giving, as well as the impact of pro-social behavior and social preferences on market contexts.

Podcasts: “Found in the Struce” https://anchor.fm/david-reinstein

and the EA Forum podcast: https://anchor.fm/ea-forum-podcast (co-founder, regular reader)

Twitter: @givingtools

david_reinstein 16 Apr 2026 23:33 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Cost of Cultured Meat: workshop, modeling, resources, feedback
Quick update: date confirmed as Friday, May 8, 11am–3pm ET. I’ve added a full update block at the top of the post — confirmed agenda, supplementary sessions, and a note on the participant group. Still ~3 weeks out, so if you’re interested there’s time to apply/give feedback: https://uj-cm-workshop.netlify.app/schedule

david_reinstein 16 Apr 2026 0:47 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: damc4’s comment on: Potentially impactful research: Unjournal AI-assisted prioritization dashboard (~prototype)
“EA Forum paper links” is meant to find research papers/projects that were mentioned on the EA Forum. This tool is mainly meant for surfacing in-depth research that uses formal methods and is putting itself out there as being up to the highest methodological rigor. I mainly meant this tool as a source of research for The Unjournal to consider and evaluate.

(Of course some EA forum posts are also themselves research objects, and occasionally they are even sometimes rather detailed and technical.)

I’m not sure what your tool was doing but it does sound potentially interesting.

Potentially impactful research: Unjournal AI-assisted prioritization dashboard (~prototype)

david_reinstein15 Apr 2026 3:28 UTC

18 points

2 comments1 min readEA link

(uj-prioritization-prototype.netlify.app)

Searchable explorer of EA Forum & LessWrong posts with explicit cruxes or “change my mind” content

The Unjournal (bot)12 Apr 2026 0:12 UTC

9 points

0 comments1 min readEA link

(uj-prioritization-prototype.netlify.app)

[Question] Anyone vibe-coding a directory of “profit for good” companies/EA-aligned service providers (scraper/bot)?

david_reinstein9 Apr 2026 21:13 UTC

12 points

0 comments1 min readEA link

david_reinstein 6 Apr 2026 17:14 UTC
4 points
2 ∶ 0
on: What Questions Do Policymakers Ask About Foreign Aid?
I particularly liked hearing the extensive list of concerns raised by the Korean representatives that you mentioned.

This makes a good case for research organizations (Givewell, etc.) to help identify and prioritize interventions and opportunities in addition to those that are the most demonstrably impact/cost-effective.
I’ve made the argument that donations are a sort of two-sided market catering to both the beneficiaries and the donors, and there may be charities/interventions that are particularly effective when we think about the net benefits to both, or when we consider willingness to donate.
There’s an even more straightforward case for ODA/Foreign aid. We may want to identify, prioritize among, and promote interventions that will be particularly politically appealing to the donor country governments and citizens, even if these are somewhat less impact/cost-effective in a strict sense.
E.g., one often hears that requiring food aid to be purchased from U.S. farmers makes it far more costly. However, this provides a natural constituency.
There may also be some interventions that harness particular cultural and religious affinities, e.g., “Helping educate Christian girls in Muslim countries” or some such. We may find this type of spin particularly distasteful in some ways, but the benefit may outweigh the cost in terms of making aid (and charity) politically appealing.

david_reinstein 31 Mar 2026 12:37 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: SiobhanBall’s comment on: Cost of Cultured Meat: workshop, modeling, resources, feedback
Probably before the end of this week, after we get a few more responses. ATM it’s looking like early May is most likely

Cost of Cultured Meat: workshop, modeling, resources, feedback

david_reinstein30 Mar 2026 23:44 UTC

7 points

3 comments4 min readEA link

david_reinstein 27 Mar 2026 19:36 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: TAI-driven clean meat won’t solve the problem but changes movement strategy anyway
It seems reasonable to think that there’s a >20% chance^[1] that TAI will bring us a ‘technological roadmap’^[2] to clean meat within the next 15 years.
it will make ending factory farming much easier, i.e. the cost-effectiveness of factory farming interventions will increase – perhaps by a factor of 2-10x.

I think the second part of this claim ‘much easier … 2-10x’. (albeit including a ‘perhaps’) merits a bit more justification and modeling.

I guess the argument runs
A. “once we have the roadmap to clean meat, we will know what the key bottlenecks to it are, and target our funding better”?
or perhaps

B. “once cost-parity clean meat is feasible (or available), campaigns to get companies to use it in their products and restaurants will be more effective than current corporate AW campaigns (for cage-free eggs, etc.”

?

david_reinstein 27 Mar 2026 3:28 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Charlie_Guthmann’s comment on: david_reinstein’s Shortform
Thanks, I’d be up for hearing insights. This is related to a larger project (see https://llm-uj-research-eval.netlify.app/), but this part of it is still pretty early stage.

Will DM

david_reinstein 26 Mar 2026 23:27 UTC
7 points
0 ∶ 0
on: david_reinstein’s Shortform
Unjournal AI-assisted research prioritization dashboard (very early prototype)

We’ve been experimenting with using LLMs to help identify and prioritize research for Unjournal evaluation, to work with and complement human prioritization (and learn). We now have a public prototype dashboard:

uj-prioritization-dashboard.netlify.app

What it does: Automatically discovers recent papers from NBER, arXiv (econ), CEPR, SSRN, Semantic Scholar, EA Forum paper links, and OpenAlex, then scores them using AI models (GPT-5.4 family) against our prioritization criteria — decision relevance, prominence, timing value, and methodological potential.

Important caveats:
- This is very preliminary and the AI recommendations are not yet well-calibrated. Many of the suggestions are mediocre we’re sharing it for transparency and feedback, not because it’s producing great output yet.
- This is supplementary to our existing Public Database of Prioritized Research on Coda (https://coda.io/d/Unjournal-Public-Pages_ddIEzDONWdb/Public-Database-of-Prioritized-Research_sutD341G#_luToq6IH
- Scores reflect evaluation priority (expected value of commissioning an independent review), not research quality.
- ATM The AI only sees paper metadata and abstracts, not full texts.
There’s also a statistics page showing the breakdown by source, cause area, and score distribution.

Feedback welcome. You can also comment directly on the page via Hypothes.is, and we’ll adapt

Online workshop: What will cultivated meat cost? (April/May date tbd, Unjournal Pivotal Questions)

david_reinstein26 Mar 2026 23:22 UTC

8 points

0 comments3 min readEA link

david_reinstein 25 Mar 2026 4:26 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Is Cultured Meat Commercially Viable? Unjournal’s first proposed ‘Pivotal Question’ (& request for feedback)
By the way, The Unjournal is planning to host an online workshop/discussion on this. https://uj-cm-workshop.netlify.app/ (draft agenda)

If you’re interested, please consider applying/expressing your interest: https://uj-cm-workshop.netlify.app/schedule

david_reinstein 12 Mar 2026 18:26 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Anki with Uncertainty: Turn any flashcard deck into a calibration training tool
I appreciate this tool. Would it be possible to have a quick calibration tool that doesn’t require any sign-in? It would be very helpful during presentations and conferences to be able to illustrate the concept.

Otherwise, this could be something helpful for someone to vibe code. I’d love to do it myself when I have a chance.

Online Workshop: Wellbeing measures for prioritizing GH&D interventions (March 16; Unjournal Pivotal Questions)

david_reinstein9 Mar 2026 23:19 UTC

14 points

0 comments1 min readEA link

(uj-wellbeing-workshop.netlify.app)

The “talker–feeler gap”: AI valence may be unknowable

david_reinstein1 Mar 2026 0:46 UTC

7 points

0 comments10 min readEA link

david_reinstein 27 Feb 2026 15:27 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: AI Should Not Be Used for Research Writing Tasks
Clarification question:

“You just need to use the latest model” (No, I am seeing this trend with the latest models).

Does this include extensive use of GPT 5.2 extended pro ?

david_reinstein 25 Feb 2026 19:09 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Matrice Jacobine🔸🏳️‍⚧️’s comment on: Exclusive: Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards
Ah, I see—the headlines made this confusing “in the middle of an AI red line fight with the Pentagon”

david_reinstein 25 Feb 2026 16:06 UTC
−1 points
1 ∶ 2
on: Exclusive: Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards
Did they just buckle under pressure?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1reexbf/anthropic_ditches_its_core_safety_promise_in_the/

https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/article/anthropic-ditches-its-core-safety-promise-in-the-middle-of-an-ai-red-line-fight-with-the-pentagon/

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/25/tech/anthropic-safety-policy-change

david_reinstein 5 Feb 2026 21:00 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Lorenzo Buonanno🔸’s comment on: Introducing LEEP: Lead Exposure Elimination Project
Thank you, this is the correct link: https://unjournal.pubpub.org/pub/evalsumleadexposure/

I need to check what’s going on with our DOIs !

david_reinstein

Po­ten­tially im­pact­ful re­search: Un­jour­nal AI-as­sisted pri­ori­ti­za­tion dash­board (~pro­to­type)

Search­able ex­plorer of EA Fo­rum & LessWrong posts with ex­plicit cruxes or “change my mind” content

[Question] Any­one vibe-cod­ing a di­rec­tory of “profit for good” com­pa­nies/​EA-al­igned ser­vice providers (scraper/​bot)?

Cost of Cul­tured Meat: work­shop, mod­el­ing, re­sources, feedback

On­line work­shop: What will cul­ti­vated meat cost? (April/​May date tbd, Un­jour­nal Pivotal Ques­tions)

On­line Work­shop: Wel­lbe­ing mea­sures for pri­ori­tiz­ing GH&D in­ter­ven­tions (March 16; Un­jour­nal Pivotal Ques­tions)

The “talker–feeler gap”: AI valence may be unknowable

Potentially impactful research: Unjournal AI-assisted prioritization dashboard (~prototype)

Searchable explorer of EA Forum & LessWrong posts with explicit cruxes or “change my mind” content

[Question] Anyone vibe-coding a directory of “profit for good” companies/EA-aligned service providers (scraper/bot)?

Cost of Cultured Meat: workshop, modeling, resources, feedback

Online workshop: What will cultivated meat cost? (April/May date tbd, Unjournal Pivotal Questions)

Online Workshop: Wellbeing measures for prioritizing GH&D interventions (March 16; Unjournal Pivotal Questions)