2022 May Effective Altruism Updates
Top Links
George Rosenfeld wrote the post 'Free-spending EA might be a big problem for optics and epistemics', which has already become the most upvoted post on the EA Forum of all time, with over 300 people voting and over 180 comments
Luisa Rodriguez with her experience with imposter syndrome and potential ways to overcome it
Scott Alexander looking at the branding of 'Long-Termism' vs. 'Existential Risk'
Eric Neyman discussing trade offs between having more impact and having a more enjoyable life
GiveWell with a major update in their assessment of water quality interventions
Meta
Richard Ngo with three intuitions on how to think about the EA community: responsibility, scale and self-improvement
Joshua Teperowski Monrad with four categories of effective altruism critiques
Mathias KB with data visualisations of which cause areas have been posted on the EA forum over time
James Ozden with a post suggesting that 'Protest Movements Could Be More Effective Than the Best Charities'
The Altruistic Agency (a new EA tech consultancy) has a post on how to set up a website
Magnus Vinding writing against the "smarts fetish" in EA
There is a forum digest that sends out weekly emails with a curated selection of recent EA Forum posts
Nathan Young with a post exploring money in EA
Tom Gardiner on switching his donations from longtermism to neartermism opportunities
SoGive have announced the pilot launch of their grants program which will allow individuals and organisations working on high-impact projects to apply for funding - deadline for applications is 22nd May
Jack Lewars asking for CEA/FTX to provide calculations for their recent grants and community building spending, with responses from CEA in the comments
80,000 Hours podcast with Sam Bankman-Fried on taking a high-risk approach to crypto and doing good
A post asking for examples of EA related high risk, high reward projects that have failed
Arepo is trying to build a community for online EA coworking
Ben West with an overview of his TikTok Doing Good Better giveaway results
Tee Barnet with 'Underinvestment at the top: what I discovered coaching a dozen EA leaders'
A post suggesting potential risks to there being more money available for some EA projects
Jan Kulveit and Gavin Leech on different types of capital in EA
A post with the case for emergency response teams to respond to EA relevant crises
Hannah Rowberry has set up a UK university admissions support programme to support young people focused on having a positive impact
Alexandre Zajic arguing that EA needs money more than ever
The EA Forum is looking for help with wiki editing, giving feedback, moderation and more
David Reinstein asking 'Can we agree on a better name than 'near-termist''
Mathias KB with a post on issues with centralised grantmaking
Community Building
CEA is discontinuing its focus university programming, passing funding to Open Philanthropy
Leilani Bellamy is launching Canopy Retreats, an organisation to help people run EA related retreats
Vilhelm Skoglund on making community building a more attractive career path
Careers
Joey Savoie with a post looking at EA related career paths that have a high capacity for involving more people
A post introducing the EA Tech Network
Toby Jolly has set up Impactful Government Careers to help civil servants have more impact in their careers
Holly Morgan has founded Pineapple Operations, a service focused on matching people with personal assistant roles that support longtermism related work
Wesley Garner writing about federal government consulting as a potential career path
Training for Good have created the EA Training Board, which lists upcoming fellowships, training programmes and other opportunities to build skills
Sebastian Becker with the post 'There are currently more than 100 open EA-aligned tech jobs'
Peter Wallich writing about 'Snowball Fund - A Low-Cost, Low-Risk, and High-Upside Experiment'
Ben Snodin with 'Mid-career people: strongly consider switching to EA work'
Darius M on working in US policy as a foreign national
David Reinstein with a post for people considering an economics PhD or master's
Pablo writing up a tough career decision he has had to make recently between AI safety or a more traditional big tech/startup role
Holly Morgan and Eirin Evjen on personal assistant careers
Joel McGuire with 'The Bearable Brightness of Wellbeing: The life of an HLI researcher'
A post suggesting that you should apply sooner rather than spend too much time weighing up the pros/cons of a job if the initial application process isn't too long
Grants
Open Phil have made 27 grants recently with a total value of $57,000,000
$25,300,000 - Global Health & Development
$15,900,000 - Malaria Consortium
$5,000,000 - PATH - Malaria Vaccine Implementation
$3,600,000 - GiveWell
$800,000 - Center for Global Development - Oral COVID Antivirals
$15,000,000 - Potential Risks from Advanced AI
13,300,000 - MIT - AI Trends and Impacts Research
1,400,000 - Hofvarpnir Studios - Compute Cluster for AI Safety Research
$5,300,000 - Other Areas
$5,000,000 - Atlas Fellowship - Scholarships and Summer Program for Students
$300,000 - Probably Good
$4,800,000 - Farm Animal Welfare
$3,400,000 - Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness
$1,250,000 - Macroeconomic Stabilization Policy
$1,100,000 - Scientific Research
$470,000 - Science Policy and Infrastructure
$420,000 - Land Use Reform
GiveWell have published reports on several grants they have recommended recently, with a total value of $167,930,000
$65,000,000 - Dispensers for Safe Water
$46,700,000 - Helen Keller International - Vitamin A Supplementation
$20,200,000 - SCI Foundation
$14,000,000 - Evidence Action Accelerator
$9,400,000 - New Incentives
$7,900,000 - Sightsavers
$4,800,000 - Evidence Action's Deworm the World Initiative
Global Development
Mathias KB with 'Snakebites kill 100,000 people every year, here's what you should know'
Founders Pledge with a charity report on the Innovation in Government Initiative
An article arguing that the World Bank and the IMF are prioritising climate change over poverty reduction
Neil Buddy Shah, managing director at GiveWell, joins Clinton Health Access Initiative as CEO
A novel class of insecticide treated bed net significantly reduces malaria infection in children
The Centre for Global Development with a new series of articles on what works and scales in global education
A look at how the ban on agrochemicals in Sri Lanka led to surging prices and an increase in the number of people below the poverty line
The UN wants to spearhead early warning systems for natural disasters worldwide within five years
Hannah Ritchie with a post on why 'Increasing agricultural productivity across Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most important problems this century'
Patrick Gruban with a proposal for forecasting Givewell charity impact metrics
An intro to global development and EA
Animal Welfare
The Dutch government has announced €60 million of funding for cultivated meat and precision fermentation
Animal Advocacy Careers with their 2022 plans and review of 2021
Holly Elmore with crucial considerations in the field of wild animal welfare
China held their first cellular agriculture forum with 30 organisations present
An article looking at whether insects, octopus and other invertebrates feel emotions
Vasco Grillo suggesting that the direct effects of marine plastic pollution on wild animals seem small
Ren Springlea on minor political parties as an advocacy strategy
Existential & Catastrophic Risks
Rumtin has released an existential risk research database
Vox has a new series of articles on upgrades we can make to prepare for the next pandemic, including worries about human-made pandemics
The Hybrid Persuasion-Forecasting Tournament has been launched with a focus on potential threats to humanity in the next century
Haydn Belfield with 13 ideas for new existential risk movies & TV shows
Matthijs Maas with an overview of what the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk has been up to over the past two years
Linch and Ajay are looking for help with their civilisational refuges project
Michael Aird and Will Aldred with nuclear risk research ideas
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations is spearheading an effort that would facilitate the development of a vaccine against an emerging disease in 100 days
Improving Institutions
The Good Science Project has launched aiming to improve the funding and practice of science
Matt Clifford interviewing Stuart Buck, the executive director of the Good Science Project
José Luis Ricón with the post 'Applied positive meta-science'
Holden Karnofsky on ideal governance for companies, countries and more
Anton Howes with 'Why innovation prizes fail'
New Science's report on the National Institutes of Health
A meta summary of innovations in peer review in scholarly publishing
Ben Southwood with 'Scientific slowdown is not inevitable'
On the 20th June, there is an event looking at the priorities for the next 5 years of the Research on Research Institute
Stuart Ritchie on getting rid of the scientific paper
Environment
Frontier has been launched, it is an advance market commitment to buy an initial $925M of permanent carbon removal between 2022 and 2030
Kurzgesagt with a new video on fixing climate change
John G. Halstead reviewing 'Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency' by Mark Lynas
An article suggesting that treating climate change as a security issue was a mistake
Daniel Stein and Na’im Merchant looking at carbon dioxide removal and the increasing interest in this area
A post looking at industrial policy for climate change
A post arguing that limiting fossil fuel investment will entrench poverty
Longtermism
A list with funding opportunities for long-term-oriented people and projects
Owen Cotton-Barratt asking 'What do we want the world to look like in 10 years?'
Founders Pledge with research into longtermist institutional reform
Jacob Eliosoff with the post 'How much current animal suffering does longtermism let us ignore?'
Owen Cotton-Barratt on why 'Longtermist EA needs more Phase 2 work'
An update from the Simon Institute for Longterm Governance on their last twelve months and plans for the next two years
Artificial Intelligence
Ada-Maaria Hyvärinen with 'How I failed to form views on AI safety'
A podcast with Richard Ngo on the first principles of AGI safety
Tyler Cowen has announced a new tranche of the Emergent Ventures fund to identify and foster artificial intelligence researchers and talent in emerging economies
Matthew Yglesias with 'The case for Terminator analogies'
Nature on 'What's next for AlphaFold and the AI protein-folding revolution'
An article looking into how AI is being used to learn about strategy from Russia’s war in Ukraine
An AI safety arguments competition with $20k in prizes, deadline is May 27th
EA UC Berkeley are launching an ongoing series of contests called the Artificial Intelligence Misalignment Solutions, it’s open to students and the deadline is May 20th
Jacob Hilton and Leo Gao with a post for OpenAI on 'Measuring Goodhart’s Law'
Conjecture, a new AI alignment organisation, has been founded in London by Connor Leahy, Sid Black and Gabriel Alfou
Peter Barnett on how to become an AI safety researcher
Other Causes
Lauren Gilbert with a shallow investigation into civil conflict reduction
NASA's plan for the next ten years of planetary science
Tristan Cook with the report - 'Replicating and extending the grabby aliens model'
Sanjay Joshi with a post looking at the potential impact of universal ownership in the financial sector
Robert Long looking at key questions about artificial sentience
Kelsey Piper on reducing lying
Owen Cotton-Barratt with 'Against immortality?'
Tom Ough with an article in the Telegraph on the risks from broadcasting Earth’s location into space
There is a Sci-Fi economics lab, looking at what the future of economics could be
EA Global
Benjamin Yeoh writing up his experience of EAG London
Olivia Addy on her experience at EAGx Oxford
James Lucassen with ‘What I Got From EAGx Boston’
Akash with 'Three Reflections from 101 EA Global Conversations'
Alastair Fraser-Urquhart on burning out at EA Global
Photos from recent EA Conferences - EAG London and EAGx Oxford
Self Improvement
Clearer Thinking with a new program for surpassing self-limiting beliefs
Ben Kuhn on how to ask people for things
Holden Karnofsky on how to work on hard problems
Luke on features that make a report especially helpful (from the perspective of an open philanthropy grant maker)
Teis Rasmussen & Florence Hinder with 14 techniques to accelerate learning
Other Links
The Forecasting Wiki has been launched, attempting to be the go-to place for all information related to forecasting
Awais Hussain from Wave with a case study in early-stage startup execution
Giving What We Can have a dashboard showing which countries their current members are from
Tyler Cowen reviews Larry Temkin's 'Being Good in a World of Need', suggesting that people in EA should look into his work more
Sam Bankman-Fried interviewing Peter Singer, discussing animal rights, climate change, effective giving and Bitcoin's energy use
A post arguing that people interested in working in US politics should consider being Republican
Lukas Gloor with a series on moral anti-realism
Joey Savoie with 'Altruism as a central purpose'
80,000 Hours podcast with Bryan Caplan
A podcast with Peter Wildeford on forecasting, Rethink Priorities and funding scalable EA projects
A collection of links for when people find EA hard
Kat and Emerson with EA Houses, helping people to couchsurf with others interested in EA
Eric Herboso and Gruffydd Gozali with a write up on an EA collaborative art project
There was a wide selection of EA April Fools' Day posts on the forum
EA in the Media
An article in the Atlantic looking at how individuals can help Ukraine, with an effective altruism viewpoint
An interview with Henry Howard on giving away half his salary to potentially impactful charities
An interview with David Goldberg, CEO of Founders Pledge
Tim Dowling speaks with Neil Buddy Shah
Martin Skadal interviewed by Giving What We Can on why he has taken the pledge
A podcast with Jason Watters, CFO of GiveDirectly
Simon and Ben in the Guardian, talking about how meeting at an EA event led to a relationship
Bloomberg with a profile on Sam Bankman-Fried
The Washington Post covering EA related election spending in an Oregon congressional election
Upcoming Global Events
13-15th May - EAGxPrague - Apply by 30th April
29-31st July - EA Global: San Francisco
23-25th September - EA Global: Washington, D.C.
Upcoming Virtual Events
1st May - Superforecasting Reading Group - Organised by EA Anywhere
5th May - Incompleteness, Artificial Intelligence, and the Problem with Proxies
7th May - Intro Course to EA for Christians - Sign up by April 30th
8th May - Giving What We Can May Meetup
8th May - Behaviour Change Workshop - Organised by Effective Self-Help
18th May - The Good Food Future: How's it growing?
19th May - Giving What We Can Open Forum
Fellowships
Open Philanthropy are running The Century Fellowship - 'a 2-year program that supports people early in their careers who want to work on challenges the world may face this century that could have a lasting and significant impact on the long-term future'
Open Philanthropy are also running a University Organiser Fellowship - 'for individuals who want to direct or support university student groups focused on topics relevant to improving the long-term future'
The Endless Frontier Fellowship is a one-year experience in DC for people interested in policy entrepreneurship, deadline is May 2nd
The Stanford Existential Risks Initiative opened applications for the second iteration of the ML Alignment Theory Scholars Program, deadline May 15th
Good News
11 countries in East and Horn of Africa have signed agreements committing to realise the benefits of migration for sustainable development and economic growth, while enhancing protection for millions of migrant workers, with nearly 8 million migrant workers in these countries
Extreme poverty in India declined by 12.3% from 2011 to 2019