2023 November EA Updates
Applications are still open for EAGx Virtual (17th-19th Nov), probably the best opportunity to easily connect with the largest number of people from all over the world who have similar interests and goals within EA.
Top Posts
President Biden Issues Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy AI
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Speech on AI - including establishing an AI Safety institute
Analysis of RTS,S (malaria vaccine) in Africa shows it decreased toddler deaths by 13%
Open Philanthropy - Our planned allocation to GiveWell’s recommendations for the next few years
$100m/year, back down to 2020 level
Response from GiveWell
Alex Tabarrok - What is an Emergency? The Case for Rapid Malaria Vaccination
Gemma Paterson - Why I'm still going out to bat for the EA movement post FTX
How has FTX’s collapse impacted EA? (with extra info in the comments)
Giving Season 2023 is coming up and the EA Forum is hosting a few events to coincide with this, including a donation election and three themed discussion weeks (effective giving spotlight, marginal funding week and estimating cost-effectiveness)
Bob Fischer - Causes and Uncertainty: Rethinking Value in Expectation
Vilhelm Skoglund & Jona - Observations on the funding landscape of EA and AI safety
Conferences
17-19th November - EAGxVirtual 2023
2nd-4th February - EAG: Bay Area (Global Catastrophic Risks) - Applications open
31st May - 2nd June - EAG: London 2024 - Applications open
Meta
Lizka - What do staff at CEA believe?
Angelina Li - Estimating EA Growth Rates
Sjir Hoeijmakers - Five interventions to strengthen a principles-based EA
Laura Duffy - How Can Risk Aversion Affect Your Cause Prioritization?
Ending extreme poverty through cash transfers should be a central EA cause
Callum - Impact Evaluation in EA
Bob Fischer - If Contractualism, Then AMF
Laura Duffy - Is x-risk the most cost-effective if we count only the next few generations?
EA Japan have renovated their website
Nick Laing - Should 80,000 hours have more near-termist career content?
A Model Estimating the Value of Research Influencing Funders
Taanya Kapur - Demanding Diversity: The issue so far and the way forward
Effective Giving
Sjir Hoeijmakers - The role of effective giving in EA
Grace Adams - The future of effective altruism relies on effective giving
doebem: Charity Evaluation and Effective Giving in Brazil
Chris Anderson, Cari Tuna, Liv Boeree, Taryn Jensen, and Natalie Cargill discuss strategies for ambitious giving and advice for new philanthropists
Rebecca Herbst - Financial guidance for US-based donors
Careers
Mathias KB - Two cheap ways to test your fit for policy work
James N - Impactful Government Careers - Why, What, Where
80,000 Hours - We’ve made mistakes in our careers—here’s what we learned
Sarah Pomeranz, Jona & Sanjana Kashyap - The Impact Case for Taking a Break from Your Non-EA Job
Hi-med Career Fellowship - Apply by November 5th
Bal - I discharged against medical advice. (3 reasons I’m taking a break from clinical medicine) - Working at LEEP
80,000 Hours Career Profile - Founder of new projects tackling top problems
Jessica Wen & Hugh Irving - How Engineers can Contribute to Reducing the Risks from Nuclear War
Podcast with Jason Dykstra - How To Have Maximum Impact In Medicine or Any Profession
Tyrone-Jay Barugh - Want to work in the US? Consider applying to the 'Green Card' lottery by 7 November 2023. It's free and really easy to do
Akash with a summary of Michelle Hutchinson's insights on career planning
Lauren Kuhns - Building career capital: some new advice on three paths
US policy master’s degrees
Should you work at a leading AI lab?
How many lives does a doctor save?
Organisation Updates
What Has the CEA Uni Groups Team Been Up To? – Our Summer 2023 Review
Announcing Rob Gledhill as the new CEO of EV UK
Giving What We Can have updated their website
Introducing Future Matters – a strategy consultancy
Sandra Malagon, Miguel Alvarado & Hugo Ikta - Reflecting on the EA Mexico Residency Fellowship
JueYan - Cash and FX management for EA organisations
How Rethink Priorities’ Research could inform your grantmaking
EA Organisation Updates: October 2023
New Projects
Christians for Impact has been launched (and a podcast)
Presenting: 2023 Incubated Charities (Round 2) - Charity Entrepreneurship
Launching the new EA Groups Resource Centre
Successif: Join our AI Program to Help Mitigate the Catastrophic Risks of AI
Why 1Day Sooner Needs people to Sign Up for Hep C Challenge Studies (Canada, UK & US)
Armenian cause area prioritisation through an EA perspective
Grants
Open Philanthropy have made 1 grant recently
$5.4m - Interactive Research & Development Global — Organisational Support
EA Infrastructure Fund: June 2023 grant recommendations
Global Development
For more in depth updates I also write the Global Development & EA newsletter.
Josh C Morrison - Help Needed in Push for a Rapid Malaria Vaccine Rollout
GiveWell - How we work, #1: Cost-effectiveness is generally the most important factor in our recommendations
Dylan Matthews - I’m getting malaria to help eradicate it (and you can too) (if you’re in the US or UK)
Johannes Haushofer - Malengo Expands Work on International Educational Migration: Our Update
80,000 Hours - Paul Niehaus on whether cash transfers cause economic growth and keeping theft to acceptable levels
A Call to Action to End Childhood Lead Poisoning Worldwide: A Neglected, Top-Tier Development Challenge
David McK, Sofya Lebedeva & Aanika Dalal - Introducing ARMoR - A CE Incubated Charity Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance
Saloni Dattani - Why isn’t it possible to sum up the death toll from different risk factors?
Sigal Samuel - A surprisingly radical proposal: Make people happier — not just wealthier and healthier
GiveWell - A response to a Change Our Mind Contest entry on iron fortification programs in India
There is a new antimicrobial resistance funding circle - $50,000 per year minimum expected contribution
Dylan Matthews speaking to Masood Ahmed - The World Bank can bring the world’s poor into the clean energy revolution
Animal Welfare
For a more regular and comprehensive updates of animal news I recommend the Impactful Animal Advocacy newsletter and slack space.
UK meat consumption at lowest level since records began
Although there are discrepancies between two long-term dietary datasets
Lewis Bollard - Europe’s animal welfare reforms are under threat
Elizabeth - EA Vegan Advocacy is not truth seeking, and it’s everyone’s problem
Ren Springlea - Party Politics for Animal Advocacy: Animal-focused minor political parties
Animal Advocacy Careers has a series of profiles on different advocacy careers
Lithuania bans fur farming
HILTLS podcast
Neil Dullaghan on the importance of influencing EU policy
Aurelia Adhiambo on the animal advocacy landscape in Africa
Ines Kostic on using politics to help animals
Max Taylor - What AI could mean for animals
Potentially actionable opportunity: eliminating the New World screwworm
Healthier Hens Y2 update including impact estimates and possible next steps
Slaughter of farmed seabass and seabream in Europe: Literature review
Kate Lupango on Animal Empathy Philippines
Animal advocate profile: Haven - Executive Director at Fish Welfare Initiative
Bob Fischer & Hayley Clatterbuck - The Risks and Rewards of Prioritising Animals of Uncertain Sentience
Angelina Li - Shrimp paste might cause more animal deaths than any other food product
Alternative Proteins
Seren Kell on the 80,000 Hours Podcast - The research gaps holding back alternative proteins from mass adoption
South Korea Unveils Ambitious Plan to Cultivate Thriving Plant-Based Food Industry
Major German retailer Lidl commits to almost double the proportion of plant-based protein to 20% of its total protein sales
Bryant Research - Chewing It Over: Public Attitudes to Alternative Proteins & Meat Reduction
Hannah Ritchie - Meat substitutes need to get a lot cheaper
McKinsey - The next wave: Alternative-seafood solutions
Biosecurity
United Nations - Adopting Landmark Declaration, General Assembly Calls for Strengthening High-level International Coordination to Improve Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, Response
Cassidy Nelson and Sophie Rose - Report launch: examining risks at the intersection of AI and bio
Shayna Korol - Identifying Outbreak Origins: How the Joint Assessment Mechanism Can Improve Pandemic Response
Existential Hope Podcast - Emilia Javorsky - The future of ai, bioengineering and human empathy
80,000 Hours podcast - Kevin Esvelt on cults that want to kill everyone, stealth vs wildfire pandemics and how he felt inventing gene drives
Jeff Kaufman - My Mid-Career Transition into Biosecurity
Daniel Greene - Laboratory Biorisk Management Needs More Social Scientists
David Thorstad - Exaggerating the risks (Part 11: Biorisk: Still more grounds for doubt)
CSER - Meet the Researcher: Alexandra Klein
Nuclear Risks
Podcast with Brian Green: Why Christians Must Prevent Nuclear War
NTI - Global Effects of Nuclear Conflict: Implications for Nuclear Policymaking, Then and Now
Vasco Grilo - Famine deaths due to the climatic effects of nuclear war
Riesgos Catastróficos Globales were invited to contribute to the national emergency plan of Argentina, which will subsequently be the first country in the world with a national emergency plan for nuclear winter
Global Nuclear Warhead Stockpiles Growing Again
Global Catastrophic Risks
Open Philanthropy is hiring for multiple roles across our Global Catastrophic Risks teams
Ask me anything with six Open Philanthropy staffers
Stan Pinsent - Population After a Catastrophe
Arvomm - How bad would human extinction be?
Input sought on next steps for the Existential Risk Persuasion Tournament
Psychology paper - How important is the end of humanity? Lay people prioritise extinction prevention but not above all other societal issues
David Rhys Bernard - Charting the precipice: The time of perils and prioritizing x-risk
Winston - The option value argument doesn't work when it's most needed
FLI has launched The Future of Life Foundation, aiming to help start 3 to 5 new organisations per year
The first Global Catastrophic Risks Event in Brazil
Environment
Stephen Clare - As countries develop, deforestation drops
World’s electricity supply close to ‘peak emissions’ due to growth of wind and solar
Michael Bloomberg adds $500 million into bid to close all US coal plants
Longtermism
The Long-Term Future Fund are looking for a full-time fund chair
The Latecomer is a new platform for original writing on the long-term future
John G. Halstead & Philip Thomson - Violence Before Agriculture
Hayden Wilkinson - How to neglect the long term
80,000 Hours - Ian Morris on whether deep history says we’re heading for an intelligence explosion
Jack Malde - A response to Michael Plant’s review of What We Owe The Future
Thomas Hale with a new book - Long Problems: Climate Change and the Challenge of Governing across Time
Richard Ngo has started a repository of fiction that he has written about how the future might go
Jonathan Ratcliffe - Uncommon Tasks: Russian Cosmism and Longtermism
AI Safety - New Organisations
For more regular updates I recommend the AI Safety Newsletter from the Center for AI Safety.
US Vice President Harris Announces New U.S. Initiatives to Advance the Safe and Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence
Includes The United States AI Safety Institute
The U.S National Security Agency is starting an artificial intelligence security center
The United Nations High-level Advisory Body on AI has been set up
Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and Microsoft have announced the new Executive Director of the Frontier Model Forum and a new $10 million AI Safety Fund
The Institute for AI Policy & Strategy has been launched by Rethink Priorities, aiming to reduce risks related to the development & deployment of frontier AI systems
Frontier AI Taskforce: second progress report
AI Safety
Ajeya
New roles on my team: come build Open Phil's technical AI safety program with me!
Matthew Barnett - Reasons why I’m more optimistic than many EAs on the risk of human extinction from AI
Jeffrey Heninger - Muddling Along Is More Likely Than Dystopia
Joe Carlsmith - Superforecasting the premises in “Is power-seeking AI an existential risk?”
AI safety field-building survey: Talent needs, infrastructure needs, and relationship to EA
Brian Tan is starting a non-profit called WhiteBox Research to help develop more AI safety researchers in Southeast Asia
Dušan D. Nešić - AI Safety Hub Serbia Official Opening
AI Governance
Key figures in AI have released a paper recommending specific government & company actions on AI development to minimise risk, including Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton and Stuart Russell
Rapid review finds leading AI companies are not meeting UK Government best practice for frontier AI safety
80,000 Hours podcast - Tantum Collins on what he’s learned as an AI policy insider
Anthropic - Collective Constitutional AI: Aligning a Language Model with Public Input
Helen Toner, Jessica Ji, John Bansemer & Lucy Lim - Anticipating and Managing Risks from Frontier AI Systems
GovAI - An Evaluation of Risks, Benefits, and Alternative Methods for Pursuing Open-Source Objectives
Cillian - Resources & opportunities for careers in European AI Policy
Yoshua Bengio and Daniel Privitera - How We Can Have AI Progress Without Sacrificing Safety or Democracy
Charlie H - Efficacy of AI Activism: Have We Ever Said No?
AI Pause & Responsible Scaling Policies
Scott Alexander - Pause For Thought: The AI Pause Debate
Paul Christiano - Thoughts on responsible scaling policies and regulation
Holden Karnofsky - We're Not Ready: thoughts on "pausing" and responsible scaling policies
Stephen Clare - Pausing AI might be good policy, but it's bad politics
The International PauseAI Protest: Activism under uncertainty
Evan Hubinger - Responsible Scaling Policys are pauses done right
AI & China
Prominent AI Scientists from China and the West Propose Joint Strategy to Mitigate Risks from AI
Concordia - State of AI Safety in China
China announced its own Global AI Governance Initiative at the 3rd BRI Forum today, 2 weeks before the UK's AI Safety Summit
Henry A. Kissinger and Graham Allison - America and China Must Work Together to Avert Catastrophe
AI chip smuggling into china: potential paths, quantities, and countermeasures
Jordan Schneider - Beijing’s Vision of Global AI Governance
AI Communication
State of AI Report 2023
Holly Elmore and Rob Miles dialogue on AI Safety Advocacy
Announcing the Winners of the 2023 Open Philanthropy AI Worldviews Contest
Politico article on Open Phil, Horizon Fellowship, and EA
Clearer Thinking podcast with Dylan Matthews - Journalism in the age of AI
Peter Singer & Tse Yip Fai - Self-Driving Cars and AI Ethics
Progress, Metascience and Institutional Decision Making
Adam Mastroianni - The rise and fall of peer review
Metaculus Announces Forecasting Tournament to Evaluate Focused Research Organizations, in Partnership With the Federation of American Scientists
Progress Studies Journal has been launched
The U.S. National Science Foundation partners with the Institute for Progress to test new mechanisms for funding research and innovation
Ben Southwood - Whatever happened to the industrial R&D lab?
Alex Tabarrok - Speeding Up Pharmaceutical Approvals by Recognising Other Stringent Regulators
Casey Handmer - Radical Energy Abundance
Other Causes
“Diamondoid bacteria" nanobots: deadly threat or dead-end? A nanotech investigation
80,000 Hours podcast with Anders Sandberg on war in space, whether civilisations age and the best things possible in our universe
The Center on Long-Term Risk - Intro fellowship on risks of astronomical suffering - Jan to Feb 2024, apply by December 7th
Sam Atis - Can we cure Alcoholism?
Our World in Data with an update on global education
Stan Pinsent - Intermediate Report on Abrupt Sunlight Reduction Scenarios
Joel Tan - Deep Report on Diabetes
Kelsey Piper - Israel, Gaza and what it means to broaden our moral circle in a time of horror
Clearer Thinking podcast - Richard Bruns - Is bad air quality slowly harming us?
Joel McGuire - High impact charities in Gaza or Israel?
Žiga Avsec & Jun Cheng - A catalogue of genetic mutations to help pinpoint the cause of diseases
Center on Long-Term Risk - Beginner’s guide to reducing s-risks
Stories & EA Around the World
Existential Risk Alliance Fellowship Alumni Stories
Reigning U.S doubles tennis champion Gaby Dabrowski on effective giving
The Life You Can Save podcast with Neela Saldana - How do we strike a balance between our obligations to others and living a pleasurable life?
My Left Kidney - Scott Alexander on his donation
EAGx Philippines with 200 attendees
EA Serbia with their new introductory EA course cohort
Celebrating One Year with Universidad Politécnica de Yucatán EA
Effectief Altruïsme Nederland eating vegan hot dogs for world animal day
Other Links
Kirsten - How EA is portrayed in "Going Infinite"
EA in an Armenian context
Serving Kindness - For every set won at the WTA Finals, HIA champions donate
Zvi - Book Review: Going Infinite
Clearer Thinking - Retrocaster - make predictions about the past
Michael St Jules - Arguments for utilitarianism are impossibility arguments under unbounded prospects
Chi - List of how people have become more hard-working
Astral Codex Ten - Impact Market Mini-Grants Results
James Faville - The hidden complexity of “moral circles”
Natalie Cargill with a thread on how the ozone layer was fixed
Magnus Vinding - Controlling for a thinker’s big idea
Elijah Persson-Gordon - Summary of Ethics into Action, a biography of Henry Spira
JWS - Thoughts on Kenan Malik's recent EA Article
Chuck Feeney (1931–2023) - Philanthropist biography
Stefan Schubert - Egocentric epistemics: underdeference and underengagement