Top Posts
Ben West - Debate series: should we push for a pause on the development of AI?
80,000 Hours have released an update to their career guide
Grace Adams - GWWC's new community strategy
Peter Brietbart & Michael Plant - Learning from our mistakes: how Happier Lives Institute plans to improve
Ben Pace - Sharing Information About Nonlinear
Ryan C Briggs - There is little (good) evidence that aid systematically harms political institutions
Catherine Low - Mistakes, flukes, and good calls I made in my multiple careers
Want to make a difference on policy and governance? Become an expert in something specific and boring
Kyle Fish - Net global welfare may be negative and declining
Daniela R. Waldhorn & Elisa Autric - Shrimp: The animals most commonly used and killed for food production
Conferences
20th-22nd October - EAGxPhilippines
27th-29th October - EAG Boston - Applications close 13th October
17-19th November - EAGxVirtual 2023
Virtual Events
6-7th October - AI, Conscious Machines, and Animals: Broadening AI Ethics - Featuring Peter Singer & Jeff Sebo
Oct-Dec - Pilot Biosecurity Book Club - Apply by October 2nd
Oct-Dec - EA and Judaism Intro Fellowship - Apply by October 11th
5th November - Giving What We Can Meetup
Dec-Feb - The Precipice Reading Group - Apply by November 19th
Fellowships & Programs
Future Academy (India edition) - 1st Oct
Non-Trivial Fellowship for people aged 14-20 - 8th Oct
The Tarbell Fellowship for early-career journalists - 15th Oct
Meta
Announcing the Meta Coordination Forum 2023
Natalie Cargill with a TED talk - How to solve the world's biggest problems
80,000 Hours podcast with Toby Ord on the perils of maximising the good that you do
Jeff Kaufman - Commonsense Good, Creative Good
Vaidehi Agarwalla - Monetary and social incentives in longtermist careers
Daystar Eld - My life would be much harder without the Community Health Team. I think yours might too
Giving What We Can have launched their new community space for people who care about doing good effectively
Rockwell - An Incomplete List of Things I Think EAs Probably Shouldn't Do
Tom Barnes - Relationship between EA Community and AI safety
Christopher Chan & Ewelina Hornicka - More than Earth Warriors: The Diverse Roles of Geoscientists in EA
Luke Eure - Winners of the African EA Forum Competition!
Careers
People writing about their jobs
Maggie Lloydhauser - GiveWell Philanthropy Advisor
Phoebe F Freidin - Staff Support Associate
Lizka - Content Specialist
Weaver - Plans Officer
Yanni - Head of Marketing at Spark Wave
Kyle Smith - Academic Researcher
Sofia Balderson - Co-founder of a new charity
Luke Eure - Growth lead at a startup in Kenya
Geoffrey - Research Assistant at World Bank / IMF
Corporate R&D for HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and AC)
Career advice the Probably Good team would give our younger selves
Abby Hoskin - What happens on an 80,000 Hours call?
Steve Thompson & Ula Zarosa - Who Is a Good Fit for a Career in Nonprofit Entrepreneurship?
Ask Me Anything - 80,000 Hours Career Advising Team
Alex Lawsen on avoiding 10 mistakes people make when pursuing a high-impact career
Animal Advocacy Careers - Personal fit is extremely important when assessing animal advocacy career paths
How to Signal Competence in Your Early-Stage Career
Claire B, Azriel Z - We need to speak about mid-careers and high-impact organizations
Organisational Improvements
Cait Lion - Hiring: a couple of lessons
Michael Townsend - Hiring retrospective: Research Communicator for Giving What We Can
Dee Kathuria - My learnings from a year of handling outreach at Effective Thesis
Cait Lion - Hiring: hacks + pitfalls for candidate evaluation
Organisation Updates
Charity Entrepreneurship have released a new book - How to Launch a High-Impact Foundation
William MacAskill and Nick Beckstead have resigned from the boards of Effective Ventures
EA organisation updates - September 2023
Benjamin Hilton summarising updates to the 80,000 Hours career guide
Inga - Pilot Results: High-Impact Psychology/Mental Health
Who should be interviewed for The 80,000 Hours Podcast?
New Projects
EASE is a directory of independent agencies and freelancers offering expertise to EA-aligned organisations
David Moss & Jamie Elsey - Re-announcing Pulse - a large and repeated US-population survey focusing on public attitudes relevant to high impact issues
The Life You Can Save have started a podcast, their first episode is with José Gonzáles
Grants
Open Philanthropy have made 38 grants recently for $46m
$17.7m - Global Development & Climate
$10m - Tara Climate Foundation — Clean Energy Transition in Asia
$4.8m - MiracleFeet — Clubfoot Treatment Program
$900k - CDC Foundation — Malaria Control Research Project
$500k - Peterson Institute for International Economics — Indian Economic Policy Reform
$16m - Potential Risks from Advanced AI
$5.3m - Redwood Research
$4m - Center for AI Safety
$3m - Constellation — Coworking Space
$1.5m - Apollo Research
$1m - Centre for the Governance of AI
$4.3m - Land Use Reform
$3m - California YIMBY
$2.5m - Farm Animal Welfare
$1m - Welfare Matters — Movement Building in Southeast Asia
$1m - Queen Mary University of London — Insect Sentience Research
$200k - Animal Empathy Philippines
$2.5m - Scientific Research
$2m - University of Michigan — Research on Gamete Development
$2.2m - Global Catastrophic Risks
$1.7m - Kurzgesagt — Video Production
Other
$900k - WHO — Responsible Life Sciences Research
Global Development
For more in depth updates I also write the Global Development & EA newsletter.
Saloni Dattani, Rachel Glennerster & Siddhartha Haria - Why we didn’t get a malaria vaccine sooner
WHO - Proper treatment for hypertension could avert 76 million deaths globally by 2050
Vox - Lead poisoning could be killing more people than HIV, malaria, and car accidents combined
Daniel Handel - We’re finally figuring out if foreign aid is any better than handing out cash
Dylan Matthews - The US hired a leading economist (Dean Karlan) to fix how it allocates foreign aid. Here’s his plan
There should be more discussion of land tenure security, e-procurement and agricultural R&D in EA
Gemma Paterson - John Green & Grassroots Activists Pressure Danaher To Drop Price of Tuberculosis Test
Jenny Kudymowa & James Hu - An overview of market shaping in global health
Animal Welfare
For a more regular and comprehensive updates of animal news I recommend the Impactful Animal Advocacy newsletter and slack space.
Only 1% of Americans say they are vegan – down from 3% in 2018 and 2% in 2012 – according to a new Gallup poll
Rethinking the Liberation Pledge (Eva Hamer)
DEFRA has new legislation to clamp down on cruel animal experiences abroad
Max Roser - How many animals get slaughtered every day?
Jeff Kaufman - Weighing Animal Worth
Ren Springlea - Resources: Pursuing a career in animal advocacy
Jeff Sebo - Against human exceptionalism
Meghan Barrett - A Primer for Insect Sentience and Welfare
Aaron Boddy & Andres Jimenez - Two Years of Shrimp Welfare Project: Insights and Impact from our Explore Phase
Global Animal Advocacy
Helene K - Ticking Clock: The Rapid Rise of Farmed Animals in Africa
Matthew Blyth & Ren Springlea - Meat consumption and production in developing countries: who bucks the trend?
Jack S & Jah Ying - Stakeholder-engaged research in emerging markets: How do we unlock growth in Asian animal advocacy?
Difficult to get a job in EA not living in the West? Animal advocacy careers can impact millions of animals anywhere in the world
EU & Animal Welfare
Podcast with Neil Dullaghan on the politics of animal welfare and EU policy
EU considers dropping stricter animal welfare measures
Ania Kozłowska - Anima International’s investigation reveals dreadful conditions at a laying hen farm of the biggest egg producer in the EU
Alternative Proteins
GFI Europe - Alternative protein in the United Kingdom: an ecosystem review
An update from Bryant Research on what they work on
Research to End Consumption of Animal Products (RECAP) is a network of over 300 researchers aiming to share & discuss research which improves the lives of animals
Tälist have launched new features on their website for candidates and employers in the alt protein sector
Biosecurity
Kelsey Piper - The dangers of virus hunting
High Impact Engineers podcast with J. Vivian Belenky discussing Far-UVC technology
Writing about my job: Data Scientist, CDC
Report: Proposals for the prevention and detection of emerging infectious diseases in Guatemala
Rose Hadshar - A case study of regulation done well? Canadian biorisk regulations
What do x-risk persuasion tournament results tell us about biorisk?
Max Görlitz - Map of the biosecurity landscape (list of GCBR-relevant orgs for newcomers)
Dan Greene, Jassi Pannu & Allison Berke - The Danger of ‘Invisible’ Biolabs Across the U.S.
Existential & Catastrophic Risks
SJ Beard with a new book - The Era of Global Risk - An Introduction to Existential Risk Studies
Open Philanthropy is hiring for multiple roles across their Global Catastrophic Risks teams
One in six chance of a ‘species-ending event’ in next century, Australian Labor MP Andrew Leigh warns
Tom Ough writing in Prospect - How to save humanity from extinction
EA Forum AMA with Andy Weber (U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense from 2009-2014)
Riley Harris - Summary: High risk, low reward: A challenge to the astronomical value of existential risk mitigation
Ask Me Anything with Christian Ruhl (senior global catastrophic risk researcher)
Nick Ashton & Chris Stringer - Genetic analyses suggest an ancient human population crash 900,000 years ago
Thomas Moynihan - The fear of a nuclear fire that would consume Earth
Dylan Matthews - On September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov saved the world
Environment
Hannah Ritchie TED talk - Are we the last generation -- or the first sustainable one?
Renewable energy investment hits $358 billion in first half of 2023
Giving Green - Four blueprints to maximizing business climate impact beyond net zero
Rajasthan hits record-low share of fossil fuel generation for four consecutive months in 2023
RMI are forecasting that electric vehicles will make up between 62% and 86% of global car sales by 2030
Dylan Matthews - Is the future of energy...pouring water on hot rocks in the ground?
Rachel DuRose - The terrible paradox of air pollution and climate change
Future Of Life Institute podcast - Johannes Ackva on Managing Climate Change
Longtermism
PsyArXiv Preprint - The Longtermism Beliefs Scale: Measuring Lay Beliefs for Protecting Humanity’s Longterm Future
The Future of Life Institute have a new podcast exploring ways we could build more positive futures
Richard Fisher - I went to see the Time Pyramid. It won't be finished until 3183AD
Calvin Baker - New Princeton course on longtermism
Riley Harris - Paper summary - Protecting future generations: A global survey of legal academics
Long-Term Future Fund Ask Us Anything
Long Now is accepting pitches of essays, reported features, interviews, book reviews, fiction & poetry for 𝘐𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘴, their living archive of long-term thinking
What We Owe the Future is now out in paperback
AI Safety
For more regular updates I recommend the AI Safety Newsletter from the Center for AI Safety.
80,000 Hours podcast with Mustafa Suleyman on getting Washington and Silicon Valley to tame AI
Michael Nielsen - Notes on Existential Risk from Artificial Superintelligence
FLI podcast - Tom Davidson on How Quickly AI Could Automate the Economy
Amazon to invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic
Lizka - The state of AI in different countries — an overview
Holly Elmore - The Case for AI Safety Advocacy to the Public
The 2024 Vitalik Buterin Fellowships in AI Existential Safety are open for applications
Pentagon to launch Center for Calibrated Trust Measurement and Evaluation initiative aiming to help the U.S. military assess the trustworthiness of AI
Announcing an open call for the OpenAI Red Teaming Network
Luisa Rodriguez - What the past can tell us about how AI will affect jobs
Marius Hobbhahn - There should be more AI safety orgs
Anthropic's Responsible Scaling Policy & Long-Term Benefit Trust
AI Governance
Frontier AI Taskforce: first progress report
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal on the Bipartisan Framework for U.S. AI Act - “the first tough, comprehensive legislative blueprint for real, enforceable AI protections”
UK government sets out AI Safety Summit ambitions
AI-Risk in the State of the European Union Address
Center for AI Safety - The Landscape of US AI Legislation
Thomas Larsen - Policy ideas for mitigating AI risk
Miranda Gabbott - The Bumpy Road Toward Global AI Governance
California Bill Proposes Regulating AI at State Level
Connor Axiotes and Eddie Bolland make the case for the UK government to think ahead when it comes to artificial superintelligence
International Governance of Civilian AI: A Jurisdictional Certification Approach
AI Communication
AI Safety Communications Centre is a database featuring experts available to comment on AI safety topics
Chinese Perspectives on AI collates excerpts from the work of influential Chinese scholars about existential risks from AI and other emerging technologies
Andrea Miotti and Connor Axiotes have started a new weekly Substack covering AGI safety news from social media
Oliver Sourbut - Careless talk on US-China AI competition? (and criticism of CAIS coverage)
Zach Stein-Perlman - US public opinion on AI, September 2023
Henrik Skaug Sætra & John Danaher - Resolving the battle of short vs. long-term AI risks
80,000 Hours is venturing into video content - Could AI wipe out humanity?
Andrea Miotti - We Can Prevent AI Disaster Like We Prevented Nuclear Catastrophe
AI in the Media
Guardian - No 10 worried AI could be used to create advanced weapons that escape human control
Vox - Stuart Russell wrote the textbook on AI safety. He explains how to keep it from spiraling out of control
Dylan Matthews - The founders of Anthropic quit OpenAI to make a safe AI company. It’s easier said than done
Progress, Metascience and Institutional Decision Making
Stuart Buck - Journals That Ban Replications - Are They Serious Scholarly Outlets At All?
Matt Clancy - What does peer review know?
Jan Klenha & Dominik H - Forecasting for Policy - Main takeaways, practical learnings & report
Open Philanthropy page on their innovation policy program
Other Causes
CEARCH's Cause Exploration Contest: Awards
Jasna Hodžić - The Carrington Event of 1859 Disrupted Telegraph Lines. A “Miyake Event” Would Be Far Worse
Anthony DiGiovanni - Beginner’s guide to reducing s-risks
A letter from Laure Deming on the Longevity Fund
Hear This Idea podcast - Jon Y on Problems And Progress in Semiconductor Manufacturing
Riley Harris with a summary of the GPI Working Paper "Simulation Expectation" by Teruji Thomas
Benjamin M - Phytomining for Effective Altruism
Ralf Kinkel - Small Scale Local Interventions: A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Passing Sunscreen at Outdoor Events
Jens Aslaug - Theory “[Wild animal welfare] might be of higher impact than x-risk prevention based on utilitarianism”
Stories
Alicia Pollard on participating in the Global Challenges Project workshop
EA for Christians - A conversation with Daniel Abiliba
Omnizoid - The Lives We Can Save
Harry Luk - Inside the Mind of an Aspiring Charity Entrepreneur - From Layoff to Co-founding in a Breathtaking Two Months
Celebrating Progress: Recent Highlights from the NYC EA Community
Giving What We Can London has been relaunched by Gemma Paterson, Denise Melchin and Chris Rouse
From Passion to Depression and Pessimism: My Journey with EA
George Gor on the ILINA Program - “Such a wonderful group of like-minded people, led by the indefatigable Cecil Yongo and the team. Super excited for what’s to come!”
Productivity and Self Help
Eirin Evjen has started a new Substack where she'll write down advice on productivity and management
Simon Newstead - Practice public speaking in a friendly & supportive group
Chi - How have you become more hard-working?
Other Links
Hear This Idea podcast - Liv Boeree on Healthy vs Unhealthy Competition
Rutger Bregman on Hope Is A Verb podcast - Why we're better than we think we are
utilistrutil - A Love Letter to EA
Should people in EA be valuists instead of utilitarians?
Will MacAskill in the Guardian - how can we live ethically in a world in crisis?
Good News
In Taiwan, within a decade of 2009, monthly drunk-driving injuries fell by nearly 40% and monthly alcohol-related traffic deaths dropped by more than 80%
Punjab expanded schooling from 13 million students in 1998 to 26 million students by 2020
There are around 48 million kids eligible for preventive drugs during malaria seasons. In 2013, hardly any got the drugs. In 2023, almost 100% will
Hello David — thank you for compiling this newsletter. It is always encouraging to see updates across several cause areas and topics. Judging by the engagement (at least on Substack), I think this newsletter is highly underrated, and I wish more people knew about this!