Top Posts
Chris Anderson, Head of TED, has a new book called Infectious Generosity, with a chapter encouraging readers to take the Giving What We Can Pledge
Rosie Bettle & Christian R - Are Far-UVC Interventions Overhyped?
CEA is spinning out of Effective Ventures
Sleeper Agents: Training Deceptive LLMs that Persist Through Safety Training
There is a new forum for animal advocates, it looks like a good place for longer lasting conversations and posts that can be referenced in the future
I wrote a post with donation suggestions from experts focused on economic growth
CGD - The US government wants to make the world lead-free: why that’s a big deal, and how we can make it happen
Hannah Ritchie has released her book Not the End of the World
Virtual Events
6th February - Mission Motor Office Hours: Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
15th February - Animal Advocacy Digital Platform Coordination
12th March - Ask GFI: Alt Protein Careers
4th March - 28th April, virtual courses from 6-8 weeks - Apply by 11th Feb
Conferences
2nd-4th February - EAG: Bay Area (Global Catastrophic Risks)
16-18th February - EAGx LATAM - Mexico City
13-14th April - EAGxAustin - Texas
18th-19th May - EA for Christians Conference in D.C.
31st May - 2nd June - EAG: London
Later in 2024 - EAGxNordics - refer a speaker using this form
Meta
Lizka - 2023: highlights from the year, from the EA Newsletter
Jeff Kaufman - When Does Altruism Strengthen Altruism?
Ben West - Cause-Generality Is Hard If Some Causes Have Higher ROI
EA Infrastructure Fund Ask Us Anything
Joey - A short comparison of starting an effective giving organization vs. founding a direct delivery charity
Robert Harling - A 'risky' career “failing” to have an impact doesn’t mean your career has “failed” in the conventional sense, and probably isn’t as bad it intuitively feels
The case for developing specialised expertise with Lewis Bollard
Effective Giving
Neil Warren - Double the donation: EA inadequacy found?
Introducing GiveHealth: a giving Pledge for healthcare workers
Astral Codex Ten - Does Capitalism Beat Charity?
Organisation Updates
80,000 Hours - 2023 in review: some of our top pieces from last year
Celebrating 2023: 10 successes from the past year at CEEALAR
High Impact Professionals - Impact Accelerator Program
Probably Good launched a newsletter with impact-centered career advice
Impactful Government Careers have an updated website
Announcing Arcadia Impact
EV investigation into Owen and Community Health
EA UK with an updated website
Freelancing for Good has been launched by Alistair and Maja
Grants
Open Philanthropy have made 17 grants recently for $87m
Global Health & Development - $72m
Gates Philanthropy Partners
$40m - Tuberculosis Vaccine Candidate
$25m - Oral Cholera Vaccine Production
$5m - Global Education Regranting
$2m - Centre for Air Pollution Studies Initiative
$140k - Civita - Aid Policy Program
Farm Animal Welfare - $12.8m
$8.3m - The Humane League
$4m - Global Food Partners - Cage-free Implementation in Asia
Global Catastrophic Risks - $2m
$570k - Training for Good
$430k - SERI MATS
$340k - SecureBio - Pathogen Early Warning Project
$330k - Council on Strategic Risks - Biosecurity Fellowship
$290k - AI Safety Communications Centre
Global Development
For more in depth updates I also write the Global Development & EA newsletter.
Justin Sandefur - PEPFAR and the Costs of Cost-Benefit Analysis
Sanjay - Malaria vaccines: how confident are we?
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed to spending $8.6 billion this year
World’s first routine malaria vaccinations start in Cameroon
Copenhagen Consensus Center's best investment papers for the sustainable development goals
Data on how India has changed over the last 10 years
Saloni Dattani - How political gridlock could kill the best global health program the US ever passed (PEPFAR)
Stan Pinsent - Mental illness is growing as a proportion of the global disease burden
R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine maintained it’s efficacy over 4 seasons
AMA: Founder and CEO of AMF, Rob Mather
GiveWell from A to Z
Animal Welfare
For more comprehensive animal news I recommend Impactful Animal Advocacy.
Multus unveils world’s first commercial-scale serum-free growth media facility
Talist are running a ‘Masterclass for Careers in the Alternative Protein Industry’
Rakefet Cohen Ben-Arye - Giving Farm Animals a Name and a Face: The Power of The Identifiable Victim Effect
South Korea passes bill banning production and sale of dog meat
Open Phil farm animal welfare team - Social science research we'd like to see
AVA Summit is in DC on the 16-19th of May
Jeff Thomas with a book - The Farm Animal Movement: EA, Venture Philanthropy, and the Fight to End Factory Farming in America
Biosecurity
GCBR Organisation Updates - my recommendation for updates on biosecurity
Defending against hypothetical moon life during Apollo 11
RAND report finds no effect of current LLMs on viability of bioterrorism attacks
UK and U.S. announce new strategic partnership to tackle increased biological threats
Dylan Matthews - Ultraviolet light can kill almost all the viruses in a room. Why isn’t it everywhere?
Matt Clancy - Report on the Desirability of Science Given New Biotech Risks
Global Catastrophic Risks
Latin America and Global Catastrophic Risks, transforming risk management
Biggest solar flare in years temporarily disrupts radio signals on Earth
Michael Nielsen - Notes on Differential Technological Development
Environment
IEA - Clean sources of generation are set to cover all of the world’s additional electricity demand over the next three years
How much does having a baby contribute to climate change?
Iceland aims to transform renewable energy by tapping into a volcano's magma chamber
Hannah Ritchie - Why we need to highlight stories of progress to build a better future
AI Safety
For more regular updates I recommend the AI Safety Newsletter.
Holden Karnofsky - Good job opportunities for helping with the most important century
TIME - When Might AI Outsmart Us? It Depends Who You Ask
Introducing Alignment Stress-Testing at Anthropic
MIRI 2024 Mission and Strategy Update
80,000 Hours Podcast with Nathan Labenz on recent AI breakthroughs and navigating the growing rift between AI safety and accelerationist camps
AI Safety Fundamentals - Apply by 7th February
Kelsey Piper - The very confusing landscape of advanced AI risk, briefly explained
Concordia AI: 2023 Annual Review - AI Safety in China
Eric Topol - The TED A.I. Conference - The Big Debate: Accelerate or Decelerate
Cosmos Institute - Existential Pessimism vs. Accelerationism: Why Tech Needs a Rational, Humanistic "Third Way"
AI Governance
Joanna (Asia) Wiaterek - Help the UN design global governance structures for AI
OpenAI drops ban on military tools to partner with the Pentagon
Progress on the EU AI Act
OpenAI - Democratic inputs to AI grant program: lessons learned and implementation plans
Progress & Innovation
Michael Magoon with a list of progress related Substacks
Stuart Buck on scientists moving from academia to independent research labs
Statecraft - How to Pass the CHIPS and Science Act
Other Causes
Stan Pinsent - An overview of promising mental health interventions
Thomas Moynihan explores what can be learnt from forecasts written 100 years ago
Aveek Bhattacharya - We need to look beyond economics on smoking, drinking and obesity
International tax policy as a potential cause area
Vasco Grilo - Can a war cause human extinction? Once again, not on priors
Higher vehicle bonnets/hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths
Daniel Treisman - Democracy by Mistake
How hyperlocal seed banks are building climate-resilient agriculture
Latin America’s fertility decline is accelerating
Dylan Matthews - Why economists are reconsidering the scale of the rise in US inequality
Alistair Webster has created a subreddit for reducing suffering
Astral Codex Ten - Should the future be human?
Bryan Walsh - 2024 is the biggest global election year in history
Dan Williams - AI-based disinformation is probably not a major threat to democracy
Jason Crawford - Cellular reprogramming, pneumatic launch systems, and terraforming Mars: Some things I learned about at Foresight Vision Weekend
Stories & EA Around the World
Video highlights from EAGx Philippines
EA Japan with a new website
Natalia Cargill in the Telegraph on what the world would look like if the 1% gave 10%
Bhavya Garg on her “Book Club Journey: Discussion about Existential Risks Humanity Faces, and Solutions”
Nadine Spychala shared reflections on our relationships with money and values
EA Indonesia at EAGx
Felix Werdermann - Why Donating Is Underestimated
Other Links
Scott Alexander - Against Learning From Dramatic Events
Ben West - Rates of Criminality Amongst Giving Pledge Signatories
Sam Harris speaking to Chris Anderson about the future of doing good
Joe Carlsmith - Deep atheism and AI risk
Charlie Bresler from TLYCS - Why I Aspire To Be an Effective Hedonist
Eric Topol interviewing Liv Boeree on competition, moloch traps, and the A.I. arms race
The Economist with a special report on philanthropy including a section on EA
FTX and effective governance
Malmesbury - There is way too much serendipity
Productivity
80,000 Hours - Practical steps to form better habits in your life and career
Adam Binks - Forecast your 2024 with Fatebook
Cate Hall - How to be More Agentic
Nathan Barnard - Some heuristics I use for deciding how much I trust scientific results
Good News
Cape Verde has been declared malaria-free
Zero Jet Aircraft Crashes: 2023 Was One Of Aviation’s Safest Years On Record