EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

Yuval Harari recently participated in a call to discuss philanthropy for those working in AI. He produced this handout with some general principles for philanthropy and his three top charities for people working in AI. They are: - Karya (ethical data cooperative in India) - LawZero (developing advanced non-agenic AI) - AI Futures Project (forecasting AI's future) I will share this post with his of...

TL;DR As of Q1 2026, 80% of major restaurant chain locations in the Philippines, including the country's three largest restaurant groups, have committed to sourcing only cage-free eggs, representing 47 brands and over 11,200 outlets nationwide. Note that prior to 2022, no Philippine-based company had a public CF egg policy commitment. 84% of major hotel group locations are also committed...

Hello! I'm Justin Portela. I got hired by GWWC to make YouTube videos after AI in Context did such a kickass job. My channel is using that same cinematic, high-production value beauty to talk about everything in the EA universe that isn't AI. My first video is out now. It's about an obscure and unknown World Health Organization Meeting in 1955 that helped shape the conditions that have left up to...

(Crosspost--written in a slightly sillier style than is typical of EA forum posts, but still seemed worth posting). A lot of my interactions with prominent bloggers involve me appearing in their rooms ex nihilo at odd hours of the night and suggesting they write about something very impactful (e.g. why people should take the Giving What We Can pledge). Yet sometimes when I say this, they say to me...

Bentham's Bulldog has published a series of pieces on the Save Our Bacon Act, urging people to call and email their senators, donate, and spread the word. Things we agree on Factory farming and gestation crates are immoral Fighting the Save Our Bacon Act is highly important for animal welfare. Disagreements Bentham's Bulldog has made several factual errors in his posts, and did not correct them wh...

This is a linkpost for Request for Proposals: Research and Applied Work on Digital Minds. I'm glad to announce a request for proposals for research and applied work on digital minds at Longview Philanthropy. We’re seeking applications for project grants, research fellowships, and career development fellowships on the potential consciousness, sentience, moral status, and legal position of AI system...

I posted this originally on Linkedin and Substack where I write for a more general audience. I think it's highly relevant for here though, and would welcome thoughts, disagreements, builds and implications. I wrote all the substance of this post myself, then used an LLM to refine its expression. A historic amount of money may be about to flow toward the world's problems, but right now that money c...

We announced the Cluelessness Critiques Competition two weeks ago. A lot of you, not only prospective entrants, will have been reading Anthony's sequence where he lays out his unawareness argument, or following the comments on his summary post. I thought that this might be a great time to have Anthony put some time aside to answer your questions. Although we are calling this an AMA[1], the focus w...

Note: This post was crossposted from Planned Obsolescence by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post. But we get the job done I was twenty one when I joined Open Phil,[1] as a zealous young EA who had idolized the organization since I was in high school (back when it was called GiveWell Labs). I worked there for over nine years, leav...

I used AI to fix transcription errors, rerrarange the ideas, and suggest tweaks to the title and some sentences. Three of the most exciting projects to come out of EA in recent years are, in a vague sense, CEA spinouts: Kairos is directly a spinout of CEA and now handles most support for university AI safety groups. Basically everyone I've found who knows them is really excited about what they do...

I used AI to fix transcription errors, rerrarange the ideas, and suggest tweaks to the title and some sentences. Three of the most exciting projects to come out of EA in recent years are, in a vague sense, CEA spinouts: Kairos is directly a spinout of CEA and now handles most support for university AI safety groups. Basically everyone I've found who knows them is really excited about what they do...

If you work a job that can mostly be done from anywhere[1], you should ask yourself if you are spending too much money on housing. I felt prompted to write this post by the recent increased push for EAs to move to the Bay. Multiple people have urged me personally to relocate. Most of them want me to work on AI safety, but the move-to-the-Bay meme is now also strong in animal welfare. I remain unco...

TLDR; To help the effective animal advocacy movement cost-effectively absorb greater amounts of funding in the near future, we are seeking expressions of interest from people who could found a new organization focused on: Highly neglected animals: insects, wild animals, shrimp, fish, etc, or AI and animals: AI alignment and governance for animal welfare, strategic actions considering transformativ...

AI in aquaculture research at Rethink Priorities Rethink Priorities’ How AI is affecting farmed aquatic animals is a three-part series that examines AI technologies being developed to address challenges in the aquaculture industry. As global aquaculture faces economic and technical constraints, this series examines whether and how the industry is turning to AI solutions to facilitate expansion. Th...

This is a crosspost from the new Animal Welfare Alignment Newsletter by Anima International. You can subscribe on Substack if you are interested in following these efforts. Audio reading also available on Substack. The goals of this post are to: Raise a question I see as crucially important to the goal of aligning AI to animal welfare, and to altruistic values generally; and Offer a partial soluti...

Assuming we end factory farming before 2100, which factor will have contributed the most?92 votes so far. Voting closes in 25 days. Place your vote or view results. Alternative proteinsSocial moral changes Bullet point summary: Cultivated meat could have a price between $15/kg and $30/kg according to reputable technoeconomic analysis, which we review and explain. We present an interactive demand-s...

Subtitle: How to Ride Without Losing Your Mind Five years ago, Ajeya Cotra memorably described Effective Altruist reasoning as a “train to crazy town”—with longtermists in particular staying on the train for longer than their nearterm-focused colleagues. It's not a perfect metaphor, but what I suspect resonates for a lot of people is the sense that EA-style abstract reasoning can push you in direc...

Why building and backing Welfare Tech companies may be one of the most promising things we can do for billions of animals. I used AI to assist in writing this post, but I’ve rewritten it extensively and endorse it. Announcing the launch of Spring Innovation Fund, a not-for-profit venture philanthropy studio and fund built specifically for Welfare Tech: technology that improves animal welfare in wa...

This post presents the executive summary from Giving What We Can's impact evaluation for 2025. At the end of this post we share links to more information, including the full report and working sheet for this evaluation. We look forward to your questions and comments! Executive summary Giving What We Can (GWWC) is working towards a world without preventable suffering or existential risk, where ever...

This is a link post. Abstract We make the case for training AIs to be risk-averse in resources — specifically, to treat resources as having diminishing marginal utility. These AIs would (for example) choose $40 for sure over a half-chance of $100 and a half-chance of $0. We argue that risk aversion can preserve AIs’ usefulness in the event that they turn out aligned, and that it provides an extra...

This is a link post. The existential AI safety community needs to take building a civic and social movement seriously as a core intervention. We believe this is a high-value, badly neglected approach to reducing catastrophic/x-risks from AI because it may significantly enhance the likelihood of governance efforts succeeding at keeping humanity safe. Note: this post is about PauseAI, not PauseAI US...

TLDR: what is the grant round? grantmaking.ai is launching a 1 million dollars grant round, distributing 5 thousand dollars to 50 thousand dollars per successful application to people and projects working to reduce x-risk from AI. Applications will be reviewed by Gavin Leech, Ryan Kidd, and Marcus Abramovitch. We aim to make all funding decisions by July 28th. Applications submitted by July 13th a...

This is a link post. Oli Habryka of LessWrong and I recently spoke about his plans to improve the AI safety funding ecosystem with a better S-Process platform, and my new incubator for EA/AIS software projects, Surplus (since launched; apply now!) We also cover: hot takes on different funders; what kinds of founders might succeed in the age of vibecoding; whether to do direct work or go meta; and...

TL;DR The best way to increase your odds of being accepted into Ambitious Impact's Charity Entrepreneurship Program is to build the relevant aptitudes for running an impactful charity. I provide some practical tips that I would recommend to anyone considering this career. Basically all of these steps are worth pursuing whether they shift your odds of acceptance or not. The tips are: Actually apply...

Summary: We’re making some big changes to the forum including a brand new post page. If you have any feedback, please let us know directly, or in the comments below. The problem The existing EA Forum codebase is relatively old and steeped in technical debt. New features and bug fixes (of which there are many) are slow, hosting is expensive, and server crashes are often time-consuming to fix. CEA a...