Effective Altruism News
Effective Altruism News
- Recent work [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5] demonstrates that LLMs’ chain of thoughts (CoTs) 1 aren’t always “faithful”: they don’t contain an accurate representation of every cognitive step 2 the LLM used to arrive at its answer. However, consistent “faithfulness” in all scenarios is a very high bar that might not be required for most safety analyses of models.
- Tackling Iron Deficiency Anaemia Through Fortified Wheat Flour Iron deficiency anaemia affects millions in India, yet a simple, proven solution remains underutilised. Fortifying wheat flour with iron, folic acid, and vitamin B12 is a cost-effective and scalable way to address this public health challenge.
- the latest updates on longterm human welfare
- METR (where I work, though I'm cross-posting in a personal capacity) evaluated GPT-5 before it was externally deployed. We performed a much more comprehensive safety analysis than we ever have before; it feels like pre-deployment evals are getting more mature. This is the first time METR has produced something we've felt comfortable calling an "evaluation" instead of a "preliminary evaluation".
- The problems gave AI only a slim chance to show new capabilities
- As GiveWell’s research team grows, our goal is to compare as wide a range of programs as we can to find the most cost-effective opportunities to help people. Over the past year and a half, we’ve been investigating family planning services that help people decide whether and when to have children as a new area of research. Family planning programs have particularly complex challenges around...
- AI is advancing incredibly fast. We might see AI systems that are better than most humans at many tasks within a few years. This would change things drastically for animals in factory farms, in the wild, and beyond… and therefore animal advocates’ strategies should change, too. In this post, I argue:
- AI is advancing incredibly fast. We might see AI systems that are better than most humans at many tasks within a few years. This would change things drastically for animals in factory farms, in the wild, and beyond… and therefore animal advocates’ strategies should change, too. In this post, I argue:
- AI is advancing incredibly fast. We might see AI systems that are better than most humans at many tasks within a few years. This would change things drastically for animals in factory farms, in the wild, and beyond… and therefore animal advocates’ strategies should change, too. In this post, I argue:
- Food Systems Transformation Accelerator gloireri Thu, 08/07/2025 - 18:24 . GAIN is proud to join FAO and the UN Food System Coordination Hub to launch the Food Systems Transformation Accelerator during the side event "Food Systems Transformation: How and Why", held on July 29.
- Exciting news from the UN Food Systems Summit! gloireri Thu, 08/07/2025 - 18:24 . . GAIN is proud to join FAO and the UN Food System Coordination Hub to launch the Food Systems Transformation Accelerator during the side event "Food Systems Transformation: How and Why", held on July 29.
- Opinion: On Food System Change, Time to Keep Calm and Accelerate gloireri Thu, 08/07/2025 - 17:35 . From inter-agency collaboration to public-private partnerships, from effective development finance institution involvement to stronger feedback loops — here’s how to accelerate food system transformation. A farmer with freshly harvested garlic – GAIN Pakistan.
- Highlights
- “Chickens are unbeatable at converting grain into protein”...
- “Chickens are unbeatable at converting grain into protein”...
- This is a summary of the new paper “No Easy Eutopia”, here. How easy is it to get to a future that’s pretty close to ideal?. You could think of reaching eutopia as like an expedition to sail to an uninhabited island. The expedition is more likely to reach the island to the extent that: The island is bigger, more visible, and closer to the point of departure;.
- It does make up a lot of stuff but that doesn't prevent it from having uses
- How big is your dog’s carbon pawprint? This paper explores the climate impacts of pet food and weighs vegan diets as an alternative. The post Pet Food’s Surprising Role In Climate Change appeared first on Faunalytics.
- Stepping onto the grounds of the livestock show, I was initially met by a deceptive, fun carnival atmosphere. The joyous sounds of rides, the aroma of food vendors, and the bright lights of games—it was all a carefully constructed facade. But as I ventured deeper, the true, painful reality unfolded, hitting me like a gut […].
- Promoting Breastfeeding for Healthy Planet gloireri Thu, 08/07/2025 - 11:41 . Breastfeeding not only contributes to positive nutrition and health outcomes, but also to environmental sustainability by significantly reducing the environmental footprint associated with the production, packaging, distribution and consumption of infant formula.
- Certified Humane-verified in-ovo sexing program sets a new U.S. welfare standard for egg production LOS ANGELES — Mercy For Animals is celebrating a major win for animals: NestFresh is now the first U.S. egg brand to eliminate the mass killing of male chicks across its supply chain. Through its new Humanely Hatched™ program, NestFresh uses […].
- You have more power than you think. Earning even an average salary in a rich country means you’re likely 10x better off than the average person across the world, and you do have the power to make a difference. Watch Part I and Part II of The Skeptic in our profile now.
- World Mosquito Day is August 20th, and as it approaches, it is a good time to reintroduce our ‘Entomology Explained’ series. ‘Entomology Explained’ is a series of videos by scientists across the consortium answering common questions about mosquitoes and entomology. The questions vary from seeing the difference between malaria and dengue to ‘is it possible […].
- It’s time once again for our annual EA Forum user survey! :) Thank you to everyone who filled it in last year — those results were especially helpful for developing our current Forum strategy. From today through August 20 , we’re running an updated version of the survey for 2025.
- <h1 id="details-about-metrs-evaluation-of-openai-gpt-5">Details about METR’s evaluation of OpenAI GPT-5</h1> <p><strong>Note on independence:</strong> This evaluation was conducted under a standard NDA. Due to the sensitive information shared with METR as part of this evaluation, OpenAI’s comms and legal team required review and approval of this post (the latter is not true of any other METR...
- A recording from Bentham's Bulldog's live video
- I still love and treasure RSS, to the point that I pay money for inoreader. But newsletters are where it’s at right now, especially if you want to be ~~discoverable~~. To that end, I’m mirroring this blog on substack. The Substack will have a slightly more professional angle and lose the bottom ~10% of posts, … Continue reading "Mirroring to Substack"...
- Your farmed animal advocacy update for early August 2025
- This work was done while at METR. Introduction. GDM recently released a paper (Emmons et al.) showing that, contrary to previous results, the chain-of-thought (CoT) of language models is more faithful when the model’s CoT is necessary for it to complete a task. They examine three settings where an actor model attempts to fool monitors on various tasks. .
- “The Antichrist probably presents as a great humanitarian, it's redistributive, it's an extremely great philanthropist, as an effective altruist, all of those kinds of things.” - Peter Thiel. Effective altruism has more than its share of critics.
- A conversation with Adam Shai and Paul Riechers, co-founders of Simplex
- After 25 years of tireless advocacy for farmed animals, Mercy For Animals is proud to reveal the next phase in our fight with our new theory of change—a bold, dynamic blueprint for reshaping the future for animals around the globe. Mercy For Animals will focus on reducing suffering for the most animals. We will change […].
- Key Takeaways Good decisions require good “decision hygiene”. Daniel Kahneman emphasized “decision hygiene”: using structured methods...
- The old Holocaust deniers were crank historians. The new ones are something worse.
- This month’s Faunalytics Index provides facts and stats about quail farming, gaps in global conservation funding, app-based veg*n challenges, and more. The post Faunalytics Index – August 2025 appeared first on Faunalytics.
- You’ve got to know when to fold ’em...
- Effective Altruism
- A few dozen high-profile Instagram accounts are misleading millions with anti-plant, pro-carnivore nutrition claims. The post How Instagram Influencers Spread Nutrition Misinformation appeared first on Faunalytics.
- Cities across Europe are stepping up for climate, health, and animal protection. Alcorcón, El Masnou, and Parla in Spain, Grenoble in France, and Campolide in Portugal have recently endorsed the call for a global Plant Based Treaty to cut food emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. Their commitments include:
- McKinsey vs. AI + UK cuts aid in favor of military spending | August Brief Plus: Tony's journey from Deloitte to defeating anemia, and impact jobs closing in mid-Aug ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏...
- For Gifted Kids
- Loosening restrictions now would surrender America's technological advantage
- Senior Financial Systems and Data Analyst admin_inox Wed, 08/06/2025 - 14:30 vacancy_id SYS-1289 location New Delhi, India or Nairobi, Kenya Contract type Fixed Term Duration 24 Months Frontend apply URL https://jobs.gainhealth.org/vacancies/1289/apply/ Closing date Wed, 08/20/2025 - 12:00 Department Finance about_the_role <p>The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition...
- What’s a month? Why question wording must be exact in forecasting Superforecaster Ryan Adler turns a live CNBC disagreement about Tesla shares into a quick guide on clarity. Good forecasting starts with shared definitions. On Monday morning (4 August 2025), I was pounding away on my keyboard with CNBC playing in the background. Living in […]. The post What’s a month?
- EA Forum Digest #252 Hello!. Tom Ough, author of ‘The Anti-Catastrophe League’ and Senior Editor at UnHerd, is holding an ask me anything event on the EA Forum tonight (7- 9 pm BST). You can leave your questions in advance on the post.
- Are you looking for an opportunity to make a huge difference in the world, improving the lives of millions of animals or humans? Launch your own charity through our fully funded program and lead your own project dedicated to solving some of the biggest problems in the world.
- Do, or do not
- This may sound like a faux-intellectual investigation of something that’s obvious. But when I tell people I’m a happiness researcher, sometimes people get this glint in their eyes, probably thinking they’re the first person to ask me: “What does ‘happiness’ even mean?”. The post What does happiness mean? The war for the meaning of happiness appeared first on Happier Lives Institute.
- Ganitha-Ganaka programme extended to all government schools across the State With an aim to increase interest in learning mathematics among children, the State government of Karnataka has decided to to extend the Ganitha-Ganaka programme, in which teachers explain basic mathematic concepts to school children through Remote Tutoring (phone calls) after school hours, to all government schools...
- 3 Questions: Applying lessons in data, economics, and policy design to the real world Gevorg Minasyan MAP ’23 draws on experiences in MIT’s Data, Economics, and Design of Policy MicroMasters and master’s programs to shape policymaking at the Central Bank of Armenia. spriyabalasubr… Wed, 08/06/2025 - 04:52...
- J-PAL MENA At AUC Celebrates Five Years Of Evidence-Policymaking In The Middle East And North AfricaJ-PAL MENA At AUC Celebrates Five Years Of Evidence-Policymaking In The Middle East And North Africa The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Middle East and North Africa (J-PAL MENA) at The American University in Cairo (AUC) marked its fifth anniversary this week, celebrating five years of harnessing the power of evidence to design cost-effective and large-scale policies that address poverty...
- TL;DR: Calibrating your ambition is a skill. Overshooting can lead to burnout; undershooting can mean missed opportunities. The sweet spot lies in setting goals that stretch you and suit your current context. Use tools like assessing your starting point, clarifying your “why,” zooming out on your timeline, and recalibrating with curiosity.
- 6 August 2025 Eighty years ago, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered the world’s first attack by atomic bombings, … More...
- The Open Wing Alliance 2025 cage-free fulfillment report shows that 92% of cage-free egg commitments with deadlines of 2024 or earlier have been fulfilled, up from 89% last year. The report details a regional breakdown of progress around the world. Thanks to OWA groups and others for continuing to hold companies around the world accountable for their commitments. Discuss...
- SLA Management sets groundbreaking goal to make 33% of menu offerings for the nearly 18 million school meals it serves annually across 13 states plant-based by 2027. ORLANDO — In a major step toward climate-conscious and equitable school food, SLA Management, a leading K–12 foodservice provider, has pledged to make 33% of its school meal […].
- Hoe overtuig je mensen op straat om minder of geen dierlijke producten meer te eten en zo dierenleed te verminderen? Na honderden gesprekken te hebben gevoerd over vleesconsumptie, veganisme en dierenrechten, denk ik de meest effectieve methode van vegan voorlichting … Lees verder →...
- This morning I was looking into Switzerland's new animal welfare labelling law. I was going through the list of abuses that are now required to be documented on labels, and one of them made me do a double-take: "Frogs: Leg removal without anaesthesia.". This confused me. Why are we talking about anaesthesia? Shouldn't the frogs be dead before having their legs removed?
- 1. Summary and Table of Contents. 1.1 Summary. In the context of “brain-like AGI”, a yet-to-be-invented variation on actor-critic model-based reinforcement learning (RL), there’s a ground-truth reward function (for humans: pain is bad, eating-when-hungry is good, various social drives, etc.
- Empowering the Next Generation to End Factory Farming: What would it mean to you if you could dedicate your time, talent, and energy to creating a more just and sustainable food system?. Working at New Roots Institute isn't a job for us; it's a commitment to a cause.
- The Shrimp Welfare Project's "Humane Slaughter" endeavor focuses on promoting and facilitating electrical stunning of farmed shrimp before they are removed from the water and asphyxiated. All of the evidence that this renders the shrimp unconscious that I've seen uses immobility/unresponsiveness as a proxy for unconsciousness (and thus painlessness).
- The philosophical evidence is overwhelming!
- Despite clear evidence of pain, many farmed cows are denied pain relief for common on-farm procedures due to lingering misperceptions and practical limitations. The post All Farmed Cows Feel Pain, But Not All Get Pain Relief appeared first on Faunalytics.
- Despite clear evidence of pain, many farmed cows are denied pain relief for common on-farm procedures due to lingering misperceptions and practical limitations. The post All Cows Feel Pain, But Not All Get Pain Relief appeared first on Faunalytics.
- The Animal Welfare Institute seeks to hire a Deputy General Counsel who shares our dedication to alleviating animal suffering caused by people. The position is based in Washington, D.C. A J.D. and miniumum six years legal experience is required. For more details and to apply, please visit https://awionline.org/jobs/deputy-general-counsel. Discuss...
- Slightly contra Fukuyama on liberal communities
- When President Donald Trump and Elon Musk fed the US Agency for International Development into the wood chipper earlier this year, one of the lesser-known casualties was the shutdown of an obscure but crucial program that tracked public health information on about half of the world’s nations. For nearly 40 years, the Demographic and Health […]...
- Not in a good way
- The post Reflections from the Frontline of System Strengthening: Lessons from Project BIRCH appeared first on Living Goods.
- Following their first meeting in Geneva in 1985, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev issued a historic joint statement stating their shared belief that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” The maxim lived on. The Geneva summit turned out to be a key milestone in the beginning of […]...
- Charities love simple headlines, but real impact isn’t simple. It doesn’t cost $5 to save a life — it costs about $5,000. That’s still one of the best deals in the world.
- We’re excited to announce that we’ve reopened applications for the following Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program Cohorts: February 9th - April 5th 2026. August - September 2026 (exact dates TBD). This post summarises the six new charity ideas recommended for the February 2026 Cohort (which can also be read and shared as a standalone post here). Applications close on September 21st.
- How I spent the 11 hour flight from London to San Francisco just now (apparently flying over Iceland and Greenland, if the map on the little screen in front of me was to be believed): In essence, three interconnected things: First of all, doing metta on a flight is always a good idea. Radiating lovingkindness […]...
- Scott Aaronson’s Brief Foreword: Harvey Lederman is a distinguished analytic philosopher who moved from Princeton to UT Austin a few years ago. Since his arrival, he’s become one of my best friends among the UT professoriate. He’s my favorite kind of philosopher, the kind who sees scientists as partners in discovering the truth, and also […]...
- Thanks to Rowan Wang and Buck Shlegeris for feedback on a draft. What is the job of an alignment auditing researcher? In this post, I propose the following potential answer: to build tools which increase auditing agent performance, as measured on a suite of standard auditing testbeds. A major challenge in alignment research is that we don’t know what we’re doing or how to tell if it’s working.
- Hi all! . The Spring 2025 round of the Mental Health Funding Circle went well, and we're thrilled to be supporting seven organisations we believe are doing evidence-informed and deeply impactful work across global mental health and wellbeing. This round saw $731,000 committed by participating funders. We had many more strong applications than we were able to fund.
- Hi all! . The Spring 2025 round of the Mental Health Funding Circle went well, and we're thrilled to be supporting seven organisations we believe are doing evidence-informed and deeply impactful work across global mental health and wellbeing. This round saw $731,000 committed by participating funders. We had many more strong applications than we were able to fund.
- Today, Forethought and I are releasing an essay series called Better Futures, here. It's been something like eight years in the making, so I’m pretty happy it's finally out! It asks: when looking to the future, should we focus on surviving, or on flourishing?.
- Executive summary
- Why philanthropists should be wary of NGOs who will do anything for them
- Summary: CountriesThe USA (34.4%) and the UK (13.5%) remain the countries with the largest proportions of EA respondents. We observed that 32% of respondents came from Europe (excluding the UK), while 20% came from the rest of the world. In previous years, we observed a decline in the percentage of respondents from these countries.
- tldr: Chain-of-thought (CoT) monitoring is a proposed safety mechanism for overseeing AI systems, but its effectiveness against deliberately obfuscated reasoning remains unproven. "Obfuscated" reasoning refers to reasoning which would not be understood by a human, but which contains information that a model could understand in principle, for example model-encrypted reasoning.
- In praise of boredom
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