Effective Altruism News
Effective Altruism News
- In the space of a few decades, nearly every city in the Western world banned densification. What happened?
- We have just released our end-of-year 2025 Results, 2026 Plans, and Funding Needs document that demonstrates what a donation to RP can accomplish: from contributing to better allocation of millions of…...
- Recently I've been getting into Gratitude Patrols. People talk about gratitude journals as being one of the few provably impactful psychological interventions [citation needed], but I think there's a benefit to physically embodying it by walking around your space each morning and thanking things. If you.
- Nutrition Investing: Moving from Awareness to Action gloireri Wed, 11/26/2025 - 14:04 . Investing in nutrition isn’t just possible, it’s smart. That’s the key message that sticks with us a few weeks after the GIIN Impact Forum 2025, where we organised a session, “Nutrition Lens Investing: A Framework for Action”.
- I keep thinking about what kind of identity would be useful for building a powerful animal advocacy movement. Here are 3 features of veganism that I often think about which make me doubt its usefulness. Too maximalist. The official definition of veganism by the inventors of the term is the following:
- Short of time? Click here to read the key takeaways! We ran a study to better understand the moral judgments of people in the US, and we found striking disagreement. When participants rated the immorality of scenarios, a substantial share of them routinely gave maximally opposite judgments (0.0 vs. 5.0).
- EA Forum Digest #268 Hello!. Three things to note: The Donation Election is now open! You can go vote on the Forum (if you had an account before October 24th). Read about all the candidates here (if you spot an error in this post, I have to donate $10), and read the rules here.
- Crossposted from my Substack... . I spent the weekend at Lighthaven, attending the Eleos conference. In this post, I share thoughts and updates as I reflect on talks, papers, and discussions, and put out some of my takes since I haven't written about this topic before.
- On Suffering, Sterilization, and Why We Somehow Spent So Much Time Talking About Incest
- Showcasing the new Epoch AI Frontier Data Centers hub.
- 7-Eleven, the biggest convenience store in the US (and the world) has reported its cage-free progress for the first time ever: We’re committed to working with suppliers toward a goal of sourcing 100 percent cage-free eggs for all U.S. and Canada stores by 2025, based on available supply.
- Introduction. For our current project, we've been using the OpenAI fine-tuning API. To run some of our experiments, we needed to understand exactly how the reported metrics (loss and accuracy) are calculated. Unfortunately, the official documentation is sparse, and the most detailed explanation we could find was the following table from Microsoft's Azure documentation:
- TLDR: Just pick up the phone. Agree on permissions for information before you share it (see Step 4). I have worked as a professional journalist covering AI for over a year, and during that time, multiple people working in AI safety have asked me for advice on engaging with journalists. At this point, I've converged on some core lessons, so I figured I should share them more widely.
- I’m not 100% convinced of this, but I’m fairly convinced, more and more so over time. I’m hoping to start a vigorous but civilized debate. I invite you to attack my weak points and/or present counter-evidence. My thesis is that intent-alignment is basically happening, based on evidence from the alignment research in the LLM era. Introduction.
- I’m not 100% convinced of this, but I’m fairly convinced, more and more so over time. I’m hoping to start a vigorous but civilized debate. I invite you to attack my weak points and/or present counter-evidence. My thesis is that intent-alignment is basically happening, based on evidence from the alignment research in the LLM era. Introduction.
- “These models somehow just generalize dramatically worse than people. It's a very fundamental thing.”...
- The post Rob & Luisa chat kids, the fertility crash, and how the ‘50s invented parenting that makes us miserable appeared first on 80,000 Hours.
- Vox’s Future Perfect takes pride in being one of the top destinations in media for consistent, rigorous, ethically clear-eyed coverage of one of the biggest stories of our time — the mass production of billions of animals for food on factory farms. But there’s arguably an even bigger, even more neglected story hidden within that […]...
- On giant torture pits
- Retail strategies to boost plant-based food sales work differently depending on location. The post How Retailers Can Boost Plant-Based Food Sales appeared first on Faunalytics.
- Plus: Why cities in poor countries need wider streets, how to measure competition, and the South Korean baby bust.
- Sometimes people want to hire me to write or edit things for them.
- Overview. The Unjournal is a nonprofit organization (est. 2023) that commissions rigorous public expert evaluations of impactful research. We've built a strong team, completed more than 55 evaluation packages, built a database of impactful research, launched a Pivotal Questions initiative, and are systematically evaluating research from EA-aligned organizations. We argue that. 1.
- The post Community Health at the Centre of Africa’s Health Sovereignty: Insights from the Africa Health Summit appeared first on Living Goods.
- Up to 56 million women and girls across Africa are estimated to be affected by female genital schistosomiasis, a frequently overlooked debilitating manifestation of schistosomiasis. This short film explores what it will take to transform health systems in order to correctly diagnose and treat this stigmatizing disease.
- November is Africa Youth Month, and this year we are shining the spotlight on two scientists working to end malaria in Uganda. Rita Mwima and Hudson Onen are part of the team at the Uganda Virus Research Institute. Rita is a computational biologist using population genetics and mathematical modeling to study malaria vector dynamics. Her […].
- Inspired by this post by Tomás Bjartur, which is an allegory; but I’m not writing an allegory, I’m writing about the rules of Quidditch. The rules of Quidditch have a big problem. The game ends when a seeker catches the snitch, and the snitch is worth 150 points. So most of the players on the field don’t matter; in almost all games, the only thing that matters is who catches the snitch.
- Podcast Wireframe GAIN 🇰🇪 on Socials: . . . . gloireri Tue, 11/25/2025 - 08:11 . Share on...
- [xposted in EA Forum] Today we’re announcing a new cluster headache advocacy and research initiative: ClusterFree Learn more about how you (and anyone) can help. Our mission ClusterFree’s mission is to help cluster headache patients globally access safe, effective pain relief treatments as soon as possible through advocacy and research. Cluster headache (also known as […]...
- AI infrastructure, now in your pocket.
- The most canonical example of a "natural ontology" comes from gasses in stat mech. In the simplest version, we model the gas as a bunch of little billiard balls bouncing around in a box. The dynamics are chaotic. The system is continuous, so the initial conditions are real numbers with arbitrarily many bits of precision - e.g.
- Kind of a mixed bag. The post Things my kids don’t know about sex appeared first on Otherwise.
- Every month we send an email newsletter to our supporters sharing recent updates from our work. We publish selected portions of the newsletter on our blog to make this news more accessible to people who visit our website. For key updates from the latest installment, please see below!. If you’d like to receive the complete newsletter in your inbox each month, you can subscribe here. Read More.
- Disclaimer: I am god-awful at chess. I. Late-beginner chess players, those who are almost on the cusp of being basically respectable, often fall into a particular pattern. They've got the hang of calculating moves ahead; they can make plans along the lines of "Ok, so if I move my rook to give a check, the opponent will have to move her king, and then I can take her bishop."...
- Discover how Cellular Agriculture Australia is building the ecosystem for cellular agriculture and driving systemic change for animals and the future food system. … Read more...
- TL;DR: Models trained with outcome-based RL sometimes have reasoning traces that look very weird. In this paper, I evaluate 14 models and find that many of them often generate pretty illegible CoTs. I show that models seem to find this illegible text useful, with a model’s accuracy dropping heavily when given only the legible parts of its CoT, and that legibility goes down when answering...
- TL;DR: Figure out what needs doing and do it, don't wait on approval from fellowships or jobs. If you.... Have short timelines. Have been struggling to get into a position in AI safety. Are able to self-motivate your efforts. Have a sufficient financial safety net. ... I would recommend changing your personal strategy entirely.
- Here I am on the plane on the way home from Inkhaven. Huge thanks to Ben Pace and the other organizers for inviting me. Lighthaven is a delightful venue and there sure are some brilliant writers taking part in this — both contributing writers and participants.
- TL;DR: Models trained with outcome-based RL sometimes have reasoning traces that look very weird. In this paper, I evaluate 14 models and find that many of them often generate pretty illegible CoTs. I show that models seem to find this illegible text useful, with a model’s accuracy dropping heavily when given only the legible parts of its CoT, and that legibility goes down when answering...
- Summary: A defensive military coalition is a key frame for thinking about our international agreement aimed at forestalling the development of superintelligence. We introduce historical examples of former rivals or enemies forming defensive coalitions in response to an urgent mutual threat, and detail key aspects of our proposal which are analogous.
- 🐓 As Temporary Global Campaigns Coordinator, you will be part of a team responsible for researching, coordinating, and launching hard-hitting global corporate animal welfare campaigns against major multinational companies. These campaigns involve collaboration and coordination with animal protection organizations around the world and directly contribute to The Humane League’s org-wide goal of...
- Crosspost. (I think this is a pretty important post to get the word out about, so I’d really appreciate you restacking it). The EU is taking input into their farm animal welfare policies until December 12.
- The struggle to replace philosophical stereotypes with substance
- How to make progress when policymakers don't care about the climate
- Executive summary
- Replicability refers to observing evidence for a prior research claim in data that is independent of the prior research. It is one component of establishing credibility of research claims by demonstrating that there is a regularity in nature to be understood and explained. Repeating studies to assess and establish replicability can be costly and time-consuming. Partly, that is inevitable.
- Why Chinese parents have sought out Zebra English's AI tutor Jessica
- Even if we solve the AI alignment problem, we still face non-alignment problems, which are all the other existential problems that AI may bring. People have written research agendas on various imposing problems that we are nowhere close to solving, and that we may need to solve before developing ASI.
- How to ensure the future flourishes
- Various groups, in an attempt to be trans-inclusive, have implemented pronoun circles (everyone goes around in a circle and give their pronouns), pronoun badges (everyone has their pronouns on their name badge), and pronouns in email signatures.
- When it comes to walking your dog, which device is most comfortable for them? This review of existing research reveals that the best restraint likely depends on the individual dog. The post A Review Of Restraints For Walking Your Dog appeared first on Faunalytics.
- It has been a tumultuous year for global health. In early 2025, the US government cut billions of dollars in foreign aid, affecting millions of people around the world and creating substantial uncertainty that continues to ripple through health and development programs around the world.
- Episode ten of the Works in Progress podcast is surprisingly NIMBY.
- Why we should expect AI capabilities to keep being extremely uneven, and why that matters
- Hi All As a part of Amplify for Animals' AI Training Program, I created this custom GPT last week, and I have been working to improve it to the extent that organizations can actually use this. The tool can help you create grant proposals. Just share the funder's RFP or website and link to your project or detailed document regarding your project.
- Good morning Fast Community,. Our latest blog post on Inside Animal Ag explores the “debate” about grazing’s impacts on U.S. land degradation: “The beef industry and its supporters have kept alive the notion that there is some controversy about whether grazing cattle in America is beneficial for the land.
- Dear FAST,. Some good news from Japan!. Midori Meguro, long time animal advocate and executive director of Lib (one of Japan’s few animal rights organizations) just got elected as a town assembly member in Kiso.
- Sentient Futures Summit (SFS) Bay Area 2026 is a three-day conference taking place February 6-8th, to explore the intersection of AI and sentient non-humans – both biological (i.e. animals) and potentially artificial. Register here for an Early Bird 30% discount before December 2nd!.
- Sentient Futures Summit (SFS) Bay Area 2026 is a three-day conference taking place February 6-8th, to explore the intersection of AI and sentient non-humans – both biological (i.e. animals) and potentially artificial. Register here for an Early Bird 30% discount here before December 2nd!.
- Rootclaim founder Saar Wilf joined Destiny to discuss the recent and strongest evidence yet for COVID-19’s lab origin. Since our debate with Peter Miller, new findings have emerged that strongly support the lab-origin hypothesis. In this interview, Saar walks through the data, explains Rootclaim’s probability-based analysis, and answers Destiny’s questions.
- Is AI balkanization measurable?
- A blog's recs should exceed its asks, or what's a heaven for?
- The Donation Election has begun!. Three important links: The voting portal (voting is open now!). How to vote, and rules for voting. The Donation Election Fund. This post introduces our candidates. We’re splitting by cause area for easy reading, but in the election they are all competing against each other.
- Project Assistant, CASCADE admin_inox Mon, 11/24/2025 - 11:30 vacancy_id SYS-1300 location Abuja, Nigeria Contract type Fixed Term Duration 12 Months Frontend apply URL https://jobs.gainhealth.org/vacancies/1300/apply/ Closing date Fri, 11/28/2025 - 12:00 Department Programmes about_the_role <p justify;\">The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is seeking a...
- The post Community Health Workers at the Heart of Fighting Malaria appeared first on Living Goods.
- Sometimes I’m talking about lifting weights and someone asks me, “What’s your goal weight?” I don’t understand why I would have a goal weight. Say I want to bench press 300 pounds. What happens when I reach 300? I just give up on the bench press now? That would be silly. If I can keep getting stronger, I should. What happens if I fall short of my goal?
- A small number of species dominate the distribution of wild mammal biomass.
- My understanding is that even those advocating a pause or massive slowdown in the development of superintelligence think we should get there eventually . Something something this is necessary for humanity to reach its potential. Perhaps so, but I'll be sad about it. Humanity has a lot of unsolved problems right now.
- - JenniferRM, riffing on norvid_studies. You should know this by now, but you can just do things. That you didn't know this is an indictment of your social environment, which taught you how to act. You Can Just Do Things. Yes, you. All the activities you see other people do? You can do them, too. Whether or not you'll find it hard, you can do them.
- Insulin resistance is bad. It doesn't just cause heart disease. Peter Attia, author of Outlive, the Science and Art of Longevity, makes a convincing case that insulin resistance increases the risk of cancer and Alzheimer's disease, too. Causally-speaking, the number of deaths downstream of insulin resistance is ginormous and massively underestimated.
- Why we should and how to do it
- (Cross-posted from my Substack; written as part of the Halfhaven virtual blogging camp) Oh, you read Emily Post’s Etiquette? What version? There’s a significant difference between versions, and that difference reflects the declining literacy of the American intellectual.
- In a post I mostly liked, Amanda from Bethlehem writes:
- I’ve spoken with hundreds of entomologists at conferences the world over. While there’s clearly some self-selection (not everyone wants to talk to a philosopher), my experience is consistent: most think it’s reasonable to care about the welfare of insects.
- With billions in USAID funding halted and thousands laid off, the people who relied on those programmes pay the highest price. This is one of the most important moments in history to donate effectively.
- What blocks people from being vulnerable with others?. Much ink has been spilled on two classes of answers to this question: Not everyone is in fact safe to be vulnerable around. Not even well-intentioned people are always safe to be vulnerable around; being-safe-to-be-vulnerable-around is a skill which not everyone is automatically good at.
- Last year I gave my reasoning on cause prioritization and did shallow reviews of some relevant orgs. I'm doing it again this year. Cross-posted to my website. Cause prioritization. In September, I published a report on the AI safety landscape, specifically focusing on AI x-risk policy/advocacy. The prioritization section of the report explains why I focused on AI policy.
- A curiosity stopper is an answer to a question that gets you to stop asking questions, but doesn’t resolve the mystery. There are some curiosity stoppers that I’ve heard many times: Why doesn’t cell phone radiation cause cancer? Because it’s non-ionizing radiation. Why are antioxidants good for you? Because they eliminate free radicals. Why do bicycles stay upright?
- "You understand, the kids that you're competing with have been playing since they were this tall" my mum said, holding her hand down to the height of a toddler. "A Chinese kid who's been playing since he was three is a much better pianist than you are a guitarist.". I'd only been playing guitar for 2-3 years when I applied to go to music school.
- Here are eight tools of anti-epistemology that I think anyone can use to hide their norm-violating behavior from being noticed, and deceive people about their character. Heuristic Details1. Maintain Plausible Innocence. Always provide and maintain a plausibly deniable account of your behavior that isn’t norm violating. .
- A 9-year-old named Kai (“The Quantum Kid”) and his mother interviewed me about closed timelike curves, wormholes, Deutsch’s resolution of the Grandfather Paradox, and the implications of time travel for computational complexity: This is actually one of my better podcasts (and only 24 minutes long), so check it out! Here’s a podcast I did a […]...
- A message on OpenAI’s internal Slack claimed the activist in question had expressed interest in “causing physical harm to OpenAI employees.”. OpenAI employees in San Francisco were told to stay inside the office on Friday afternoon after the company purportedly received a threat from an individual who was previously associated with the Stop AI activist group. “Our information indicates that...
- Ever on the quilting goes, Spinning out the lives between, Winding up the souls of those Students up to one-thirteen. There's a book about a young boy whose mundane life is one day interrupted by a call to go to wizard boarding school, where he gets into youthful hijinks overshadowed by feats about a dark wizard.
- Garrabrant Induction provides a somewhat plausible sketch of reasoning under computational uncertainty, the gist of which is "build a prediction market". An approximation of classical probability theory emerges. However, this is only because we assume classical logic.
- Here is how
- 1.
- Here is a complete list of everything that the average cis person needs to know about trans people:
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