Effective Altruism News
Effective Altruism News
- Community organizations — nonprofits, rural hospitals, schools, local utilities, municipalities, and small businesses — are vital to delivering essential services to the public, but they are often the…. The post Cyber Resilience Corps’ Roadmap for Community Security Report Launch appeared first on CLTC.
- In Congress, in the Church, and in New York
- TL;DR: We developed an empirical benchmark to assess risk of harm to nonhuman animals from LLMs. Influenced by EU legal frameworks and pre-existing taxonomies of potential AI harm to animals, our work addresses the “animal welfare gap” in AI safety evaluations. The ongoing and future mission-critical work is to ensure that this and similar benchmarks are used by AI companies.
- Side note. You can give me feedback about anything here (anonymously or not). Summary: I estimate animal farming:Decreases the living time of (wild) soil nematodes, mites, and springtails hugely more than it increases that of directly affected animals. Increases the welfare of soil nematodes, mites, and springtails hugely more than it changes that of directly affected animals... My best...
- 𝗪𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗹𝘀? Apply now to join the facilitated cohort of Animal Advocacy Careers’ free online course: “Your Role in Animal Advocacy”. Whether you're just starting out or pivoting your career, this 3-month guided experience will walk you through the most impactful ways to help animals through your work. 🧡 Why join the cohort version?
- Thoughts on only using simple words
- This sequence draws from a position paper co-written with Simon Pepin Lehalleur, Jesse Hoogland, Matthew Farrugia-Roberts, Susan Wei, Alexander Gietelink Oldenziel, Stan van Wingerden, George Wang, Zach Furman, Liam Carroll, Daniel Murfet. Thank you to Stan, Dan, and Simon for providing feedback on this post. Alignment ⊆ Capabilities.
- Notes from a talk originally given at my alma mater. I went to Grinnell College for my undergraduate degree. For the 2025 reunion event, I agreed to speak on a panel about AI. I like the talk I gave because I think it's a good "101" intro to AI risk, aimed at educated laypeople. I'm also glad to have a go-to explainer for why I'm currently worried about AGI... .
- In order to understand Stalin, Kotkin basically wrote a whole world history of the 19th/20th century.
- After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People by Dean Spears and Michael Geruso is one of the most bracing, insightful, and important books I’ve ever read. I strongly recommend that everyone reading this sentence go and pre-order it immediately. (That’s the first time I’ve ever issued such a universal recommendation, so it isn’t cheap praise.).
- Tl;dr: In this post, I introduce a concept I call surface area for serendipity — the informal, behind-the-scenes work that makes it easier for others to notice, trust, and collaborate with you. In a job market where some EA and animal advocacy roles attract over 1,300 applicants, relying on traditional applications alone is unlikely to land you a role.
- I read the most detailed report done on existential risks from climate change. Here is a brief summary of the likely effects of climate change.
- When vegetarians learn about dairy’s harmful impacts, they’re more likely to plan reducing consumption than rationalize continuing it. The post Vegetarians Choose Change Over Justification For Dairy appeared first on Faunalytics.
- ICAW (The International Council for Animal Welfare) is hiring a Head of Organizing, Europe to join our team focused on winning corporate animal welfare policies! If you or someone you know based in the UK has experience with organizing, you might be a good fit for this role! Learn more about ICAW and find the link to apply here.
- Review (#1/2) of *After the Spike*
- Role leverage is the total influence a role has on the impact the organization or company is trying to make. In other words, how critical is this role for the organization’s success? The higher a role’s leverage, the more opportunity there might be to make a big counterfactual impact. Influencing... Read more...
- Conferencias en San Pablo y Santiago, lanzamiento del pódcast de Ayuda Efectiva y nuevos artículos en español...
- At the Happier Lives Institute, we found some charities are hundreds or thousands of times more cost-effective than others. This means that we, the donors, are funding the wrong things. If the charity sector was full of organisations trying to ruthlessly improve the lives of their beneficiaries we would find much smaller gaps. So what’s wrong?
- You’re not powerless. You have the ability to prevent thousands of people from getting ill from malaria, and even help prevent children from dying. Watch Part I and Part II of The Skeptic in our profile now.
- along with hyperlinks so that you too can read them
- In the local context and global context. The post Conveying wealth and poverty to kids appeared first on Otherwise.
- All the latest on AI and nonhumans in June 2025
- Is now the time to add to RP’s great work? . Rethink’s Moral weights project (MWP) is immense and influential. Their work is the most cited “EA” paper written in the last 3 years by a mile - I struggle to think of another that comes close. Almost every animal welfare related post on the forum quotes the MWP headline numbers - usually not as gospel truth, but with confidence.
- One request I get frequently from the funding circles I run is whether it's possible for a funder to observe a round.
- Epistemic status: Though I can't find it now, I remember reading a lesswrong post asking "what is your totalizing worldview?". I think this post gets at my answer; in fact, I initially intended to title it "My totalizing worldview" but decided on a slightly more restricted scope (anyway, I tend to change important aspects of my worldview so frequently it's a little unsettling, so I'm not sure...
- TLDR: we find that SAEs trained on the difference in activations between a base model and its instruct finetune are a valuable tool for understanding what changed during finetuning. This work is the result of Jacob and Santiago's 2-week research sprint as part of Neel Nanda's training phase for MATS 8.0. Introduction.
- Hi Everyone !. The Animal Legal Defense Legislative Fund, a 501(C)(4) organization, is hiring an Executive Director to lead and expand its policy work. The full post is below and here is a direct link as well: Animal Legal Defense Legislative Fund – Executive Director. https://aldlf.hirehive.com/executive-director-vienna-HPLkYV. Please share with anyone whom you think would be a good fit.
- This post presents some motivation on why we work on model diffing, some of our first results using sparse dictionary methods and our next steps. This work was done as part of the MATS 7 extension. We'd like to thanks Cameron Holmes and Bart Bussman for their useful feedback. Could OpenAI have avoided releasing an absurdly sycophantic model update?
- An introduction to an upcoming body of research that will examine high-impact philanthropic strategies to protect biodiversity and the ecosystem services it supports.
- Iran, NATO increased spending, video addictions.
- Crosspost from my blog. (I think this is a pretty important article so I’d appreciate you sharing and restacking it—thanks!). There are lots of people who say of themselves “I’m vegan except for honey.” This is a bit like someone saying “I’m a law-abiding citizen, never violating the law, except sometimes I’ll bring a young boy to the woods and slay him.” These people abstain from all the...
- How far the current paradigm can go, AI improving AI, and whether thinking of AI as a tool will keep making sense
- 1) They're unlikely to be sentient (few neurons, immobile). 2) If they are sentient, the farming practices look likely to be pretty humane. 3) They're extremely nutritionally dense. Buying canned smoked oysters/mussels and eating them plain or on crackers is super easy and cheap. It's an acquired taste for some, but I love them. Discuss...
- It's the worst animal product to eat by far!
- While animal welfare models like the Five Freedoms are widely used, this study shows they often fall short for exotic pets, revealing a gap between policy promises and animals’ real-life conditions. The post Are The Key Animal Welfare Models Effective For Exotic Pets? appeared first on Faunalytics.
- I mean, it's a claim
- 📮EA Switzerland - May Updates View this email in your browser Summary: Hey <<First Name>>, Welcome to this month's update! The key points in brief: Save the dates for the next big retreats: EAGx Berlin: Oct 3-5, 2025. EA Switzerland Community Weekend 2026: Apr 24-26, 2026. .
- What did you do during the intelligence explosion?
- Greetings from a world where…...
- Taking whatever shortcut is available has become common sense to young American university graduates who find themselves with few prospects of productive work. The post Economic Nihilism appeared first on Palladium.
- Learning from Inspiring Figures in Our Community. Background. This post emerged from discussions during the EA values project, where we observed that many community members cite specific individuals (whether EA founders, organization leaders, or mentors) as key influences in their journey into effective altruism.
- We’re excited to share that Accor, one of the world’s largest hotel chains, has officially published a commitment to exclusively source pork from group housing systems, preferably preimplantation systems where sows are housed in stalls for no longer than 7 days, in Brazil by 2026. You can view the announcement here and download the press release here. .
- Dear FAST Friends. Last month, Australians went to the polls and voted decisively to return the federal Labor Government to power with a strong majority in the House of Representatives and the ability to pass legislation through the Senate with the support of the Greens. This is good news for animals.
- Last year the World Malaria Report 2024 revealed that malaria continues to deepen economic and educational inequalities between men and women. As we celebrate African women today, it is important that we ensure this struggle is no longer overlooked. Women make up 70% of the global workforce and when family members fall ill, they are […].
- Can Tradable Pollution Permits Work in Developing Countries? A market for tradable pollution permits in India increased compliance with emissions restrictions, reduced particulate matter emissions, and made pollution abatement more affordable. spriyabalasubr… Mon, 06/30/2025 - 02:48...
- Podcast | Seeing the Invisible: Responses to Indoor Air Pollution, with Robert D. Metcalfe In this podcast, Robert D. Metcalfe shares key findings on trends in indoor air quality, how people change their behavior when made aware of pollution levels in their homes, and the potential benefits and trade-offs of government subsidies for technologies that monitor indoor air quality.
- Opinion | The retreat from aid is a costly mistake It has been easy to dismiss efforts to raise the prospects of the world’s poorest as an abject failure. The United Nations reported 712 million people living in extreme poverty in 2022, 23 million more than in 2019. However, Foreign aid was helping the world’s poorest escape misery. spriyabalasubr… Mon, 06/30/2025 - 02:37...
- Study in India shows several tactics together boost vaccination against deadly diseases Around the world, low immunizations rates for children are a persistent problem. Now, an experiment conducted in India shows that an inexpensive combination of methods, including text reminders and small financial incentives, has a major impact on immunization. spriyabalasubr… Mon, 06/30/2025 - 02:27...
- A primer on geothermal energy, and why it provides just 0.3% of the world's electricity.
- In the 1980s, many thought tuberculosis was on the path to elimination. In reality, more were dying from the disease than ever.
- This is a lightly-edited memo I wrote for the 2025 Animal Advocacy Strategy Forum, which were encouraged to be highly opinionated to generate strategy discussion. It seems strange to me that animal advocates rely on animal ag to come up with the solutions that we want to see.
- Republicans slipped a controversial provision into the “One Big Beautiful Bill” — now facing bipartisan backlash and internal party rebellion...
- I recently made Spotify playlists for all the music I “strongly like” (or better) by each of my favorite musical artists. That makes it easy to tell how many minutes of music I strongly like by each of them, so now I can rank them by that metric. This metric’s biggest downside is that it […]...
- 6 new lectures from my most popular guest, 4 times over.
- this week in security — june 29 edition Scattered Spider hacking airlines, US charges prolific hacker, Iran cyber retaliation, CitrixBleed 2, and more. ~this week in security~. a cybersecurity newsletter by @zackwhittaker volume 8, issue 26 View this email in your browser | past issues | RSS ~ ~ THIS WEEK, TL;DR. FBI, cyber firms say Scattered Spider is now...
- I'm so opposed to eugenics that I think those who espouse it shouldn't be allowed to reproduce
- Climate change doesn't rank as a top EA cause area because it already receives substantial funding, is less neglected than other risks, and—under gradual-warming scenarios—seems unlikely to cause human extinction. I broadly agree with that assessment. Yet some problems under the climate umbrella do fit EA criteria of scale, neglectedness, and tractability.
- Could Anti-Realism be Objectively True?
- How to steer toward a positive AGI future
- For overdetermined reasons, I’ve lately found the world an increasingly terrifying and depressing place. It’s gotten harder and harder to concentrate on research, or even popular science writing. Every so often, though, something breaks through that wakes my inner child, reminds me of why I fell in love with research thirty years ago, and helps […]...
- Sorry but the suspiciously convenient narrative is false
- I’ve previously written about social predators, people whose primary mode of life consists, not of creating value, but of transferring value created by other people to themselves—...
- Opiniestuk verschenen in Knack (29-06-25) De Hoge Gezondheidsraad formuleerde 17 adviezen voor een gezondere voeding, om het risico op chronische ziektes te verminderen. Daarbij hield ze ook rekening met de duurzaamheid. Meer volkoren en peulvruchten in plaats van geraffineerde graanproducten … Lees verder →...
- Last Thursday, I took my son to the Rose Center for Earth and Space at New York’s Museum of Natural History. In the Hayden Planetarium, we watched a simulation of the Milky Way bloom above us, while the actor Pedro Pascal — who truly is everywhere — narrated the galactic dance unfolding on the screen. […]...
- YouTube link. In this episode, I talk with Peter Salib about his paper “AI Rights for Human Safety”, arguing that giving AIs the right to contract, hold property, and sue people will reduce the risk of their trying to attack humanity and take over. He also tells me how law reviews work, in the face of my incredulity. Topics we discuss: Why AI rights. Why not reputation.
- Considering a law degree, currently studying, or already graduated? This guide will take you through some of the most promising career paths you could enter with a background in law. These aren’t just any careers. At Probably Good, we believe your career is one of the most significant opportunities you... Read more...
- Considering an engineering degree, currently studying, or already graduated? This guide will take you through some of the most promising career paths you could enter with a background in engineering. Of course, engineering is a broad term, and there are many kinds of engineers and engineering subjects to study. In... Read more...
- I originally wrote this just for myself but thought I'd share it in case others find it useful. Sharing rough notes in the spirit of not letting perfect be the enemy of the good. This was written in early May 2025. In this post I collect evidence and forecasts regarding recent and future trends in software and compute progress.
- When discussing AI control, we often talk about levels of AI capabilities where we think control can probably greatly lower risks and where we can probably estimate risks. However, I think it's plausible that an important application of control is modestly improving our odds of surviving significantly superhuman systems which are misaligned.
- Summary: We’d like to share our ongoing work on improving LLM unlearning. [ arXiv] [ github]. There’s a myriad of approaches for unlearning, so over the past 8 months we conducted hundreds of small-scale experiments, comparing many loss functions, variants of meta-learning, various neuron or weight ablations, representation engineering and many exotic ways of constraining or augmenting...
- 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.
- Conservation finance is failing and local communities are still shut out On June 11, more than 50 practitioners gathered in Nairobi to explore a bold question: What if we tackled conservation not by restricting communities but by trusting them? Co-hosted by Equal Right, GiveDirectly, and the Global Resilience Partnership, the “Cash for Conservation” workshop brought […]...
- In what the Westminster Police Department described as an “unfortunate, difficult, and unusual situation,” two cows scheduled for slaughter were shot after escaping a farm. The cows were reportedly being prepared for the butcher when they escaped their Maryland farm and charged into a residential neighborhood. One cow briefly entered a strength-and-conditioning gym. The gym’s […].
- Getting cash to people before disaster strikes can save lives. That’s why we piloted an AI-powered flood response in Nigeria, predicting where floods would hit and delivering early cash to those most at risk. By combining cutting-edge forecasts with local insights, we reached flood-prone communities faster, more affordably, and with greater precision—delivering aid before the […]...
- If you are planning on doing AI policy communications to DC policymakers, I recommend watching the full video of the Select Committee on the CCP hearing from this week. In his introductory comments, Ranking Member Representative Krishnamoorthi played a clip of Neo fighting an army of Agent Smiths, described it as misaligned AGI fighting humanity, and then announced he was working on a bill...
- Insights and advice from high-impact climate donors to help new or hesitant donors find their footing in climate philanthropy.
- THANK YOU! You gave. You shared. You believed. And it made a difference. Together, we reached our $100,000 fundraising goal — matched by a generous family for a total of $200,000! These funds will train the next generation of eye care professionals through Seva’s Dr. Suzanne Gilbert Training Academy. Through Seva’s training academy, Saisiri became …. The post Look what you made possible.
- Millions of animals suffer every day in regions where their welfare is barely on the agenda. But that can change—with the right action, advocacy, and people like you driving progress. Animal advocacy in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) is vital but often overlooked. Despite the vast scale of animal suffering in these regions, animal welfare […]...
- Transformer Weekly: A very AGI-pilled Congressional hearing; moratorium machinations; and a bunch of copyright developments.
- And what, if anything, should be done?
- Listen now | Unpacking Broad Disagreement Between the Forecasters
- A guest post by my Dad
- Sometimes my seven-year-old, Vasili, wants to see some godawful movie that makes me want to melt my eyeballs out of my head.
- As fires raged across Australia in 2019/2020, official emergency plans neglected animals, leaving communities to do their best to protect them. The post Caring For Animals During Australia’s “Black Summer” Bushfires appeared first on Faunalytics.
- The AGI vibes, they are a-shiftin'
- Write for ATVBT
- New Secure AI Tech Tree
- How much time can control buy us during the intelligence explosion?
- Episode one of The Works in Progress Podcast is out now
- The deadliest country in the world for young children is South Sudan — the United Nations estimates that about 1 in 10 children born there won’t make it to their fifth birthday. But just a hundred years ago, that was true right here in the United States: Every community buried about a tenth of their […]...
- On this episode, Daniel Susskind joins me to discuss disagreements between AI researchers and economists, how we can best measure AI’s economic impact, how human values can influence economic outcomes, what meaningful work will remain for humans in the future, the role of commercial incentives in AI development, and the future of education.
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