Effective Altruism News
Effective Altruism News
- Becoming a top forecaster may not work exactly how you think it does...
- [Crossposted on Windows In Theory] . “Modern humans first emerged about 100,000 years ago. For the next 99,800 years or so, nothing happened. Well, not quite nothing. There were wars, political intrigue, the invention of agriculture -- but none of that stuff had much effect on the quality of people's lives.
- The UC Berkeley Cybersecurity Clinic and Fight for the Future have collaborated to create a guide aimed at enhancing the cybersecurity practices of mutual aid organizations. Released as part of the CLTC White Paper Series, the guide — Securing Mutual Aid: Cybersecurity Practices and Design Principles for Financial Technology — outlines best practices to help mutual aids use financial...
- Meta: Heroic responsibility is a standard concept on LessWrong. I was surprised to find that we don't have a post explaining it to people not already deep in the cultural context, so I wrote this one. Suppose I decide to start a business - specifically a car dealership. One day there's a problem: we sold a car with a bad thingamabob.
- Policy and Programs Lead (temp). Organization: Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN) Location: Remote (Washington-based preferred) Hours: 30 hours per week Compensation: $21-$26/hr Reports to: NARN Board. About NARN. The Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN) advocates for the rights and well-being of all animals through education, advocacy, and community building.
- Some AI safety problems are legible (obvious or understandable) to company leaders and government policymakers, implying they are unlikely to deploy or allow deployment of an AI while those problems remain open (i.e., appear unsolved according to the information they have access to).
- Some AI safety problems are legible (obvious or understandable) to company leaders and government policymakers, implying they are unlikely to deploy or allow deployment of an AI while those problems remain open (i.e., appear unsolved according to the information they have access to).
- Hi everyone! I'm Alex, Managing Director of the Good Food Institute Europe. Thanks so much for taking the time to read my post on why scale-up is so important for the future of alternative proteins. This is a topic we're really passionate about at GFI Europe, and one that's becoming increasingly important as the sector matures. I’ll be around in the comments and happy to answer any questions.
- Discover why people often fail to act on their own values — and how to close the gap between what you care about and what you do. Learn how despair, denial, and defiance hold us back, and find research-based ways to live more in line with your principles.
- Authors: Alex Irpan* and Alex Turner*, Mark Kurzeja, David Elson, and Rohin Shah. You’re absolutely right to start reading this post! What a rational decision!. Even the smartest models’ factuality or refusal training can be compromised by simple changes to a prompt.
- We announce our new Frontier Data Centers Hub, a database tracking large AI data centers using satellite and permit data to show compute, power use, and construction timelines.
- Also on my substack. I was recently saddened to see that Seb Krier – who's a lead on the Google DeepMind governance team – created a simple website apparently endorsing the idea that Ricardian comparative advantage will provide humans with jobs in the time of ASI. The argument that comparative advantage means advanced AI is automatically safe is pretty old and has been addressed multiple times.
- Authors: Alex Irpan* and Alex Turner*, Mark Kurzeja, David Elson, and Rohin Shah. You’re absolutely right to start reading this post! What a rational decision!. Even the smartest models’ factuality or refusal training can be compromised by simple changes to a prompt.
- Crosspost from my blog. Let these always be remembered: those who suffer, those who experience injustice, those who are silenced, those who are dispossessed, those who are aggressed upon, those who lose what they love, and those whose thriving is thwarted. May I not let hate into my heart; and May I not let my care for the aggressor prevent me from protecting what I love. May I always...
- 16 minute read. We update our list of Recommended Charities annually. This year, we announced recommendations on November 4. Each year, hundreds of billions of animals are trapped in the food industry and killed for food—that is more than all the humans who have ever walked on the face of the Earth. 1.
- ERA, in partnership with the Cambridge Biosecurity Hub, is launching a new 8-week, full-time AIxBiosecurity research fellowship dedicated to tackling biosecurity risks amplified by recent advances in frontier AI capabilities. This fully funded programme equips researchers to investigate ways to reduce extreme risks from engineered and natural biological threats amid rapidly advancing...
- Above the Fold covers an off-year election day
- 16 minute read. We update our list of Recommended Charities annually. This year, we announced recommendations on November 4. Each year, hundreds of billions of animals are trapped in the food industry and killed for food —that is more than all the humans who have ever walked on the face of the Earth. 1.
- Crossposted on lesswrong Modern humans first emerged about 100,000 years ago. For the next 99,800 years or so, nothing happened. Well, not quite nothing. There were wars, political intrigue, the invention of agriculture — but none of that stuff had much effect on the quality of people’s lives.
- How to react to a world full of conclusions with potentially astronomical stakes
- In this blog, we share results from Animal Charity Evaluators’ review of Faunalytics, highlight where we align and diverge, and reflect on the evolving role of research in animal advocacy. The post The Quiet Power Of Research: The Challenge Of Evaluating The Impact Of Research On Animal Advocacy appeared first on Faunalytics.
- Large-scale AI-driven unemployment could hit government spending without innovative changes to the tax system
- The Anglosphere has a rather cavalier attitude towards oaths.
- Following an extensive review, the European Food Safety Authority has concluded that the welfare of animals used for fur can’t be protected in the current cage-based systems. The post E.U. Scientific Body Finds Fur Farming Incompatible With Animal Welfare appeared first on Faunalytics.
- EVFA’s Documentary Research Grant backs nonfiction projects at the moment when research, access, and story exploration define what a film can become! . Each selected filmmaker receives an $8,000 USD grant for feasibility research, access-building, and core preparatory materials.
- Our first print edition ships in two weeks.
- Hi FAST friends,. The Australian Alliance for Animals is recruiting for a new political advocacy role based in Sydney, Australia. This is an exciting opportunity for an enthusiastic and strategic advocate to drive systemic change for animals by developing advocacy strategies, building coalitions, and influencing decision-makers at the highest levels of state government. Contract: Full Time,...
- Hive Slack Threads: October
- We recently celebrated Diwali, the biggest festival in India, and it is all about hope, light, and the spirit of life. On this occasion, I wanted to share what keeps me going. If you’ve been feeling burned out from witnessing animal cruelty or from everything else wrong with the world, like raging wars and leaders […]. The post Wars. Climate Denial. Cruelty. Still, We Choose Light.
- Target Malaria Uganda recently conducted a community focused quiz competition aimed at raising awareness about malaria prevention and enhancing understanding of the project’s research work. This event took place in two of the project island sites: Lwazi Jaana in Kalangala District and Kansambwe, Nsadzi Island in Mukono District. Held over two consecutive days in each […].
- Over the decade I've spent working on AI safety, I've felt an overall trend of divergence; research partnerships starting out with a sense of a common project, then slowly drifting apart over time. It has been frequently said that AI safety is a pre-paradigmatic field.
- Tasks are simple, many don't require GUIs, and success often hinges on interpreting ambiguous instructions. The benchmark is also not stable over time.
- TLDR: The available evidence is weak. It looks like small protests may be effective at garnering support among the general public. Policy-makers appear to be more sensitive to protest size, and it’s not clear whether small protests have a positive or negative effect on their perception.
- Progress on deforestation, but increased threats from wildfires.
- Jaynes’ Widget Problem : How Do We Update On An Expected Value?. Mr A manages a widget factory. The factory produces widgets of three colors - red, yellow, green - and part of Mr A’s job is to decide how many widgets to paint each color.
- And it was surprisingly good. Based on an old tweet from Eliezer Yudkowsky, I decided to buy a jar of bear fat online, and make a treat for the people at Inkhaven. It was surprisingly good. My post discusses how that happened, and a bit about the implications for Eliezer's thesis.
- From Kitchen to Climate: Sustainable Dining Training 📅 Date: Tuesday Nov 4th ⏰ Time: 12 pm PT / 3 pm ET 📍 Location: Zoom 🔗 Register here (free): https://adamah.tfaforms.net/341. Program Description: Join Adamah and the Center for Jewish Food Ethics for a Sustainable Dining Training on Nov 4th!
- Join our team and help create a better world for millions of animals! We’re currently hiring for three full-time positions in our Norwegian team: 📢 Campaigns & Communications Generalist Be on the front lines convincing major Norwegian food companies to eliminate the most severe causes of animal suffering. 🧰 Operations Generalist Help ensure our organization runs effectively and efficiently...
- Role Summary. As a Policy Specialist (all genders) in the field of Sustainable Public Food Procurement, you will be part of the German Policy Team and responsible both for developing policy proposals that support the implementation of the national nutrition strategy “Good Food for Germany” at state and municipal level, and for engaging in dialogue with political representatives and public...
- Role Summary. The V-Label is an internationally recognized trademark, protected since 1996, that identifies vegetarian and vegan products. In Germany, ProVeg e. V. is responsible for awarding the V-Label. ProVeg is a food awareness organization committed to transforming the global food system by replacing animal-based products with plant-based and cultivated alternatives. Do you want to...
- Dear colleagues,. As part of our efforts to bring more donors and funding into the farmed animal protection movement, Senterra (formerly Farmed Animal Funders) just published an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) about our funder community and ways we’re coordinating to drive outsized impact.
- Dear colleagues,. As part of our efforts to bring more donors and funding into the farmed animal protection movement, Senterra (formerly Farmed Animal Funders) just published an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) about our funder community and ways we’re coordinating to drive outsized impact.
- As far as I'm aware, Anthropic is the only AI company with official AGI timelines : they expect AGI by early 2027. In their recommendations (from March 2025) to the OSTP for the AI action plan they say: As our CEO Dario Amodei writes in 'Machines of Loving Grace', we expect powerful AI systems will emerge in late 2026 or early 2027. Powerful AI systems will have the following properties:
- People often say things like the following about anger’s relationship to other emotions – but are they B.S.? They say: While there is debate about these ideas among people in the field, my opinion is that these statements are misleading and, in some cases, wrong. I think these statements can promote misunderstandings about the nature […]...
- Once upon a time in the medium-small town of Skewers, Washington, there lived a 52-year-old man by the name of Mr. Humman, who considered himself a top-tier chess-player. Now, Mr. Humman was not generally considered the strongest player in town; if you asked the other inhabitants of Skewers, most of them would've named Mr. Neumann as their town's chess champion.
- (Audio version, read by the author, here, or search for "Joe Carlsmith Audio" on your podcast app.). Last Friday was my last day at Open Philanthropy. I’ll be starting a new role at Anthropic in mid-November, helping with the design of Claude’s character/constitution/spec.
- When AI automates AI development, the question shifts from ‘What can we build?’ to ‘What should we build first?’ As difficulty declines, differential value dominates.
- I applaud Eliezer for trying to make himself redundant, and think it's something every intellectually successful person should spend some time and effort on. I've been trying to understand my own "edge" or "moat", or cognitive traits that are responsible for whatever success I've had, in the hope of finding a way to reproduce it in others, but I'm having trouble understanding a part of it, and...
- [Meta: This is Max Harms. I wrote a novel about China and AGI, which comes out today. This essay from my fiction newsletter has been slightly modified for LessWrong.]. In the summer of 1983, Ronald Reagan sat down to watch the film War Games, starring Matthew Broderick as a teen hacker.
- I am a professor of economics. Throughout my career, I was mostly working on economic growth theory, and this eventually brought me to the topic of transformative AI / AGI / superintelligence. Nowadays my work focuses mostly on the promises and threats of this emerging disruptive technology.
- (Audio version, read by the author, here, or search for "Joe Carlsmith Audio" on your podcast app.). Last Friday was my last day at Open Philanthropy. I’ll be starting a new role at Anthropic in mid-November, helping with the design of Claude’s character/constitution/spec.
- Your average day starts with an alarm on your phone. Sometimes, you wake up a couple of minutes before it sounds. Sometimes, you find the button to snooze it. Sometimes, you’re already on the phone and it appears as a notification. But when you finally stop it, the lights in your room turn on and you start your day. You walk out of your room.
- Editors’ Note: David Pozen continues HistPhil’s book forum on John Witt’s The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America (Simon & Schuster, 2025). A version of this post originally appeared on the Balkinization blog, which is conducting a forum on Witt’s book as well, with some outstanding contributions by … Continue reading →...
- Iran is carrying out more construction in and around a mountainous nuclear site. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have captured the city of el-Fasher in Sudan.
- On a career move, and on AI-safety-focused people working at AI companies.
- This is one of the most pedantic posts I’ve ever written.
- I operationalize Anthropic's prediction of "powerful AI" and explain why I'm skeptical
- On a career move, and on AI-safety-focused people working at AI companies. Text version here: https://joecarlsmith.com/2025/11/03/leaving-open-philanthropy-going-to-anthropic/
- It's not all doom and gloom
- What does masculinity have to do with meat? Men’s attachment to meat is tied to traditional masculine ideals, but reframing plant-based eating as strong and self-directed could help change that. The post Macho Meals: How Masculinity Drives Men’s Meat Attachment appeared first on Faunalytics.
- I like to wake up early to watch the sunrise. The sun hits the distant city first, the little sliver of it I can see through the trees. The buildings light up copper against the pale pink sky, and that little sliver is the only bit of saturation in an otherwise grey visual field. Then the sun starts to rise over the hill behind me.
- Recruitment is extremely important and impactful. Some people should be completely obsessed with it.Cross-post from Good Structures. Over the last few years, I helped run several dozen hiring rounds for around 15 high-impact organizations. I've also spent the last few months talking with organizations about their recruitment. I've noticed three recurring themes:
- Feeeeed meeee
- Greetings from a world where…...
- Compassion in World Farming International is a global movement transforming the future of food and farming. We’re recruiting for a passionate and skilled Communications Officer to help amplify our voice and impact across Southern Africa. . Communications Officer – Southern Africa. Role Type: Contract until end of March 2026- Part-time 2 days per week. Location: South Africa - Remote.
- If, like me, you’re a parent of a young child, there’s one thing you’ve come to fear above all else. (And no, it’s not “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters played for the 10,000th time, though that’s a close second.). It’s the humble peanut. Even if your child isn’t allergic to the nuts, past surveys have […]...
- Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column offering you a unique framework for thinking through your moral dilemmas. It’s based on value pluralism — the idea that each of us has multiple values that are equally valid but that often conflict with each other. To submit a question, fill out this anonymous form. Here’s this week’s question from a […]...
- The post Community Health Workers Transform Reproductive Health Service Delivery in Wakiso District, Uganda appeared first on Living Goods.
- Third in a series of short rationality prompts... . My opening rationality move is often "What's my goal?". It is closely followed by: "Why is this hard? And, what can I do about that?". If you're busting out deliberate "rationality" tools (instead of running on intuition or copying your neighbors), something about your situation is probably difficult.
- But, weirdly, this is fine (for now)
- Opiniestuk in De Standaard (3-11-2025) Vorige week lazen we in de krant een artikel dat niet al te veel ophef veroorzaakte. Niemand lijkt te beseffen dat het over veruit de grootste ramp in Vlaanderen gaat: West-Vlaamse boeren die overschakelen op … Lees verder →...
- Last year I did a caffeine cycling self-experiment and I determined that I don’t get habituated to caffeine when I drink coffee three days a week. I did a follow-up experiment where I upgraded to four days a week (Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat) and I found that I still don’t get habituated. For my current weekly routine, I have caffeine on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.
- The Case for DMT for Cluster Headaches: Practical Tips & Why It Deserves Urgent Scientific AttentionTranscript: Using DMT to Abort Cluster Headaches May all beings be free from suffering, especially those who are trapped in hell. Welcome everybody. Today we’re going to talk about a pretty gnarly topic, but it’s a very important one. I think if we focus as a community and make direct, persistent action towards these goals, […]...
- From sand to solar tent gloireri Mon, 11/03/2025 - 05:42 . Moma, Mozambique – When Islova Alberto Aly decided to venture into fish drying, her primary aim was to generate an income to support her children's education.
- My second piece on summarizing Chappell’s summary of his summary of Parfit.
- An Overture. Famously, trans people tend not to have great introspective clarity into their own motivations for transition. Intuitively, they tend to be quite aware of what they do and don't like about inhabiting their chosen bodies and gender roles. But when it comes to explaining the origins and intensity of those preferences, they almost universally to come up short.
- Halfhaven is a virtual blogger camp, an online alternative to Inkhaven Residency. The rules are simple: every day post max 1 article with min 500 words (or equivalent effort). try to get 30 by the end of November (but there are no hard lines). The invitation links keep expiring, the current one is: https://discord.gg/jrJPR3h6.
- Answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about vaping and its effects.
- There is a temptation to simply define Goodness as Human Values, or vice versa. Alas, we do not get to choose the definitions of commonly used words; our attempted definitions will simply be wrong. Unless we stick to mathematics, we will end up sneaking in intuitions which do not follow from our so-called definitions, and thereby mislead ourselves.
- I will be discussing weak-to-strong generalization with Sahil on Monday, November 3rd, 2025, 11am Pacific Daylight Time. You can join the discussion with this link. Weak-to-strong generalization is an approach to alignment (and capabilities) which seeks to address the scarcity of human feedback by using a weak model to teach a strong model.
- It's November! I'm not doing Inkhaven, or NaNoWriMo (RIP), or writing a short story every day, or quitting shaving or anything else. But I (along with some housemates) am going to try to write a blog post of at least 500 words every day of the month. (Inkhaven is just down the street a bit and I'm hoping to benefit from some kind of proximity effect.). Today: Llamamoe on Discord complains about.
- Should we believe our scientific theories?
- Honesty is quite powerful in many cases: if you have a reputation for being honest, people will trust you more and your words will have more weight (or so the argument goes). Unfortunately, being extremely honest all the time is also pretty difficult. What happens when the Nazis come knocking and ask if you have jews in the basement?
- Cross-posted from my website. Epistemic status: This entire essay rests on two controversial premises (linear aggregation and antispeciesism) that I believe are quite robust, but I will not be able to convince anyone that they're true, so I'm not even going to try.
- Discover the 2025 charity recommendations from Animal Charity Evaluators — top animal welfare charities, impact analysis, and giving insights today! … Read more...
- I used to think of networking somewhat like this:
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