A new article went viral on Twitter today: Nan Ransohoff's "The Third Wave of American Philanthropy" (link). Worth reading first.

Nan is right about the shape of what's coming: hundreds of billions in new philanthropic capital, no ecosystem yet to absorb it, and a shortage of builders and organizations. I very much agree with that sentiment and the direction. More money, more people willing to start things, more urgency.

But the conclusion I draw is almost the opposite. The new philanthropic wave shouldn't go hunting for new problems. Far more of it should go to animals. There are literally trillions of lives suffering so gravely in all corners of the world. The future is still incredibly grim; AI can impose even more significant suffering if we don't do it right. "Animal welfare" isn't one solved issue to cross off: it's where most of the sentience and suffering is, and where we should be looking.

Animals are not one solved issue. It's not one issue

EAs recognized the importance of animal suffering – factory farming, wild animal suffering – long before the rest of the world, which still has not really recognized its importance. That was the insight. And [...]

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Outline:

(01:10) Animals are not one solved issue. It's not one issue

(02:03) The problems are staring right at us

(04:12) AI x Animals

(05:23) Stop looking past them

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First published:

Source:

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.