EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

It's been several years since I was an EA student group organiser, so please forgive any part of this post which feels out of touch (& correct me in comments!)

Wow, student group organising is hard.

A few structural things that make it hard to be an organiser:

1. You maybe haven’t had a job before, or have only had kind of informal jobs. So, you might not have learned a lot of stuff about how to accomplish things at work.
2. You’re probably trying to do a degree at the same time, which is hard enough on its own!
3. You don’t have the structure and benefits provided by a regular 9-5 job at an organisation, like:
   1. A manager
   2. An office
   3. Operational support
   4. People you can ask for help & advice
   5. A network
4. You have, at most, a year or so to skill up before you might be responsible [...]

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First published:

September 12th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zMBFSesYeyfDp6Fj4/student-group-organising-is-hard-and-important

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Hi EAs!

We posted earlier about Legal Impact for Chickens (LIC) proving in court that SPCAs can sue to stop agricultural cruelty. LIC had survived a demurrer in our lawsuit against well-known dairy Alexandre Family Farm. In a victory for farmed animals, the Humboldt County Superior Court had acknowledged LIC's power, as a California society for the prevention of cruelty to animals (SPCA), to prevent animal cruelty through civil litigation.

Since then, Alexandre petitioned the California Court of Appeal for a writ of mandate against the Humboldt County Superior Court itself. Alexandre asked the appellate court to intervene in the LIC v. Alexandre lawsuit by ordering the Superior Court to change its mind and dismiss the case after all. This appeared to be an attempt to avoid litigation on the question of whether Alexandre is, in fact, committing illegal animal cruelty.

So LIC retained a powerful team of [...]

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First published:

September 12th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gvGnMQdJHoGdamsow/spca-cruelty-enforcement-case-clears-another-hurdle

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Early work on ”GiveWell for AI Safety”

Intro

EA was founded on the principle of cost-effectiveness. We should fund projects that do more with less, and more generally, spend resources as efficiently as possible. And yet, while much interest, funding, and resources in EA have shifted towards AI safety, it's rare to see any cost-effectiveness calculations. The focus on AI safety is based on vague philosophical arguments that the future could be very large and valuable, and thus whatever is done towards this end is worth orders of magnitude more than most short-term effects.

Even if AI safety is the most important problem, you should still strive to optimize how resources are spent to achieve maximum impact, since there are limited resources.

Global health organizations and animal welfare organizations work hard to measure cost-effectiveness, evaluate charities, make sure effects are counterfactual, run RCTs, estimate moral weights, scope out interventions [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) Early work on GiveWell for AI Safety

(00:16) Intro

(02:43) Step 1: Gathering data

(03:00) Viewer minutes

(03:35) Costs and revenue

(04:49) Results

(05:08) Step 2: Quality-adjusting

(05:40) Quality of Audience (Qa)

(06:58) Fidelity of Message (Qf)

(08:05) Alignment of Message (Qm)

(08:53) Results

(09:37) Observations

(12:37) How to help

(13:36) Appendix: Examples of Data Collection

(13:42) Rob Miles

(14:18) AI Species (Drew Spartz)

(14:56) Rational Animations

(15:32) AI in Context

(15:52) Cognitive Revolution

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First published:

September 12th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SBsGCwkoAemPawfJz/how-cost-effective-are-ai-safety-youtubers

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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Lately I’ve been trying to raise awareness of AI risks among American conservatives. Stopping the reckless development of advanced AI agents (including Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Superintelligence (ASI)) should be a human issue, not a partisan issue. Yet most people working in AI safety advocacy lean to the Left politically, and we seem to be ignoring many potential allies on the Right.

This neglect of conservative allies seems suboptimal, given that the Republican Party currently controls all three branches of the U.S. government (including the Presidency, the Supreme Court, and majorities in the House and the Senate). Granted, the pro-AI lobbyists, Big Tech accelerationists, and tech VCs like Andreessen Horowitz have some influence with the current White House (e.g. on AI Czar David Sacks), but many conservative political leaders in the executive and legislative branches have expressed serious public concerns about AI risks.

In the [...]

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First published:

September 11th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/g44SMGzwKGTYhqSXM/my-talk-on-ai-risks-at-the-national-conservatism-conference

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

A special edition of our flagship CE program, focused on increasing effectiveness in the philanthropic sector.

TL;DR: Each year, AIM incubates new nonprofits in global health and farmed animal welfare. In 2026, we’ll also run a special edition round dedicated to launching ~3–5 new philanthropic organizations. Applications for all three 2026 cohorts are open until October 5th.

 

What

We’re thrilled to announce that in 2026, AIM's Charity Entrepreneurship Program will expand to three rounds per year. Two of these rounds will continue our proven focus on farmed animals and global health. The third will expand on opportunities we’ve identified to shape the philanthropic sector by launching a set of new, impactful organizations.

The organizations may focus on activities such as:

• Providing specialist advisory services to large donors 
• Training grantmakers
• Running high-quality, outcome-focused events for philanthropists
• Launching targeted, theme-driven funds
• Producing edu-tainment around grantmaking 

In the past [...]

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Outline:

(00:42) What

(01:59) Why

(02:45) Who

(03:15) Structure of the program

(03:46) One application for three cohorts

(04:52) Excited?

(05:19) Questions?

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First published:

September 10th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wRNtqKHbsEjZPXE5j/want-to-start-a-philanthropic-organization-announcing-aim-s

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

or Maximizing Good Within Your Personal Constraints

Note: The specific numbers and examples below are approximations meant to illustrate the framework. Your actual calculations will vary based on your situation, values, and cause area. The goal isn't precision—it's to start thinking explicitly about impact per unit of sacrifice rather than assuming certain actions are inherently virtuous.

You're at an EA meetup. Two people are discussing their impact:

Alice: "I went vegan, buy only secondhand, bike everywhere, and donate 5% of my nonprofit salary to animal charities."

Bob: "I work in finance, eat whatever, and donate 40% of my income to animal charities."

Who gets more social approval? Alice. Who prevents more animal suffering? Bob—by orders of magnitude.

Alice's choices improve welfare for hundreds of animal-years annually through diet change and her $2,500 donation. Bob's $80,000 donation improves tens of thousands of animal-years through corporate campaigns. Yet Alice is [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) or Maximizing Good Within Your Personal Constraints

(01:31) The Personal Constraint Framework

(02:26) Return on Sacrifice (RoS): The Core Metric

(03:05) Case Studies: Where Good Intentions Go Wrong

(03:10) Career: The Counterfactual Question

(04:32) Environmental Action: Personal vs. Systemic

(05:13) Information and Influence

(05:45) Truth vs. Reach

(06:17) The Uncomfortable Truth About Offsets

(07:43) When Personal Practice Actually Matters

(08:22) Your Personal Impact Portfolio

(09:38) The Reallocation Exercise

(10:40) Addressing the Predictable Objections

(11:41) The Call to Action

(12:10) The Bottom Line

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First published:

September 10th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/u9WzAcyZkBhgWAew5/your-sacrifice-portfolio-is-probably-terrible

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Introduction

Giving What We Can (GWWC) has partnered with a variety of organisations, both within and outside of the EA ecosystem, to promote the 🔸10% Pledge and 🔹Trial Pledge in ways tailored to their audiences. These partnerships provide new avenues for people to learn about and take giving pledges, helping to direct more funds toward highly impactful opportunities.

If you’re interested in exploring a partnership with GWWC, reach out to [email protected] (GWWC's Partnerships Manager).

Coming out of the Effective Giving Summit in June (where Nina Friedrich from HIP led a session on promoting giving pledges) we wanted to share some of our key takeaways, as well as learnings from partners that have successfully driven a high volume of pledges. Our hope is that others can adapt and build on these strategies in their own work.

1. Meeting 1-1 with your community (example: Mieux Donner)

Mieux Donner is a fundraising [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) Introduction

(01:05) 1. Meeting 1-1 with your community (example: Mieux Donner)

(02:02) When cold reaching out, personalise your ask

(03:17) Leverage in-person events

(03:40) Prepare for the conversation (optional)

(03:49) 2. Cohort-based programs (example: High Impact Professionals)

(03:57) Overview of our pledge drive

(05:09) Strategies we use to inspire pledges

(06:27) How we build trust and motivation to pledge among our participants

(07:29) You can apply these learnings in different organisations/settings

(08:38) Key lessons

(09:54) 3. Digital ad campaigns (example: Animal Advocacy Careers)

(10:56) Meta ads

(12:20) 4. Passive pledge generation (example: Effektiv Spenden)

(14:07) Interested in a Pledge Partnership?

(15:33) What our partners say

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First published:

September 10th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/39nagbirZPkiWivvn/strategies-for-promoting-giving-pledges

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Note: This post was crossposted from the Lauren Policy blog by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.

Most of this blog is about international migration, and particularly, the economics of international migration. I write about income gains, but more in the sense of “here is the headline result of a working paper” rather than personal stories. This post is an exception to that.

I joined Malengo for their annual retreat[1] this year, and had a chance to speak to a number of young international migrants about their experience.

Malengo is an NGO facilitating international migration. It supports Ugandan and refugee students[2] in obtaining a German university degree and then working in Germany.

When a student moves to Germany, their life prospects improve markedly. A Ugandan university graduate will be lucky to earn $5,000 a year; a [...]

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Outline:

(04:09) How It's Going

(05:36) Malengo Student Interviews

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First published:

September 8th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zFbDpTb5xjTnntCpf/what-happens-when-you-send-ugandan

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

In the town hall in Siena, there is a set of frescos by Lorenzetti called the Allegory of Good and Bad Government. It was painted between 1338 and 1339 on the walls of the Sala dei Nove, where Siena's magistrates held council.

One of the long walls shows the Effects of good government. The harvest is ready in the fields and vineyards beyond the city walls, a farmer drives his pig to town, the city is clean and elegant, and citizens are dancing in the streets to celebrate a wedding.

One of the dancers is wearing a dress embroidered with dragonflies.

When the councilman sat to make their decisions, that was what they were looking at and hoping for.

On the opposite wall is a fresco showing the Effects of bad government, but I think they get enough airtime as is, so I’m not going to go [...]

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Outline:

(04:30) A post-AGI allegory

(10:46) Postscript: what we stand to lose

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First published:

September 10th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JjicJYdxsJsyqMyYk/good-government

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Executive Summary

I think EA community building is too focused on frameworks and optimising for impact when what actually works is much more basic: genuine relationships and starting where people already are, not just treating the community as instrumental for impact, but something valuable in and of itself.

Learn from groups that actually work. Every other society at freshers' fair is trying to build student communities too, and many of them do it better than us. We're not special just because we care about impact, and our focus on this probably makes us worse than the groups that solely focus on community.

Start with altruism, not EA concepts. Instead of "EA is a way of thinking about how to do the most good," try "Want to figure out how you can do more good for the world? Let's explore that together." People who genuinely care about helping others are [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) Executive Summary

(02:13) Introduction

(03:02) On Learning from Others

(04:39) On Starting with Altruism, Not Frameworks

(06:15) On Building Genuine Community

(07:57) On Facilitation and Relationships

(08:28) On Strategy and Learning

(12:37) On Power Dynamics and Hierarchy

(14:01) On Programming Alternatives

(15:31) Key Takeaways for Community Builders

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First published:

September 9th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/agFxcinYtBqjDgCNk/sam-s-hot-takes-on-ea-community-building

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.