EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

Note: This post was crossposted from the Open Philanthropy Farm Animal Welfare Research Newsletter by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.

How I decided what to say — and what not to

I’m excited to share my TED talk. Here I want to share the story of how the talk came to be, and the three biggest decisions I struggled with in drafting it.

The backstory

Last fall, I posted on X about Trump's new Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, vowing to undo state bans on the sale of pork from crated pigs. I included an image of a pig in a crate.

Liv Boeree, a poker champion and past TED speaker, saw that post and was haunted by it. She told me that she couldn’t get the image of the crated pig out of her [...]

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First published:

September 5th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XjQr52eDkBPLrLHB3/my-ted-talk

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Some quick but important disclaimers:

• I'm definitely not an expert in the topics discussed, and the thoughts I've put together here are not particularly rigorous. This is really just a call for broader discussion of this topic, and a request for people to consider acting on or evaluating the "Next Steps" below.
• This article was largely written with animal welfare considerations in mind. Though you could substitute in different cause areas, this obviously introduces different considerations (I think aid interventions or climate will be more partisan, for instance but others like AI Safety could more easily draw bipartisan support).
• This is my first EA Forum post. Any general feedback is appreciated!

1. Why the UK Might Be in a Politically Unusual Moment

A few global trends indicate that we're currently in a time of political volatility: incumbent leaders are being ousted more readily than before; the influence of [...]

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Outline:

(00:56) 1. Why the UK Might Be in a Politically Unusual Moment

(03:25) 2. Why This Could Make Political Interventions More Tractable

(04:47) 3. Possible Next Steps

(06:30) 4. Risks and Objections

(07:46) Bottom line:

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First published:

September 3rd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qX3hRrnxsLGciQxQX/is-now-an-unusually-good-time-to-pursue-political

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Introduction

Inspired by Paul Christiano's 2019 piece What failure looks like, we sketch a range of ways in which a future with powerful AI may go badly for animals.

We suggest:

1. At some point in the future, AI is likely to become very powerful (e.g. AGI, TAI, ASI).
2. This point may be soon (e.g. by 2030).
3. Powerful AI is likely to have a huge impact on animals.
4. We don’t know what this impact on animals will be, and it could be very bad or catastrophic.

Here are two philosophical assumptions we make for the purposes of this piece:

1. The moral value and relevance of animals derives from their status as sentient individuals. Their membership of a group (like a species), their role in or impact on an ecosystem, or their aesthetic value in the eyes of humans fall outside the scope of this piece.
2. Adopting a pluralistic [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) Introduction

(02:12) Ways things go badly for animals

(08:33) Conclusion

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First published:

September 3rd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/DHqDsSCCt7udcBYcw/what-failure-looks-like-for-animals

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a set of personal reflections from running EA in the Lakes, a lower-cost retreat in the northern UK. (we've also got some great photos of reflections in water sources, if that's more your thing.)

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The organising team: I was the organising team. To be fair, my housemate (who works in mental health) was going to come along and do participant welfare / shuttle driving but then had to be at counselling supervision, and my backup event cook friend got a paid cooking job that weekend as well. The perils of volunteer organising! Never mind, I can organise, cook, welfare, first aid, and drive if I have to (don't plan to do this). I appointed a couple of helpers on free tickets from our EAs for content-based query handling and extra super-boring logistics work like bin emptying.

To anyone in EA thinking of solo organising, my advice [...]

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First published:

September 3rd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YzH8QzxYJDkR7Gm7X/ea-in-the-lakes-reflections

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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This is a link post.

Forecasting Research Institute just released a new report: Assessing Near-Term Accuracy in the Existential Risk Persuasion Tournament

In June–October 2022, we convened 169 people to participate in the “Existential Risk Persuasion Tournament” (XPT). The XPT participants included both superforecasters with proven forecasting track records and domain experts with subject-matter expertise. The tournament incentivized accurate forecasting and persuasive argumentation about long-term risks humanity may face, including risks from artificial intelligence (AI), climate change, nuclear war, and pandemics. This report analyzes respondents’ forecasting accuracy on 38 near-term questions that resolved by mid-2025.

The study finds overall performance parity between superforecasters and domain experts, with both groups underestimating AI progress and overestimating improvements in climate technology. Both superforecasters and domain experts substantially outperformed a baseline of educated members of the general public.

Read the full report here: https://forecastingresearch.org/near-term-xpt-accuracy

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First published:

September 2nd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fp5kEpBkhWsGgWu2D/assessing-near-term-accuracy-in-the-existential-risk

Linkpost URL:
https://forecastingresearch.org/near-term-xpt-accuracy

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

tl;dr - If timelines are short, it's too late, and if they are long (and if we don't all die,) the way to win the "AI race" is to generate more benefit from AI, not control of chip production.

In AI policy, there's a lot of focus on the speed frontier AI develops and becomes increasingly important for the economy, and creates substantial new risks of loss of control. There is also a lot of focus on the chips needed for training and running the frontier models, which involves industrial policy around who has the chips, and who can make them. This leads to a questionable narrative around the race for AGI, but even before we get to that question, there's a simple question about the dynamics of the two dimensions.

If AI takeoff is fast, the question of where the chips will be located is already determined [...]

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First published:

August 31st, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7GHbwiDqMLYr2g4S7/chip-production-policy-won-t-matter-as-much-as-you-d-think

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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In 2021, a circle of researchers left OpenAI, after a bitter dispute with their executives. They started a competing company, Anthropic, stating that they wanted to put safety first. The safety community responded with broad support. Thought leaders recommended engineers to apply, and allied billionaires invested.[1]

Anthropic's focus has shifted – from internal-only research and cautious demos of model safety and capabilities, toward commercialising models for Amazon and the military.

Despite the shift, 80,000 Hours continues to recommend talented engineers to join Anthropic. On the LessWrong forum, many authors continue to support safety work at Anthropic, but I also see side-conversations where people raise concerns about premature model releases and policy overreaches. So, a bunch of seemingly conflicting opinions about work by different Anthropic staff, and no overview. But the bigger problem is that we are not evaluating Anthropic on its original justification for existence.

Did early researchers put [...]

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Outline:

(04:47) 1. Scaled GPT before founding Anthropic

(19:02) Rationale #1: 'AI progress is inevitable'

(24:09) Rationale #2: 'we scale first so we can make it safe'

(30:01) Rationale #3: 'we reduce the hardware overhang now to prevent disruption later'

(32:39) 2. Founded an AGI development company and started competing on capabilities

(39:12) Early commitments

(41:09) Degrading commitments

(44:52) Declining safety governance

(46:27) 3. Lobbied for policies that minimised Anthropic's accountability for safety

(47:14) Minimal 'Responsible Scaling Policies'

(59:20) Lobbied against provisions in SB 1047

(01:02:25) 4. Built ties with AI weapons contractors and the US military

(01:03:50) Anthropics intel-defence partnership

(01:06:20) Anthropics earlier ties

(01:07:40) 5. Promoted band-aid fixes to speculative risks over existing dangers that are costly to address

(01:11:50) Cheap fixes for risks that are still speculative

(01:14:02) Example of an existing problem that is costly to address

(01:17:20) Conclusion

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First published:

September 1st, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/izGaTX3E7tdTa29a5/anthropic-s-leading-researchers-acted-as-moderate

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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I and David Manheim, a Good Judgement's superforecaster, agreed on the following bet on 19 May 2025:

• If the mean monthly unemployment rate in the United States (US) in 2027, as reported by the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), is higher than 8 %, I donate 2 k$ to an organisation or fund of David's choice in January 2028.
• Otherwise, David donates 1 k$ to an organisation or fund of my choice in January 2028. Currently, it would be the Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research's (CEARCH's) High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF), which I estimate decreases 5.07 billion soil-animal-years per $.

Neglecting the risk of the bet not being fulfilled, it is worth it for me if my probability of winning is higher than 1/3 (= 1/(2*10^3/(1*10^3) + 1)).

Here are my and David's informal signatures:

• Vasco Grilo.
• David Manheim.

I remain open to bets against short AI timelines, or what they supposedly [...]

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First published:

September 1st, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BjtFYiWrKpFWmtKXZ/i-bet-superforecaster-david-manheim-2-kusd-that-the

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

The AIM incubation program was always built a little like the incubation program I wish I'd had when I was much younger and founding Charity Science Outreach or Charity Science Health. For me, founding was going to happen with or without a program, and yet even 10 years and three projects into founding, I'm still seriously considering going through my own program if I found again (I'm considering both the AIM charity program and the AIM Founding to Give program).

I think the value proposition for new founders of an incubation program is fairly clear at this point, but I thought it might be interesting for people to read about why I think even more experienced founders can gain quite a lot from the process.

Cohort: A big benefit I see personally from going through the AIM program is being part of a cohort. I'm already a member of [...]

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First published:

September 1st, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8KMHepCvzeCCwQ7xC/why-experienced-founders-should-still-consider-incubators

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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🚀 Applications are now live for two future-facing animal welfare fellowships from Sentient Futures! 

Application Deadlines:

• Prioritizing Neglected Animals Fellowship:
  • Learner deadline: September 15
  • Facilitator deadline: September 23
• AI×Animals Fellowship:
  • Learner deadline: October 8
  • Facilitator deadline: September 17

AI×Animals Fellowship

AI×Animals is an 8-week program preparing learners for impactful careers at the intersection of AI and animal welfare. As part of the fellowship, learners will join an industry-leading community working at the forefront of AI and sentient welfare for expert-facilitated weekly discussions following our curated curriculum. If you are excited to ensure the future of AI is positive for all beings, regardless of species, we encourage you to apply!

Learn more and apply to be a learner (deadline: October 8) or facilitator (deadline: September 17).

Prioritizing Neglected Animals Fellowship

Prioritizing Neglected Animals explores how to make the biggest difference for animal welfare—both now [...]

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Outline:

(00:14) 🚀 Applications are now live for two future-facing animal welfare fellowships from Sentient Futures!

(00:46) AI×Animals Fellowship

(01:38) Prioritizing Neglected Animals Fellowship

(03:04) AI, Animals, and Digital Minds Conference

(03:23) Further Info/Frequently Asked Questions:

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First published:

August 30th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4yyC7jWr5JLyZeDR9/want-to-make-the-future-go-well-for-animals-apply-to-a

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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