EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

Maybe my favorite quote ever is from a recent Scott Alexander article, but in order to explain it, I will have to provide some context.

Scott's recent piece, My Heart of Hearts, is broadly about why we should value ethical consistency. In it, he described his emotional reaction to the Gaza conflict in the following way:

A few months ago, I read an article by an aid worker in Gaza recounting the horrors he’d seen. Among a long litany, one stood out. A little kid came into the hospital with a backpack. The doctors told him he had to put it down so they could treat him, and he refused. The doctors insisted. The kid fought back. Finally someone opened the bag. It was some body part fragments from the kid's dead brother. He couldn’t bear to leave him, so he carried them everywhere he went.

I am a [...]

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First published:

August 8th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gxKJqYF8SKNFHYFZn/a-million-is-made-out-of-a-million-ones

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Audio note: this article contains 69 uses of latex notation, so the narration may be difficult to follow. There's a link to the original text in the episode description.

This is a link post.

How long should you think about a problem that could determine the future of all existence? A mathematical journey from simple bets to existential risks.

Imagine a simple game. There's a jar full of pebbles, and you’re offered a bet. If you can estimate the number of pebbles to within 10%, you win $100,000. If you’re wrong, you lose $100,000. You have as much time as you want to think. How long should you spend? A day? A week? A year?

Now, imagine a much bigger game. You are part of a team that wants to start OpenAI. Your technology could be revolutionary, potentially ushering in an era of explosive economic growth and solving [...]

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Outline:

(02:07) The Ground Rules: Our Simplified World

(04:10) Model 1: Is This Worth My Time?

(05:49) Model 2: The Cost of Delay

(08:20) Model 3: An Accelerating World

(14:18) Conclusion: The Humility of Models

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First published:

August 9th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yP5og65WSPTXsJtov/with-the-future-of-the-world-in-your-hands-think-for-6-77

Linkpost URL:
https://impartial-priorities.org/p/with-the-future-of-the-world-in-your

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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First off, every ethical argument for having children is dominated by other options that are more effective.

1) If you’re worried about population issues, just donate $10k to bednets. That's roughly the equivalent of two extra children existing in the world.

If you only care about population issues in your own country, then there are undoubtedly charities that save/create more lives in your own country that are cheaper than having your own children.

I would also recommend questioning your beliefs that people in your own country matter more than other countries.

2) If you’re worried about “idiocracies” and think your genes would make the difference, donate your sperm/eggs, and call it a day.

This also addresses the whole “you owe it to your ancestors” logic.

If you think you’d provide a better environment for the children than other people, remember that having children that feel like [...]

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First published:

August 10th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mLjfAHwLef8dknK8e/having-children-is-a-deeply-personal-choice-do-not-use

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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This is a personal essay about my failed attempt to convince effective altruists to become socialists. I started as a convinced socialist who thought EA ignored the 'root causes' of poverty by focusing on charity instead of structural change. After studying sociology and economics to build a rigorous case for socialism, the project completely backfired as I realized my political beliefs were largely psychological coping mechanisms.

Here are the key points:

• Understanding the "root cause" of a problem doesn't necessarily lead to better solutions - Even if capitalism causes poverty, understanding "dynamics of capitalism" won't necessarily help you solve it
• Abstract sociological theories are mostly obscurantist bullshit - Academic sociology suffers from either unrealistic mathematical models or vague, unfalsifiable claims that don't help you understand or change the world
• The world is better understood as misaligned incentives rather than coordinated oppression - Most social [...]

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First published:

August 10th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AcPw55oF3reBiW4FX/of-marx-and-moloch-how-my-attempt-to-convince-effective

Linkpost URL:
https://honestsignals.substack.com/p/of-marx-and-moloch-or-my-misguided

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

To what extent, in the future, will we get widespread, accurate, and motivational moral convergence - where future decision-makers avoid all major moral mistakes, are motivated to act to promote good outcomes, and are able to do so? And, even if we only get partial convergence, to what extent can we get to a near-best future by different groups, with very different moral views, coming together to compromise and trade?

In a new essay, Convergence and Compromise, Fin Moorhouse and I (Will) discuss these ideas.

Given “no easy eutopia”, we’re very unlikely to get to a near-best future by default. Instead, we’ll need people to try really hard to bring it about: very proactively trying to figure out what's morally best - even if initially counterintuitive or strange - and trying to make that happen.

So: how likely is that to happen?

Convergence

First: maybe, in the future, most [...]

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Outline:

(01:06) Convergence

(05:35) Compromise

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First published:

August 8th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qdcRfuqSfBBYJu6bx/will-morally-motivated-actors-steer-us-towards-a-near-best

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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This is a link post.

(I wrote this quickly for my own edification. It isn't original thinking; it condenses takes I’ve read on X over the past few days. Where relevant I’ve linked tweets. I hope it's helpful for people.)

Watching an OpenAI launch now feels like watching an Apple keynote in the early 2010s. As a kid, I was giddy about which new, unaffordable iPhone would drop. I’ll probably look back on my twenties as the years I felt the same mix of excitement and perhaps fear about whatever OpenAI released next.

At first glance on X, before I had access to the model, the mood was mostly disappointment. Some people pushed their timelines out; a few even talked about the end of the pre-training paradigm. The live presentation had a couple of funny slip-ups.

I’m not a technical person, and my naive expectation was that GPT-5 would feel [...]

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First published:

August 9th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/m8H2QooDJzGaTDXYK/notes-and-updates-on-gpt-5

Linkpost URL:
https://robertgaurav.xyz/notes/gpt5

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gpt-3 -> gpt-4 were all ~100x scaleups in pretraining compute. gpt-5 is not. building projects like stargate and colossus2 to actually 100x gpt-4 compute takes time, let the labs cook :)". The tweet offers a perspective on AI model development, suggesting that while previous GPT models saw significant computational increases, GPT-5 development may require more patience as larger projects are being built." style="max-width: 100%;" />

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This past June, we hosted EA Global: London 2025. This was my second EAG as Program Lead and one that ended up feeling like a real milestone for the project. I’ve been reflecting on why that was, and so I wanted to share a few thoughts on what stood out to me, what we’re proud of, and what we’re doing next.

The best EAG yet (by the numbers)

This was our largest EAG to date, with 1,596 people in attendance. It was also our best-performing EAG based on two other important metrics: net cost-per-attendee and likelihood to recommend. To provide a few more details:

• Attendance: We saw a 12% increase from last year's EAG London! This was our largest EAG ever and (probably) the largest in-person gathering of EAs, ever.
• Net cost-per-attendee: The net cost-per-attendee was around $850 USD. This means EA Global: London 2025 was the [...]

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Outline:

(00:32) The best EAG yet (by the numbers)

(02:02) The vibes were very good

(03:31) A few more things I was excited about

(04:46) What's next?

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First published:

August 8th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6ytWGP2MBoym6qs6S/a-reflection-on-ea-global-london-2025

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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TLDR

1. Group Support Grants are back, with payout processing[1] from 11th August!

2. Rapid Group Funding is merging into Group Support Grants (but you can still request fast-track processing)

3. Apply here!

We are delighted to announce that Group Support Grant payouts are resuming from 11th August 2025. This follows our previous announcement that payouts would be paused during June and July.

We’re welcoming all EA groups[2] - regardless of type, size or location - to apply now! Historically, we think too few groups have applied.

 About Group Support Grants

CEA provides grants to university and local groups because we believe groups are a crucial way to grow and nurture the EA community. Grant funding helps groups thrive by enabling organisers to run more and better quality activities, and ultimately inspire more people to aim to do as much good as they can with their careers.

[...]

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Outline:

(00:52) About Group Support Grants

(01:58) If you've already applied for Group Support Funding

(02:26) Important Change to Rapid Group Funding

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First published:

August 7th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/n8gatKB4i7zhaiH4f/apply-now-group-support-grants-are-back

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Narrated by TYPE III 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.

Why ending the worst abuses of factory farming is an issue ripe for moral reform

I recently joined Dwarkesh Patel's podcast to discuss factory farming. I hope you’ll give it a listen — and consider supporting his fundraiser for FarmKind's Impact Fund. (Dwarkesh is matching all donations up to $250K; use the code “dwarkesh”.)

We discuss two contradictory views about factory farming that produce the same conclusion: that its end is either inevitable or impossible.

Some techno-optimists assume factory farming will vanish in the wake of AGI. Some pessimists see reforming it as a hopeless cause. Both camps arrive at the same conclusion: fatalism. If factory farming is destined to end, or persist, then what's [...]

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First published:

August 8th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HiGmRwq4YiDzggRLH/not-inevitable-not-impossible

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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TL;DR: If a (meta) org had a meaningful impact on you (in line with what they hope to achieve), you should probably tell them. It is essential for their impact reporting, which is essential for them to continue operating. You are likely underestimating just how valuable your story is to them. It could be thousands of dollars worth.

Thanks to Toby Tremlett, Lauren Mee and Sofia Balderson for reviewing a draft version of this post. All mistakes are my own.

1. Many organisations shaped my career — yet I usually only shared my story when prompted. In reflecting on my career journey, I was reminded of all the organizations who led me to where I am. I believe I reported their counterfactual contribution back to them, but this was not usually by my own doing. In two cases, I was personally reached out to - in one case, I [...]

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First published:

August 8th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3v6kghxMttEhbK3dT/consider-thanking-whoever-helped-you

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.