EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

Hello, EA community! There's likely nothing new here that most of you aren’t already aware of. I wrote this on my blog in the hopes of reaching more people who like me, might be persuaded to take impact more seriously and don't fixate on dairy (or dogma). If you know someone like that please share.

One of the most common things a vegan hears is, "I could never be vegan because I can't give up cheese." This resistance is understandable, given that dairy products are everywhere—in almost every dish, cuisine, and culture across the world—and it seems harmless at first glance.

What's not obvious is that mammals such as cows only produce milk for a short while (usually ~10 months) post pregnancy. This means cows have to be repeatedly impregnated, their calves are separated from them, and if the calves are male, they are often [...]

---

Outline:

(01:36) Giving up dairy doesn't spare as many cows as wed like it to

(04:05) What matters in the end is what works

The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:

Source:

Linkpost URL:
https://feedingprogress.com/p/rethinking-the-impact-of-advocating

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

A friend of mine who worked as a social worker in a hospital told me a story that stuck with me. She had a conversation with an in-patient having a very difficult time. It was helpful, but as she was leaving, they told her wistfully 'You get to go home'. She found it hard to hear—it felt like an admonition. It was hard not to feel guilt over indeed getting to leave the facility and try to stop thinking about it, when others didn't have that luxury.

The story really stuck with me. I resonate with the guilt of being in the fortunate position of being able to go back to my comfortable home and chill with my family while so many beings can't escape the horrible situations they're in, or whose very chance at existence depends on our work.

Hearing the story was helpful for dealing with that [...]

---

Outline:

(01:30) When morality feels all-consuming

(02:27) Beyond the reach of morality

(03:43) Living it out

---

First published:

Source:

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

TL;DR:

Sanaria Inc., developer of the PfSPZ malaria vaccine—a candidate demonstrating ~90% efficacy that could interrupt malaria transmission and be used for targeted geogrpahic malaria elimination—is at risk of shutting down due to NIH funding freezes. Immediate philanthropic support has the potential to significantly reduce annual malaria deaths by preserving critical vaccine R&D.

Disclosure: I am the son of Sanaria's CEO, Dr. Stephen Hoffman, but have no financial or research affiliations with the company. My current research work is global health- and pandemic prevention/FarUVC-related, but not related to malaria control/vaccine R&D. Just a son proud of his father's (and mother's!) tireless commitment to our people and planet.

What's Happened:

In 2025, abrupt federal funding disruptions—driven by escalating anti-science policies and politicized grant cancellations—jeopardized Sanaria's operations. Since April 2025, Sanaria has been unable to access previously awarded NIH grant funds due to politically driven funding freezes under the current U.S. [...]

---

Outline:

(00:12) TL;DR:

(01:04) Whats Happened:

(01:57) As of 9am EST on June 12, 2025, the company received notification that an additional 5 active NIH grants (total value ~$20 million in funding) have been indefinitely paused.

(02:21) Background:

(04:32) Funding Needs and Use:

(05:15) Why This Matters:

(06:25) How You Can Help:

---

First published:

Source:

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

We at Rethink Priorities’ Animal Welfare Department want to ensure our work contributes to the animal advocacy movement to its full potential, so we’re seeking your feedback!

📊 To ensure we're bringing impact for animals and the broad animal-focused movement, we kindly ask you to fill out this short survey by Sunday, June 29, EOD. It's especially important if you previously engaged with our work.

Your feedback, no matter if negative, positive, candid, short, or long, is crucial to understanding our impact, usefulness for the movement, and our room for improvement and growth.

Please consider helping us: this can take 10-25 minutes of your time, but we’ll make sure to pay attention to every input! 🎯

Thanks,
Elisa and Ula, on behalf of the RP Animal Welfare team

---

First published:

Source:

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

TL;DR I'm going to be setting up an initiative where I offer free stays in a 25-ish person hostel to EA groups for community-building / burnout-recovery purposes. Hostel is Pardshaw Quaker Centre in the northern Lake District, UK. Lots of nice views and lakes. Should hopefully happen by next year. Come along in August to check it out.

--

I've noticed a lot of yearning for community in EA recently. Makes sense: if you're working on a world-shattering, life-destroyingly important problem, you'd best well not be doing it alone!

I thought I'd let everyone know about a new initiative I'm putting together to construct a residential retreat space EAs can use in the Lake District, UK. This is off the back of my work with the site as a Quaker, and also off the back of me running a fair amount of weekend events for my various hobbies.

Pardshaw [...]

---

First published:

Source:

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I am deeply saddened to share that Gabrielle Young, a much-loved member of the EA NZ community and personal friend, died last month. This is an absolutely devastating loss, and our hearts go out to Gabby's friends and family, including her parents and her sister Brigette.

While most of us knew her through EA, Gabby was an incredibly vibrant person with a diverse range of interests. She brought an infectious enthusiasm to everything she did, from software development to parkour and meditation. Music was also a huge part of Gabby's life. She performed with multiple groups— including ACAPOLLiNATiONS, the Medena ensemble and Gamelan— and enjoyed recording original music with friends.

Though EA was just one part of Gabby's life, it was an important one. Like many of us, she cared deeply about alleviating suffering. And in her short life, Gabby had an amazing impact [...]

The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:

Source:

Linkpost URL:
https://effectivealtruism.nz/blog/gabrielle-young

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Shape and lead the future of effective altruism in the UK — apply to be the Director of EA UK.

The UK has the world's second-largest EA community, with London having the highest concentration of EAs globally. This represents a significant opportunity to strengthen and grow the effective altruism movement where it matters most.

The EA UK board is recruiting for a new Director, as our existing Director is moving on to another opportunity. We believe that the strongest version of EA UK is one where the Director is implementing a strategy that they have created themselves, hence the open nature of this opportunity.

As Director of EA UK, you'll have access to:

• An established organisation with 9 years of London community building experience
• An extensive network and documented history of what works (and what doesn't)
• 5-7 months of secured funding to develop and implement your vision
• A [...]

---

First published:

Source:

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

First published:

Source:

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Recently, Anthropic released Opus 4 and said they couldn't rule out the model triggering ASL-3 safeguards due to the model's CBRN capabilities. That is, they say they couldn't rule out that this model had "the ability to significantly help individuals or groups with basic technical backgrounds (e.g., undergraduate STEM degrees) create/obtain and deploy CBRN weapons" (quoting from Anthropic's RSP). More specifically, Anthropic is worried about the model's capabilities in assisting with bioweapons. (See footnote 3 here.)

Given this and results on Virology Capabilities Test, it seems pretty likely that various other AI companies have or will soon have models which can significantly help amateurs make bioweapons.[1] One relevant question is whether it would be bad if there were open-weight models above this capability threshold. Further, should people advocate for not releasing open-weight models above this capability level?

In this post, I'll discuss how I think about releasing [...]

---

Outline:

(02:45) Costs and benefits of open-weight models with these CBRN capabilities

(08:12) Implications of this cost-benefit situation

(11:39) When would my views on open weights change?

(14:32) Mitigations

The original text contained 10 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:

Source:

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

AI companies claim that their models are safe on the basis of dangerous capability evaluations. OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic publish reports intended to show their eval results and explain why those results imply that the models' capabilities aren't too dangerous.[1] Unfortunately, the reports mostly don't support the companies' claims. Crucially, the companies usually don't explain why they think the results, which often seem strong, actually indicate safety, especially for biothreat and cyber capabilities. (Additionally, the companies are undereliciting and thus underestimating their models' capabilities, and they don't share enough information for people on the outside to tell how bad this is.)

Bad explanation/contextualization

OpenAI biothreat evals: OpenAI says "several of our biology evaluations indicate our models are on the cusp of being able to meaningfully help novices create known biological threats, which would cross our high risk threshold." It doesn't say how it concludes this (or what results [...]

---

Outline:

(00:54) Bad explanation/contextualization

(04:34) Dubious elicitation

The original text contained 6 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:

Source:

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.