EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

In this episode of our podcast, Elizabeth Van Nostrand and I talk to Oliver Habryka of Lightcone Infrastructure about his thoughts on the Open Philanthropy Project, which he believes has become stifled by the PR interests of its primary funder, Good Ventures.

Oliver's main claim is that around mid 2023 or early 2024, Good Ventures founder Dustin Moskovitz became more concerned about his reputation, and this put a straight jacket over what Open Phil could fund. Moreover it was not enough for a project to be good and pose low reputational risk; it had to be obviously low reputational risk, because OP employees didn’t have enough communication with Good Ventures to pitch exceptions. According to Habryka.

That's a big caveat; this podcast is pretty one sided. We invited OpenPhil to send a representative to record their own episode, but they decided to just send a written response (which is [...]

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First published:

May 2nd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/s38brRDm7sG8JgHxB/oliver-habryka-on-openphil-and-goodventures

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Introduction

I have been writing posts critical of mainstream EA narratives about AI capabilities and timelines for many years now. Compared to the situation when I wrote my posts in 2018 or 2020, LLMs now dominate the discussion, and timelines have also shrunk enormously. The ‘mainstream view’ within EA now appears to be that human-level AI will be arriving by 2030, even as early as 2027. This view has been articulated by 80,000 Hours, on the forum (though see this excellent piece excellent piece arguing against short timelines), and in the highly engaging science fiction scenario of AI 2027. While my article piece is directed generally against all such short-horizon views, I will focus on responding to relevant portions of the article ‘Preparing for the Intelligence Explosion’ by Will MacAskill and Fin Moorhouse.

Rates of Growth

The authors summarise their argument as follows:

Currently, total global research effort [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) Introduction

(01:05) Rates of Growth

(04:55) The Limitations of Benchmarks

(09:26) Real-World Adoption

(11:31) Conclusion

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First published:

May 2nd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/meNrhbgM3NwqAufwj/why-i-am-still-skeptical-about-agi-by-2030

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

intro

EA North was a one-day conference in Sheffield (UK) aimed at people in the North of England (Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, etc.). The event had 35 attendees on the day.[1] The cost per attendee was £50 and the cost per new connection was £11. The total cost was £1765.

The attendee feedback was quite positive (see below). I am happy with how it all turned out and think it was a very worthwhile use of my time.

Thank you for everyone who attended! Special thanks to the speakers and meet-up facilitators.

venue

Our venue was The Showroom in Sheffield. I booked two rooms. The main room had a projector and was used for the talks. The second room was laid out like a cafe/bar. This was to allow space for 1-1s to happen at any point during the day.

agenda

Here is the schedule for the [...]

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Outline:

(00:20) intro

(01:02) venue

(01:38) agenda

(02:44) feedback from attendees

(02:52) big ones

(03:20) other things people care about with events

(04:21) what people found the most useful

(04:46) what people liked the least

(05:01) applicants and attendees

(05:19) numbers

(05:36) who applied?

(06:19) what I would do differently next time

(07:10) resources for you to steal

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

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First published:

May 2nd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eQcpxyLfXoA8bXY6K/ea-north-2025-retrospective

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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I put on a small one-day conference. The cost per attendee was £50 (vs £1.2k for EAGs) and the cost per new connection was £11 (vs £130 for EAGs).

intro

EA North was a one-day event for the North of England. 35 people showed up on the day. In total, I spent £1765 (≈ $2.4k), including paying myself £20/h for 30h total. This money will be reimbursed by EA UK[1].

The cost per attendee was £50 and the cost per new connection was £11. These are significantly lower than for EAG events, suggesting that we should be putting on more smaller events.

I am not arguing that EAGs should not exist at all. A local event will likely never let me connect with someone living on another continent in person.

My main goal with this post is to encourage individuals to put on more events [...]

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Outline:

(00:29) intro

(01:38) why you can probably do this, too

(02:26) what I spent the money on and a comparison with EAG London 2023

(03:12) budget breakdown

(04:48) cost per attendee per day

(05:17) cost per connection

(07:19) what I spent my time on

(08:24) ideas for being even more cost-effective

(09:27) recommendations to funders

(09:49) reconsider how much resources you spend on small applications

(10:44) consider providing funding upfront

(11:17) thermal printers are cool and cheap

(11:57) conclusion

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

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First published:

May 2nd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/m9sTFoAsE8dSnzoBt/untitled-draft-tr7p

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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I’m ironically not a very prolific writer. I’ve preferred to stay behind the scenes here and leave the writing to my colleagues who have more of a knack for it. But a goodbye post is something I must write for myself.

Perhaps I’m getting old and nostalgic, because what came out wound up being a wander down memory lane. I probably am getting old and nostalgic, but I also hope I’ve communicated something about my love for this community and the gratefulness for the chance to serve you all.

My story of the EA Forum

Few things have lasted as long in my life as my work on the Forum.

I’ve spent more time working on the EA Forum than I’ve spent living anywhere since I was 0-12 years old. I've worked on the Forum longer than I've known my partner—whom I've known long enough to get married to.

[...]

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Outline:

(00:40) My story of the EA Forum

(03:47) What's next

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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First published:

May 1st, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4ckgvqohXTBy6hCap/untitled-draft-a4kx

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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The Meta Coordination Forum (MCF) is a place where EA leaders are polled on matters of EA community strategy. I thought it could be fun (and interesting) to run these same polls on EAs at large.[1]

Note: I link to the corresponding MCF results throughout this post, but I recommend readers don’t look at those until after voting themselves, to avoid anchoring.

 

(MCF results)

 

(MCF results)

 

(MCF results)

 

(MCF results)

 

(MCF results; see also the AIS field-building survey results)

 

(MCF results; see also the AIS field-building survey results)

 

(MCF results; see also the AIS field-building survey results)

 

(MCF results)

2040) AI timelines","agreeWording":"agree","disagreeWording":"disagree","colorScheme":{"darkColor":"#1D2A17","lightColor":"#FFFFFF","bannerTextColor":"#FFFFFF"},"duration":{"days":1,"hours":0,"minutes":0}}"> 

(MCF results)

20% of the EA community's resources but currently receives little attention","agreeWording":"agree","disagreeWording":"disagree","colorScheme":{"darkColor":"#7B3402","lightColor":"#FFFFFF","bannerTextColor":"#FFFFFF"},"duration":{"days":1,"hours":0,"minutes":0}}"> 

(MCF results)

 

I’m sneaking in this meta-level poll to finish. For previous discussion, see this thread. The idea, in my mind, is that these independent EAs would be invited for [...]

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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First published:

May 1st, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EYcFujQqWhzoSadh9/community-polls-for-the-community

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Arkose is an AI safety fieldbuilding organisation that supports experienced machine learning professionals — such as professors and research engineers — to engage with the field. We focus on those new to AI safety, and have strong evidence that our work helps them take meaningful first steps.

Since December 2023, we’ve held nearly 300 one-on-one calls with senior machine learning researchers and engineers. In follow-up surveys, 79% reported that the call accelerated their involvement in AI safety[1]. Nonetheless, we’re at serious risk of shutting down in the coming weeks due to a lack of funding. Several funders have told us that we’re close to meeting their bar, but not quite there, leaving us in a precarious position. Without immediate support, we won’t be able to continue this work.

If you're interested in supporting Arkose, or would like to learn more, please reach out here or email [email protected].

What [...]

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Outline:

(01:07) What evidence is there that Arkose is impactful?

(02:50) What would the funding allow you to achieve?

(03:13) How can I help?

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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First published:

May 1st, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wZc2jyJyNe6DLrr2Y/arkose-is-closing-but-you-can-help

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Audio note: this article contains 54 uses of latex notation, so the narration may be difficult to follow. There's a link to the original text in the episode description.

1. Introduction

'Should we expect the future to be good? This is an important question for many reasons. One such reason is that the answer to this question has implications for what our intermediate goals should be. If we should expect the future to be good, then it would be relatively more important for us to focus on ensuring that we survive long into the future, e.g. by working on mitigating extinction risks. If we should not expect the future to be good, then it would be relatively more important for us to focus on mitigating risks of astronomical suffering.

In this paper, I critique Paul Christiano's (2013) argument that the future will be good. In Section 2 [...]

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Outline:

(00:21) 1. Introduction

(02:34) 2. Christianos argument

(02:51) 2.1 First premise

(03:46) 2.2 Second premise

(04:38) 2.3 Third premise and conclusion

(05:25) 2.4 Simplifying assumptions

(07:08) 3. Model

(08:46) 4. Assuming that longtermists are all aligned

(11:50) 5. Fanatical values

(17:52) 6. Different levels of influence

(19:58) Aligned longtermists versus shorttermists

(23:56) 8. Confidence in aligned longtermists

(24:59) 9. Conclusion

(26:34) Acknowledgements

(27:07) Appendix A

(27:10) Theorem

(27:47) Proof

(29:12) Appendix B

The original text contained 17 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

April 30th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/j2HaibJEqjs38Rv2n/should-we-expect-the-future-to-be-good

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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There is a growing movement to ban or discourage the use of AI art, citing ethical concerns over unethical data scraping, environmental cost, and harm to the incomes of real artists. This sentiment seems most prevalent in left-leaning online spaces like reddit and bluesky. Some are even starting to associate AI art with the far-right, with one popular article declaring it to be “the new aesthetics of fascism”.

As an example of how far this movement is spreading, the subreddit for the poker roguelike video game Balatro had a kerfuffle a few months ago, when a volunteer moderator for the subreddit stated that AI art was allowed. A person on bluesky screenshotted the post, and declared that if they had known the Balatro creator was okay with AI art, they wouldn’t have bought or own the game.

In response, the creator of the game stated that “Neither Playstack [...]

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First published:

April 30th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ABzpzKFQhNxdEzayb/debate-should-ea-avoid-using-ai-art-outside-of-research

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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I recently read a

blog

post that concluded with:

When I'm on my deathbed, I won't look back at my life and wish I had

worked harder. I'll look back and wish I spent more time with the

people I loved.

Setting aside that some people don't have the economic

breathing room to make this kind of tradeoff, what jumps out at me

is the implication that you're not working on something important that

you'll endorse in retrospect. I don't think the author is envisioning

directly valuable work (reducing risk from international conflict,

pandemics, or AI-supported totalitarianism; improving humanity's

treatment of animals; fighting global poverty) or the undervalued less

direct approach of earning money

and donating it to enable others to work on pressing

problems.

Definitely spend time with your friends, family, and those you

love. Don't work to the exclusion of everything else [...]

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First published:

May 1st, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cF6eumerCq8hnb9YT/prioritizing-work

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.