EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

Longview Philanthropy is launching a new request for proposals on hardware-enabled mechanisms (HEMs).

We think HEMs are a promising method to enforce export controls, secure model weights, and verify compliance with international agreements on AI. We’d like to fund the development of designs, prototypes, and secure enclosures for various kinds of HEMs, as well as complementary red-teaming and field-building efforts.

We plan to distribute $2M - $10M through this RFP. If you’d like to apply, please submit an expression of interest. Below is the text of the request for proposals.

Table of Contents

• Motivations
• Areas of Interest
  • Designs and prototypes of HEMs
    • Location Verification
    • Offline Licensing
    • Bandwidth Limiters for Accessing Model Weights
    • Analog Sensors for Workload Verification
    • Other HEMs
  • Tamper Resistance Measures
    • Threat model
    • Funding priorities
  • Adversarial Testing
    • Funding priorities
    • How should adversarial testing be structured?
  • Focused Research Organization (FRO) for FlexHEGs
  • [...]

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Outline:

(00:50) Motivations

(07:05) Areas of Interest

(07:43) Designs and prototypes of HEMs

(08:23) Location Verification

(11:16) Offline Licensing

(12:41) Bandwidth Limiters for Accessing Model Weights

(14:03) Analog Sensors for Workload Verification

(15:13) Other HEMs

(17:37) Tamper Resistance Measures

(17:56) Threat model

(19:28) Funding priorities

(21:02) Adversarial Testing

(21:34) Funding priorities

(22:49) How should adversarial testing be structured?

(24:00) Focused Research Organization (FRO) for FlexHEGs

(26:01) Field-Building for HEMs

(26:43) Evaluation Criteria

(30:53) Application Process

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First published:

April 30th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aiStCBjfutWqwsxx4/new-funding-round-on-hardware-enabled-mechanisms-hems

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Observatorio de Riesgos Catastróficos Globales (ORCG) is at a critical juncture. We have secured funds for AI governance projects, but we are at risk of discontinuing all projects in other GCR areas, which will have a detrimental impact on GCR scenario preparedness. We want to know whether there is enough demand from funders for the lines of work below to decide whether to continue them, by raising at least $55,000 within the next month. For this reason, We would like to urge funders in EA to consider this proposal. If you are not interested in supporting these projects, it would be invaluable if you could direct us to other potential funders who you think might be interested.

Why Support ORCG?

ORCG has a proven track record of translating research into actionable policy and building resilience. Our approach is evidence-based, collaborative, and focused on practical solutions. Supporting ORCG means investing [...]

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First published:

April 30th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4tqfnJYmT53BdkjXB/emergency-call-for-support-mitigating-global-catastrophic

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Caleb is Project Lead of EA Funds. Zach is CEO of the Centre for Effective Altruism, and Oscar is CEA's Chief of Staff.

EA Funds and CEA are currently separate projects within Effective Ventures. EV is winding down, and so EA Funds and CEA will spin out. We have decided to spin out as one organization rather than two, and that organization will be called CEA. Our target date for spinning out and merging is 1 July 2025.

Why we’re merging

We believe this is the best way to achieve our common goal of contributing to a radically better world. While the merger process is not straightforward, making and implementing this decision has been made easier by both having impact as our north star and operating according to shared EA principles.

EA Funds is a natural fit for CEA's stewardship strategy and our focus on building sustainable momentum for [...]

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Outline:

(00:47) Why we're merging

(03:20) What EA Funds will look like post-merger

(07:28) Tradeoffs we're making by merging

(09:55) What the merger mechanics mean for you if you're a donor or grantee

(10:01) For donors

(10:18) For grantees

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

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First published:

April 30th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BLvTcMMEQGFYsh6Jw/ea-funds-and-cea-are-merging

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Hi everyone,

I am a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Reading and currently trying to set-up at a lab focused on animal and AI sentience and welfare. Since many EAs are doing research in this area, I thought it might be useful to make an announcement here.

Lab description:

It is intended as an interdisciplinary group of philosophers and scientists using conceptual and computational methods to solve pressing philosophical, ethical, and scientific challenges at the intersection of the biological, social, and cognitive sciences such as as: Do insects feel pain? How can AI be used to improve animal welfare? How should economists and policy-makers include animal welfare in social welfare functions? Can we create artificial consciousness and how could we ensure AI welfare? How should new technologies be regulated? The lab is led by Dr. Walter Veit at the University of Reading.

If you are interested [...]

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First published:

April 30th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/owKfpJZa9NabLHJsr/new-ea-adjacent-philosophy-lab

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is post 2 of a sequence on my framework for doing and thinking about research. Start here.

Before I get into what exactly to do at each stage of the research process, it's worth reflecting on the key mindsets that are crucial throughout the process, and how they should manifest at each stage.

I think the most important mindsets are:

• Truth-seeking: By default, many research insights will be false - finding truth is hard. It's not enough to just know this, you must put in active effort to be skeptical and resist bias, lest you risk your research being worthless.
• Prioritisation: You have finite time, and a lot of possible actions. Your project will live or die according to whether you pick good ones.
• Moving fast: You have finite time and a lot to do. This doesn’t just mean “push yourself to go faster” - there's a [...]

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Outline:

(01:44) Truth Seeking

(06:59) Prioritisation

(12:24) Moving Fast

(18:25) Taking action under uncertainty

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First published:

April 27th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/igS3T3QG6i7iLdptn/my-research-process-key-mindsets-truth-seeking

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Introduction

In this post, I present what I believe to be an important yet underexplored argument that fundamentally challenges the promise of cultivated meat. In essence, there are compelling reasons to conclude that cultivated meat will not replace conventional meat, but will instead primarily compete with other alternative proteins that offer superior environmental and ethical benefits. Moreover, research into and promotion of cultivated meat may potentially result in a net negative impact. Beyond critique, I try to offer constructive recommendations for the EA movement. While I've kept this post concise, I'm more than willing to elaborate on any specific point upon request.

From industry to academia: my cultivated meat journey

I'm currently in my fourth year (and hopefully final one!) of my PhD. My thesis examines the environmental and economic challenges associated with alternative proteins. I have three working papers on cultivated meat at various stages of development, though [...]

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Outline:

(00:13) Introduction

(00:55) From industry to academia: my cultivated meat journey

(01:53) Motivations and epistemic status

(03:39) Baseline assumptions for this discussion

(03:44) Cultivated meat is environmentally better than conventional meat, but probably not as good as plant-based meat

(06:29) Cultivated meat will remain quite expensive for several years, and hybrid plant-cell products will likely appear on the market first

(08:58) Cultivated meat is ethically better than conventional meat

(10:26) The main argument: cannibalization rather than conversion

(16:46) Strategic drawbacks of the current focus

(19:11) The evidence that would make me eat my words (and maybe cultivated meat)

(20:37) What Id like to see change in the Effective Altruism approach to cultivated meat

(22:14) Answer from GFI Europe

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First published:

April 30th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TYhs8zehyybvMt5E4/cultivating-doubt-why-i-no-longer-believe-cultivated-meat-is

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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My upvotes/downvotes are worth 2 points each and my supervotes are worth 6. A person with between 10 and 100 karma on the forum has an upvote worth 1 and a supervote worth 2 (the scaling system is described in this code here I think)

My concern is that this system lends itself to groupthink, whereby the dominant views or topics are liable to get more karma, giving holders of those views more voting power, giving users that makes posts they agree with or that they see as relevant more karma, etc.

Dissenting opinions or posts not of interest to the in-group are liable to be downvoted (although karma is meant to reflect quality or relevance of a post or comment, this is of course misused), which both hides those comments but also puts off dissenting voices from commenting/posting in the future.

The justification for the current system [...]

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First published:

April 28th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FZ4GkH7eiibKrb6rN/should-people-with-more-forum-karma-have-more-powerful-votes

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This post is for university group student organizers. We start with the big reason you should run a social, three tips we’re highly certain of, and some additional thoughts.

We think ~40% of the value of this post is in a tentative answer to the question of how university groups can best provide value to members post intro fellowship; this is a question almost all university group organizers should think more deeply about. Another ~50% is in the “Big intro fellowship” section (tip 1), which is sufficient to run a fairly successful weekly meeting, and we are highly confident that almost all university groups should adopt the “Big intro fellowship” even if you do not choose to run a social.

We both co-lead the University of Chicago group and all data comes from the UChicago group unless otherwise noted.

If this post makes you consider a change at [...]

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Outline:

(01:48) Why a Social

(04:27) Doing a Social Well

(08:29) Some additional thoughts

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First published:

April 28th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cCquf3RaTYuadFneL/university-groups-should-run-socials

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

The Guardian reported yesterday on 'The Lunar Hatch' project, which is aiming to send fertilised sea bass eggs into space, so they can farm fish for astronauts.

Lunar Hatch's ultimate aim is to create a “closed-loop food chain” on the moon, using a series of compartments. The first tanks will be filled with water from ice found at the bottom of craters at the moon's poles. The wastewater produced by fish in these tanks will be used to produce micro-algae that can then be used to feed filtering organisms, including bivalves, or zooplankton would collect some of the waste.

The faeces from the sea bass in the first tank would, meanwhile, be treated by shrimps and worms that would in turn be food for the fish.

“The aim of Lunar Hatch is to have no waste,” Przybyla [the researcher leading the project] says. “Everything is recycled through an aquaculture [...]

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First published:

April 29th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wzCGbdCQsNQHjL8MY/aquaculture-in-space

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

TLDR: RP's best interventions barely qualify as Health Systems Strengthening - they focus directly on the Health worker and their implementation. Not only these, but almost all HSS interventions are also measureable and should be measured! Plus some light disagreements with RP.

First a huge thanks to @Open Philanthropy and @Rethink Priorities for this report - I’m not sure any serious attempt at a cost-effectiveness analysis of Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) interventions has been done before - and they’ve done a great job. I won’t spend much time affirming all the good stuff in the report (please read at least the summary before reading this) rather I’ll double down on things I think are important or that I disagree with.

HSS is not neglected

“Health Systems Strengthening” has been a loud clarion call in the public health world for over 30 years now. There can [...]

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Outline:

(00:56) HSS is not neglected

(01:48) RP's best Interventions are barely HSS and focus on Health Workers

(03:50) Cost-Effectiveness of HSS interventions can and should be measured

(06:00) Context matters - Country Intervention

(07:46) IMCI and other guidelines have enormous potential

(08:50) Light Disagreements

(08:53) Community Health workers are often not cost-effective

(11:05) LMH is far more well known and better funded than Living Goods

(11:43) Transitioning to government ownership is a risky bet - that might sometimes be worth it

(12:56) Supply Chains interventions have largely failed.

The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

April 28th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/w44oxwXpRkzyEEEHr/the-best-health-systems-strengthening-interventions-aren-t

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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