EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

Example: "[wishy-washy argument that AI isn't risky], therefore we shouldn't work on AI safety." How confident are you about that? From your perspective, there's a non-trivial possibility that you're wrong. And I don't even mean 1%, I mean like 30%. Almost everyone working on AI safety think it has less than a 50% chance of killing everyone, but it's still a good expected value to work on it.

Example: "Shrimp are not moral patients so we shouldn't try to help them." Again, how confident are you about that? There's no way you can be confident enough for this argument to change your prioritization. The margin of error on the cost-effectiveness of some intervention is way higher than the difference in subjective probability on "shrimp are sentient" between someone who does, and someone who does not, care about shrimp welfare.

EAs are better at avoiding this fallacy than [...]

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A quick tip:
The recent freeze on USAID funding is a disaster that threatens the lives of countless individuals who rely on essential services like food and healthcare.

While USAID has faced many controversies and there's a pressing need for systemic change, ending its support in this abrupt manner results in tremendous unnecessary suffering, deaths and money wasted.

Even though there have been legal victories against Trump's orders, it is unclear if the Trump administration will comply with those rulings and even if, it is unclear how much of the urgently needed money will flow again. (see https://www.devex.com/news/devex-newswire-judge-insists-trump-lift-the-aid-freeze-after-failing-to-do-so-109457)

𝗗𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘄 to 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 that were previously funded by USAID. By doing so, we can help mitigate the worst immediate consequences of the aid freeze. An initiative has emerged to facilitate this: The Rapid Response Fund: https://www.founderspledge.com/funds/rapid-response-fund.

The fund is run by the EA organization Founders Pledge. They offer [...]

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TL;DR If you are thinking about suicide, please talk to someone. It works. (call or text 988 in the USA)

I have had suicidal ideation several times in my life, and I also worked as a crisis counselor on a hotline. I have seen the results firsthand. There is enormous value in being open, honest, and vulnerable with another human being, and having them show up with acceptance, compassion, and kindness.

I’ve been meaning to write this for a year since I learned that EA Anywhere founder Marisa took her own life. I appreciate Draft Amnesty Week which allowed me to finally press Publish.

There are many reasons you might feel like your life isn’t worth living anymore. For me, I had been severely depressed for a while and I had no hope it would get better. I didn’t want to die, per se. I just wanted the chronic [...]

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Hi all,

some of you may remember that a while back, Vetted Causes had posted a quite poor review of Animal Charity Evaluators on this forum which led to lengthy discussion between the two in the comments.

Vetted causes has now released their first review of one of the top Charities according to Animal Charity Evaluators, here are the two reviews:

Review of Sinergia Animal by Animal Charity Evaluators
Review of Sinergia Animal by Vetted Causes

As a long time donor to Animal Charity Evaluators, I obviously find it troubling that one of the Charities they recommend might be vastly overestimating its own impact, or even claiming successes as their own which they had no part in. At the same time I am not sure how trustworthy Vetted Causes is as their initial review of ACE was - imo - worded quite poorly and [...]

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Note: This started as a quick take, but it got too long so I made it a full post. It's still kind of a rant; a stronger post would include sources and would have gotten feedback from people more knowledgeable than I. But in the spirit of Draft Amnesty Week, I'm writing this in one sitting and smashing that Submit button.

Many people continue to refer to companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind as "frontier AI labs". I think we should drop "labs" entirely when discussing these companies, calling them "AI companies"[1] instead. While these companies may have once been primarily research laboratories, they are no longer so. Continuing to call them labs makes them sound like harmless groups focused on pushing the frontier of human knowledge, when in reality they are profit-seeking corporations focused on building products and capturing value in the marketplace.

Laboratories do not directly [...]

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The development and widespread deployment of advanced AI agents will give rise to multi-agent systems of unprecedented complexity. A new report from staff at the Cooperative AI Foundation and a host of leading researchers explores the novel and under-appreciated risks these systems pose.

Powerful AI systems are increasingly being deployed with the ability to autonomously interact with the world and adapt their behaviour accordingly. This is a profound change from the more passive, static AI services with which most of us are familiar, such as chatbots and image generation tools. On the other hand, while still relatively rare, groups of AI agents are already responsible for tasks that range from trading million-dollar assets to recommending actions to commanders in battle.

In the coming years, the competitive advantages offered by autonomous, adaptive agents will drive their adoption both in high-stakes domains, and as intelligent personal assistants [...]

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TLDR: After artesunate rose from an obscure Chinese herb to be the lynchpin of malaria treatment, increasing resistance means we might need a fresh miracle.

Back in 2010 I visited Uganda for the first time, a wide eyed medical intern in the Idyllic Kisiizi rural hospital. In my last week malaria struck me down, but there was a problem – a nationwide shortage meant that no adult artesunate doses remained. Through an awkward mix of white privilege and Ugandan hospitality, I was handed the last four children's doses to make up one adult dose. Even in my fever dream, I pondered the fate of those 4 kids who would miss out because of me…

Act 1 – The Origin

In the midst of the Vietnam war, a fierce arms race was afoot. But not for a killer – for a life saver. Troops died from more [...]

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Over the last few years, progress has been made in estimating the density of intelligent life in the universe (e.g., Olson 2015, Sandberg 2018, Hanson 2021). Bits of progress have been made in using these results to update longtermist macrostrategy, but these results are partial and stopped short of their potential (Finnveden 2019, Olson 2020, Olson 2021, Cook 2022). Namely, this work stopped early in its tracks, at best, only hinting at the meaty part of the implications and leaving half of the work almost untouched: comparing the expected utility produced by different Space-Faring Civilizations (SFCs). In this post, we hint at the possible macrostrategic implications of these works: A possible switch for the longtermist community from targeting decreasing X-Risks (including increasing P(Alignment)[1]), to increasing P(Alignment | Humanity creates an SFC).

Sequence: This post is part 1 of a sequence investigating the longtermist implications of alien Space-Faring Civilizations. Each [...]

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Outline:

(01:17) Summary

(02:52) The Civ-Saturation Hypothesis

(03:59) Hinting at longtermist macrostrategic implications

(08:29) The Civ-Similarity Hypothesis

(10:58) The Existence Neutrality Hypothesis

(12:12) Context

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Crossposted on LessWrong.

Over the last few years, progress has been made in estimating the density of intelligent life in the universe (e.g., Olson 2015, Sandberg 2018, Hanson 2021). Bits of progress have been made in using these results to update longtermist macrostrategy, but these results are partial and stopped short of their potential (Finnveden 2019, Olson 2020, Olson 2021, Cook 2022). Namely, this work stopped early in its tracks, at best, only hinting at the meaty part of the implications and leaving half of the work almost untouched: comparing the expected utility produced by different Space-Faring Civilizations (SFCs). In this post, we hint at the possible macrostrategic implications of these works: A possible switch for the longtermist community from targeting decreasing X-Risks (including increasing P(Alignment)[1]), to increasing P(Alignment | Humanity creates an SFC).

Sequence: This post is part 1 of a sequence investigating the longtermist implications of alien [...]

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Outline:

(01:19) Summary

(02:55) The Civ-Saturation Hypothesis

(04:02) Hinting at longtermist macrostrategic implications

(08:32) The Civ-Similarity Hypothesis

(11:00) The Existence Neutrality Hypothesis

(12:15) Context

The original text contained 38 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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My name is Keyvan, and I lead Anima International's work in France. Our organization went through a major transformation in 2024. I want to share that journey with you.

Anima International in France used to be known as Assiettes Végétales (‘Plant-Based Plates’). We focused entirely on introducing and promoting vegetarian and plant-based meals in collective catering. Today, as Anima, our mission is to put an end to the use of cages for laying hens.

These changes come after a thorough evaluation of our previous campaign, assessing 94 potential new interventions, making several difficult choices, and navigating emotional struggles. We hope that by sharing our experience, we can help others who find themselves in similar situations. So let me walk you through how the past twelve months have unfolded for us.

The French team

Act One: What we did as Assiettes Végétales

Since 2018, we worked with the local [...]

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Outline:

(01:13) Act One: What we did as Assiettes Végétales

(03:55) Act Two: The moment we realized we needed to measure our impact more precisely

(05:12) Act Three: The evaluation

(07:23) Act Four: Ending our previous campaign

(09:09) Act Five: Searching for a new intervention

(11:30) Act Six: The struggle to choose

(14:11) Act Seven: The strengths of the cage-free campaign

(16:34) Conclusion - Where we stand today

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

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