EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

This is a link post.

I've heard many people say something like "money won't matter post-AGI". This has always struck me as odd, and as most likely completely incorrect.

First: labour means human mental and physical effort that produces something of value. Capital goods are things like factories, data centres, and software—things humans have built that are used in the production of goods and services. I'll use "capital" to refer to both the stock of capital goods and to the money that can pay for them. I'll say "money" when I want to exclude capital goods.

The key economic effect of AI is that it makes capital a more and more general substitute for labour. There's less need to pay humans for their time to perform work, because you can replace that with capital (e.g. data centres running software replaces a human doing mental labour).

I will walk through consequences [...]

---

Outline:

(03:12) The default solution

(04:20) Money currently struggles to buy talent

(09:17) Most peoples power/leverage derives from their labour

(09:43) Why are states ever nice?

(14:34) No more outlier outcomes?

(20:29) Enforced equality is unlikely

(22:36) The default outcome?

(26:06) Whats the takeaway?

---

First published:

December 28th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qLEhNdeQpecFR9rF7/by-default-capital-will-matter-more-than-ever-after-agi

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Summary

There's a near consensus that EA needs funding diversification but with Open Phil accounting for ~90% of EA funding, that's just not possible due to some pretty basic math. Organizations and the community would need to make large tradeoffs and this simply isn’t possible/worth it at this time.

Lots of people want funding diversification

It has been two years since the FTX collapse and one thing everyone seems to agree on is that we need more funding diversification. These takes range from off-hand wishes “it sure would be great if funding in EA were more diversified”, to organizations trying to get a certain percentage of their budgets from non-OP sources/saying they want to diversify their funding base(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) to Open Philanthropy/Good Ventures themselves wanting to see more funding diversification(9). Everyone seems to agree; other people should be giving more money to the EA projects.

The Math 

Of course, I [...]

---

Outline:

(00:07) Summary

(00:29) Lots of people want funding diversification

(01:10) The Math

(03:46) Weighted Average

(05:02) Making a lot of money to donate is difficult

(09:17) Solutions

(09:21) 1. Get more funders

(10:34) 2. Spend Less

(12:48) 3. Splitting up Open Philanthropy into Several Organizations

(13:51) 4. More For-Profit EA Work/EA Organizations Charging for Their Work

(16:22) 5. Acceptance

(16:58) My Personal Solution

(17:25) Conclusion

(18:01) 1 I was approached at several EAGs, including a few weeks ago in Boston to donate to certain organizations specifically because they want to get a certain %X (30, 50, etc.) from non-OP sources but I’m sure I can find organizations who are very public about this

(18:20) 2

---

First published:

December 27th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/x8JrwokZTNzgCgYts/funding-diversification-for-mid-large-ea-organizations-is

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Yesterday I donated my 100,000th lifetime dollar.[1] A few weeks ago was the fifth anniversary of my GWWC pledge. And this is Donation Celebration Week. So high time to step back and reflect on giving.

First a poem[2] (audio here). Then some facts, figures and reflections.

Poem

What should I do with all this money?

Serious stuff, not so funny.

Fancy luxuries, shiny and new,

To that I say: poo poo.

A badminton racquet, a winter jacket.

A climbing shoe, a trip or two.

But that doesn’t count, I protest!

I can’t work all day, we all need a rest.

My younger self, to GiveWell donated.

But now that's passé, antiquated!

Swamped by phylum Arthropoda,

Digital minds, or even odder.

What about patient philanthropy?

If AI automates all industry,

Returns could be massive,

With investments passive.

But money in a century,

Won’t matter if all things are free.

Even less [...]

---

Outline:

(00:26) Poem

(00:31) Prose

(00:57) Timeline

(04:45) Reflections

(06:58) Appendix: What about AGI??

The original text contained 16 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:

December 27th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7FufeFhDE7Fp9i3fr/five-years-of-donating

---

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.

The frontpage currently has a banner up where people can leave a heart with a comment when they have finished their donations. The comments will be cross-posted here.

However, you can also post on this thread any time, especially with longer explanations of where you have given this year, and why.

---

First published:

December 23rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Phc2fdE6mKnQGNFsc/donation-celebration-post

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post.

Project summary

AI Safety Camp has a seven-year track record of enabling participants to try their fit, find careers and start new orgs in AI Safety. We host up-and-coming researchers outside the Bay Area and London hubs.

If this fundraiser passes…

• $15k, we won’t run a full program, but can facilitate 10 projects.
• $40k, we can organise the 11th edition, for 25 projects.
• $70k, we can pay a third organiser, for 35 projects.
• $300k, we can cover stipends for 40 projects.
   

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

❝ By all accounts they are the gold standard for this type of thing. Everyone says they are great, I am generally a fan of the format, I buy that this can punch way above its weight or cost. If I was going to back [an AI Safety talent funnel organisation] [...]

---

Outline:

(00:10) Project summary

(00:54) What are this projects goals? How will you achieve them?

(03:35) How will this funding be used?

(07:09) Who is on your team?

(08:13) Whats your track record?

(12:14) What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

(13:03) How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

---

First published:

December 23rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JcWbvECTj9zowFu7N/funding-case-ai-safety-camp-11

---

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.

tl;dr: I'm having a hard time convincing myself that any of the top animal welfare charities are really as effective as I want them to be, and I'm seeking feedback on my thought process as I figure out where to donate in my first time.

I've been interested in effective altruism for years, and I'm finally in a place where I can start donating considerable sums of money. I'm interested in both global health & development and animal welfare. I'm not interested in longtermism. That's a long topic for another day. While I feel like I understand global health & development pretty well and I've made up my mind to donate to Givewell's Top Charities fund, I have a lot of open questions about animal welfare, and I'd like some help in thinking through these topics. In this post, I will explain where I currently am in my thought [...]

---

Outline:

(02:07) Corporate Outreach

(05:00) Advocacy for Plant-based diets

(07:38) The Rest

(07:41) Faunalytics

(08:01) Legal Impact for Chickens

(08:33) Wild Animals Initiative

---

First published:

December 23rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PHzqiH3ohskuCaTbM/reservations-about-donating-for-animal-welfare-charities

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I was recently talking to someone who had recently started thinking

about effective altruism, and was trying to figure out how to work it

into their life. They were established in their career, it paid

well, and their background wasn't obviously a good fit for

direct

work, so they were naturally considering

earning to

give. This prompts a question of how much to give.

"How much?" is a question people have struggled with for a very long

time. Donating 10% of income has a long history, and it's

common for EAs to pledge to do this;

donating 2.5% of wealth is also traditional. If

you're earning to give, however, you might want to give more: Julia

and I have been giving 50%; Allan Saldanha

has been giving 75%

since

2019. How should one decide?

I was hoping there were good EA blog posts on this topic [...]

---

First published:

December 24th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/MiqTRfvi5DGL5TZSD/how-much-to-give-is-a-pragmatic-question

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

My median expectation is that AGI[1] will be created 3 years from now. This has implications on how to behave, and I will share some useful thoughts I and others have had on how to orient to short timelines.

I’ve led multiple small workshops on orienting to short AGI timelines and compiled the wisdom of around 50 participants (but mostly my thoughts) here. I’ve also participated in multiple short-timelines AGI wargames and co-led one wargame.

This post will assume median AGI timelines of 2027 and will not spend time arguing for this point. Instead, I focus on what the implications of 3 year timelines would be.

I didn’t update much on o3 (as my timelines were already short) but I imagine some readers did and might feel disoriented now. I hope this post can help those people and others in thinking about how to plan for 3 year [...]

---

Outline:

(01:16) A story for a 3 year AGI timeline

(03:45) Important variables based on the year

(03:57) The pre-automation era (2025-2026).

(04:56) The post-automation era (2027 onward).

(06:05) Important players

(08:03) Prerequisites for humanity's survival which are currently unmet

(11:22) Robustly good actions

(15:18) Final thoughts

The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:

December 22nd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tdfDfFyqbvBF9DdeY/orienting-to-3-year-agi-timelines

---

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.

The views expressed here are my own, not those of my employers or people who provided feedback.

Summary

• I investigate whether saving human lives globally, and in China, India and Nigeria may be harmful accounting for the meat-eater problem, i.e. the nearterm increase in farmed animal suffering caused by increasing income or population.
• I estimate a random person globally, and in China, India and Nigeria in 2022 caused 15.5, 34.6, 5.17 and 2.31 times as much suffering to poultry birds and farmed aquatic animals as the person's happiness. Moreover, I expect the meat-eater problem in those countries to become worse in the nearterm as their real gross domestic product (real GDP) per capita increases. So my results suggest extending human lives there is harmful in the nearterm.
• GiveWell has made 1.09 billion dollars of grants impacting people in the countries I mentioned. Ambitious Impact has incubated 8 organisations whose 1st target country was one I mentioned, and [...]

---

Outline:

(00:17) Summary

(02:59) Introduction

(03:21) Methods

(06:50) Results

(07:07) Discussion

(07:10) Meat-eater problem

(12:05) Suggestions

(15:41) Carbon and farmed animal welfare footprint

(18:15) Acknowledgements

The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:

December 22nd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FqioYEr97eoCQMxhk/givewell-may-have-made-1-billion-dollars-of-harmful-grants

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This past term EA Northeastern's London group revamped our Arete (ie. intro) fellowship in a few significant ways. This is how it went!

(tldr: We added a project into the intro fellowship and invested more time into personal relationships with fellows. We had lower drop out rates and higher engagement.[1] You can see this google sheet if you want the numbers.)

If you want to compare our experience to yours here is some context:

• Our group is 3 years old.
• There's appx. 2000 students at the London campus, all inclusive.
• Appx. 1250 of those at any given time are freshmen studying abroad from Boston.

The primary problems we had last year were:

1. Attendance drop off.
2. ‘Apprehensive’ participation in meetings.
3. Low engagement with the group (& EA) outside of the fellowship.

The following are changes that we made from last year to address them.

We Added a [...]

---

Outline:

(01:10) We Added a Project

(04:53) We Designed New Marketing Materials

(05:56) We Made more Friends (awww...)

(09:42) We Improved our Final Event

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

---

First published:

December 20th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7ge6EPWJHXPyAGg62/running-a-project-based-intro-fellowship

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.