EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

This is a link post.

TL;DR: rough estimates are better than no estimates. Refusals to quantify often hide that one is implicitly (and unjustifiably) counting some interests for zero.

Introduction

Inspired by Bentham's Bulldog, I recently donated $1000 to the Shrimp Welfare Project. I don’t know that it's literally “the best charity”—longtermist interventions presumably have greater expected value—but I find it psychologically comforting to “diversify” my giving,[1] and the prospect of averting ~500 hours[2] of severe suffering per dollar seems hard to pass up. If you have some funds available that aren’t otherwise going to an even more promising cause, consider getting in on the #shrimpact!

The train to #shrimpact

The fact that most people would unreflectively dismiss shrimp welfare as a charitable cause shows why effective altruism is no “truism”. Relatively few people are genuinely open to promoting the good (and reducing suffering) in a truly cause-neutral, impartial way. For [...]

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Outline:

(00:22) Introduction

(01:55) A bad objection

(02:10) “Different things can’t be precisely quantified or compared”

(04:30) “Your analysis requires a lot of assumptions…”

(06:31) Conventional Dogmatism

(08:29) Conclusion

The original text contained 12 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

November 18th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FWuAsNkq8ern35kLQ/refusing-to-quantify-is-refusing-to-think-about-trade-offs

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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The Donation Election has begun!

You can vote on the frontpage banner, find out more about the voting system here, and donate to the Donation Election fund here.

This post introduces our candidates. We’re splitting by cause area for easy reading, but you’ll be voting on them all together.

Note 1: We will be running final eligibility checks in the next few days, so a few candidates may be removed from the list. I won’t post publicly about removing specific candidates because eligibility in the Donation Election shouldn’t affect your decision on whether to donate to them or not — eligibility is mostly based on whether the charity has the right kind of legal charitable status in the UK or US.

Note 2: Summaries of marginal funding posts are courtesy of ChatGPT- take them with a pinch of salt and let me know if they are [...]

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Outline:

(00:59) Global Health

(01:18) Animal Welfare

(01:37) Biosecurity and Pandemics

(01:57) AI Safety

(02:16) Risks of Global Catastrophe

(02:36) Effective Giving

(02:55) Meta– or mixed

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First published:

November 18th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tucbWEN7SBWxNiHWj/meet-the-candidates-in-the-forum-s-donation-election-2024

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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The longtermist funding ecosystem needs certain functions to exist at a reasonable scale. I argue LTFF should continue to be funded because we're currently one of the only organizations comprehensively serving these functions. Specifically, we:

• Fund early-stage technical AI safety researchers working outside major labs
• Help talented people transition into existential risk work
• Provide independent funding voices to balance out AI company influence
• Move quickly to fund promising work in emerging areas, including "weirder" but potentially high-impact projects

Getting these functions right takes meaningful resources - well over $1M annually. This figure isn't arbitrary: $1M funds roughly 10 person-years of work, split between supporting career transitions and independent research. Given what we're trying to achieve - from maintaining independent AI safety voices to seeding new fields like x-risk focused information security - this is arguably a minimum viable scale.

While I'm excited to see some of these functions [...]

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Outline:

(01:55) Core Argument

(04:11) Key Functions Currently (Almost) Unique to LTFF

(04:17) Technical AI Safety Funding

(04:40) Why arent other funders investing in GCR-focused technical AI Safety?

(06:26) Career Transitions and Early Researcher Funding

(07:44) Why arent other groups investing in improving career transitions in existential risk reduction?

(09:05) Going Forwards

(10:01) Providing (Some) Counterbalance to AI Companies on AI Safety

(11:39) Going Forwards

(12:21) Funding New Project Areas and Approaches

(13:18) Going Forwards

(14:01) Broader Funding Case

(14:05) Why Current Funding Levels Matter

(16:02) Going Forwards

(17:36) Conclusion

(18:40) Appendix: LTFFs Institutional Features

(18:57) Transparency and Communication

(19:40) Operational Features

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First published:

November 18th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zMEu7CRhefFMCYsGW/a-qualitative-case-for-ltff-filling-critical-ecosystem-gaps

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

A note from Rachel, Kaya Guides’ founder:

This post is to announce that Kaya Guides has brought on Huw Evans as a new co-founder and our CTO to bring our work to scale. I’ve been running Kaya Guides mostly as a solo founder for the last two years. I’ve been a decent 0 to 1 person, but it became clear to me over time that to bring Kaya Guides from 1 to 100, we also need an excellent tech leader.

Huw is a skilled developer who brings four years of product management experience at Atlassian. But Huw is not just a dev. In Huw, I’ve found not only a tech person, but a thought partner, co-leader, and brilliant strategist with great vibe, values match, and a range of skills that are complementary to mine. He is an outstanding researcher, number-cruncher, analyst and visual designer, to name a few of [...]

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Outline:

(02:03) The longest time to impact for an EAGx?

(04:49) 5 reasons Kaya Guides convinced me to contribute

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

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First published:

November 18th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oJwniJgehDmghRxXz/i-m-joining-kaya-guides-because-i-think-we-can-make

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Since Giving What We Can was formally founded in 2009, with just 23 founding members, the community has grown significantly – and we’re approaching 10,000 10% Pledgers (hopefully in the next couple of months)! The community as it stands today has now donated over $250 million and is predicted to donate over $1 billion across the lifetimes of our members.

If you’re a pledger, join us in sharing stories this week:

To celebrate our community's impact over the last 15 years, we’re hoping to light up the internet for the next week with everyone's stories and quotes. We’re inviting all of our pledgers to share (or re-share) your stories about pledging, photos from the early days, what the pledge has meant to you, or even your hopes for Giving What We Can and the 10% Pledge in the future. We’ll then compile a bunch of these stories and [...]

The original text contained 3 images which were described by AI.

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First published:

November 18th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Kfj9FTPPu3iTxpFSP/giving-what-we-can-is-celebrating-our-15th-birthday

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This is a link post.

In this post, we want to briefly share various frames and ideas we’ve been thinking through and actively pitching to Republican lawmakers over the past months in preparation for the possibility of a Trump win.

Why are we sharing this here? Given that >98% of the EAs and alignment researchers we surveyed earlier this year identified as everything-other-than-conservative, we consider thinking through these questions to be another strategically worthwhile neglected direction.

(Along these lines, we also want to proactively emphasize that politics is the mind-killer, and that, regardless of one's ideological convictions, those who earnestly care about alignment must take seriously the possibility that Trump will be the US president who presides over the emergence of AGI—and update accordingly in light of this possibility.)

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First published:

November 17th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FirzHk6H6F9sSirzi/making-a-conservative-case-for-alignment

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Who this report is for and how to access it

Only a handful of animal advocacy organizations have programs aimed specifically at preventing the exploitation of farmed shrimp. We wrote this report to provide practical guidance about how to help shrimp on farms. This public summary provides an overview of the current state of shrimp farming and potential paths forward. For a deeper dive, the full 70+ page report offers concrete, strategic recommendations and more detailed insights. The full report will be most useful for animal advocacy groups, funders, and those interested in how best to help shrimp. If you would like access to the full report, please complete this Google form.

Summary

Shrimp production: industry numbers, trends, and practices

• Shrimp aquaculture can be bad for animals, humans, and the environment
  • At any given time, shrimp are the most numerous farmed animal (Figure 1)

Figure 1: Estimated numbers [...]

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Outline:

(00:07) Who this report is for and how to access it

(00:52) Summary

(00:55) Shrimp production: industry numbers, trends, and practices

(03:15) Shrimp advocacy: current state, opportunities, and bottlenecks

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First published:

November 16th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zCfsYA6dsPcjzHowg/strategies-for-helping-farmed-shrimp

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Summary

• Challenge and opportunity: In the coming years, the animal advocacy movement faces both opportunities and uncertainties, from technological advances to shifting attitudes and rising meat consumption. To address these pressures, it's essential to channel resources toward filling critical knowledge gaps and creating the highest-impact solutions.
• How Rethink Priorities drives change for animals: We combine rigorous research with strategic engagement to drive evidence-based solutions for farmed and wild animals. Through collaboration with partners across policy, philanthropy, and advocacy sectors, we ensure that our research translates into positive change for animals globally. Moreover, we are initiating and launching new projects to advance animal welfare advocacy.
• 2024 Progress: We conducted 21 research projects focused on animal product consumption, crustaceans, fish, insects, and wild animals. Additionally, we organized two in-person coordination events for leaders within the animal advocacy movement and initiated a pilot for a new intervention. We also continued to provide [...]

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Outline:

(00:09) Summary

(02:36) The scale of the challenge—and the opportunity

(04:57) How we drive change for animals

(06:29) Our 2024 progress

(06:43) Research

(09:27) Stakeholder engagement

(10:36) Infrastructure development

(11:04) Looking ahead: 2025 plans

(13:05) Funding landscape

(14:22) Making a difference together

(15:41) Acknowledgments

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

The original text contained 1 image which was described by AI.

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First published:

November 15th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CgNQxSMHrvXzmudNe/rethink-priorities-animal-welfare-department-2024-strategy

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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I wanted to plug this Managing Director, Global Catastrophic Risks role we posted today.

This is one of the ~3 most senior roles at Open Philanthropy and I'm excited to get someone great for it.

Howie Lempel has been serving in this role on an interim basis since early this year, and we're now looking for someone permanent.

We'll pay you $5K if you refer someone we hire.

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First published:

November 15th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/GtLnpibg6RbhoAuLT/open-phil-is-hiring-a-leader-for-all-global-catastrophic

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

AMF has had a busy last 18 months with a recent 9 month period seeing 85 million nets distributed to protect 155 million people.

There remains much work to do and significant opportunities in front of our team of 14 and our partners as we look at the coming months and the year ahead.

AMF's 12 month funding gap sits at a little more than US$250m. This is made up of an immediate funding gap i.e. funds we can allocate immediately, of US$81.5m, a near term gap i.e. funds we would be able to allocate in the next six months, of US$75m, and a medium term gap i.e allocation in the next 7 to 12 months, of US$100m. More information here.

One of the reasons for the critical, immediate funding gaps is the shortfall in the total raised by the Global Fund in their last replenishment round which has [...]

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First published:

November 15th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZYktdzJRMsp2JhwYg/amf-s-immediate-funding-gaps

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.