EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

(Crosspost--written in a slightly sillier style than is typical of EA forum posts, but still seemed worth posting).

A lot of my interactions with prominent bloggers involve me appearing in their rooms ex nihilo at odd hours of the night and suggesting they write about something very impactful (e.g. why people should take the Giving What We Can pledge). Yet sometimes when I say this, they say to me, “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.” So here I’m going to tell you about some high-impact opportunities: one to get support for running a local EA group and the other a donation-matching opportunity for effective animal donations. And act now, because offers end soon!

1 Donation matching

A funder is temporarily matching donations to Animal Charity Evaluators’ (ACE) movement grants program. For those unaware, ACE is basically the GiveWell of animal welfare. They do high-quality research to find the best charities in the animal sector. They publicize which charities are effective and give out grants to effective animal charities. You can see some of the grants they’ve [...]

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Outline:

(00:55) 1. Donation matching

(03:13) 2. Organizer support program

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Bentham's Bulldog has published a series of pieces on the Save Our Bacon Act, urging people to call and email their senators, donate, and spread the word.

Things we agree on

1. Factory farming and gestation crates are immoral
2. Fighting the Save Our Bacon Act is highly important for animal welfare.

Disagreements

Bentham's Bulldog has made several factual errors in his posts, and did not correct them when I and others pushed back.

Error #1: Luna Amendment

This is not very important, and the time of importance for it has passed, but Bentham's Bulldog falsely claimed that the Luna Amendment was dead. See this comment, although I won't go into too much detail.

Error #2: Pennies Per Animal

Bentham's Bulldog claimed "And yet even then, they might be drowned out by ghastly agribusinesses who torture pigs to save literally pennies per animal."

The linked tweet, however, says pennies per dollar, not pennies per animal. Here's a quote from the tweet:

Confirmed: "cents on the dollar" is all the pork industry saves by using these inhumane gestation crates and farrowing crates.

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Outline:

(00:20) Things we agree on

(00:33) Disagreements

(00:43) Error #1: Luna Amendment

(01:01) Error #2: Pennies Per Animal

(02:01) Error #3: The AMPA PAC (most important)

(02:58) My Levels of Confidence

(03:32) Conclusion

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This is a linkpost for Request for Proposals: Research and Applied Work on Digital Minds.

I'm glad to announce a request for proposals for research and applied work on digital minds at Longview Philanthropy. We’re seeking applications for project grants, research fellowships, and career development fellowships on the potential consciousness, sentience, moral status, and legal position of AI systems, and on how society might respond. The deadline is Friday July 24, 2026 (extended from July 10).

Much of what we’re looking for is the same as what we were looking for last year, so I’ll direct people to last year's post and then share a few updates that have informed the drafting of the RFP:

• This year's RFP lays out somewhat more specific technical research directions we’d like to see:
  • Issues around valence and preferences seem especially neglected relative to the question of “are they conscious?” Even in philosophy, there's been far less discussion of what it means to experience something as good or bad, and still less about what this could mean for an AI model. I’d like to see more work here from neuroscientists, ML researchers, and philosophers.
  • There's been a lot of progress on [...]

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I posted this originally on Linkedin and Substack where I write for a more general audience. I think it's highly relevant for here though, and would welcome thoughts, disagreements, builds and implications. I wrote all the substance of this post myself, then used an LLM to refine its expression.

A historic amount of money may be about to flow toward the world's problems, but right now that money can’t be absorbed at the effectiveness and scale this moment demands. That's an unpopular thing to say from a sector where it's fashionable to shake your fist at the wealthy for not giving more away.

There are reasons to be sympathetic to this perspective: we know more about how to do good than ever before and there's more wealth than at any time in human history… and yet the percentage given by the ultra-wealthy hasn’t budged in decades.

But this discourse is damaging and self defeating.

First, giving at an ambitious, sustainable scale will never be unlocked via shaming and scolding.

Second, in the vast majority of cases the social impact sector simply can’t credibly claim to be able to use significantly more money while doing so effectively, efficiently [...]

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Outline:

(03:40) I. Impact rarely grows proportionally with scale

(07:35) II. Many of the best interventions have a low ceiling on their potential scale

(13:31) III. Speed costs efficiency

(18:41) IV. Organizations break as they scale

(24:32) Let's get real about scalability profiles

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We announced the Cluelessness Critiques Competition two weeks ago.

A lot of you, not only prospective entrants, will have been reading Anthony's sequence where he lays out his unawareness argument, or following the comments on his summary post. I thought that this might be a great time to have Anthony put some time aside to answer your questions.

Although we are calling this an AMA[1], the focus will be on helping people understand the sequence so that they can write the best entries to the competition that they can. Anthony will be choosing the questions he responds to with this in mind.

Anthony will be answering your questions on Thursday the 9th. He cannot guarantee that he will answer every question, so make sure to upvote the questions you’d like to see answered.

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

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Note: This post was crossposted from Planned Obsolescence by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.

But we get the job done

I was twenty one when I joined Open Phil,[1] as a zealous young EA who had idolized the organization since I was in high school (back when it was called GiveWell Labs). I worked there for over nine years, leaving about six months ago (shortly after it rebranded as Coefficient Giving). By the time I left, I was kind of a fixture in the organization, and a significant driver of culture and thought within the AI team of 45-ish people. My manager felt that a lot of people on the team would be worried to see me go, and encouraged me to convey that I believed in their work in my goodbye message.

If you read that message, I meant what I said. I do think the kind of ambitious, foresightful philanthropy that OP (ugh fine, cG) does at its best is extremely impactful, and I do think the AI team is really great and has unique strengths.

But before I articulated that, I sat [...]

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

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I used AI to fix transcription errors, rerrarange the ideas, and suggest tweaks to the title and some sentences.

Three of the most exciting projects to come out of EA in recent years are, in a vague sense, CEA spinouts:

• Kairos is directly a spinout of CEA and now handles most support for university AI safety groups. Basically everyone I've found who knows them is really excited about what they do
• NEST is an opinionated ideas-first support network for EA (university) groups. And you can see from Matt's blog the absolutely insane care he has for us.
• BlueDot grew out of a group of Cambridge EAs that wanted to make much better introductions to EA topics than what was available out there, and now they're basically trying to solve the talent gap for anything bad AI forever after

My natural next thought, is that maybe some more of the responsibilities currently conceived as “CEA's job” would be better handled by small teams not directly (or only very loosely affiliated with) CEA.

Beyond the previous examples, there's many advantages to small independent teams here:

1. You can take risks that CEA can't
2. You can kindle a culture that promotes ambitious [...]

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I used AI to fix transcription errors, rerrarange the ideas, and suggest tweaks to the title and some sentences.

Three of the most exciting projects to come out of EA in recent years are, in a vague sense, CEA spinouts:

• Kairos is directly a spinout of CEA and now handles most support for university AI safety groups. Basically everyone I've found who knows them is really excited about what they do
• NEST is an opinionated ideas-first support network for EA (university) groups. And you can see from Matt's blog the absolutely insane care he has for us.
• BlueDot grew out of a group of Cambridge EAs that wanted to make much better introductions to EA topics than what was available out there, and now they're basically trying to solve the talent gap for anything bad AI forever after

My natural next thought, is that maybe some more of the responsibilities currently conceived as “CEA's job” would be better handled by small teams not directly (or only very loosely affiliated with) CEA.

Beyond the previous examples, there's many advantages to small independent teams here:

1. You can take risks that CEA can't
2. You can kindle a culture that promotes ambitious [...]

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If you work a job that can mostly be done from anywhere[1], you should ask yourself if you are spending too much money on housing.

I felt prompted to write this post by the recent increased push for EAs to move to the Bay. Multiple people have urged me personally to relocate. Most of them want me to work on AI safety, but the move-to-the-Bay meme is now also strong in animal welfare. I remain unconvinced, although I am always open to visiting if there is something specific for me to do there.

the core case

Significant additional spare money isn’t just great for donating, but it can also make it easier to have an impactful career, as you can afford to:

• take more risks (e.g. start a new org that might fail)
• spend more time on your job search whenever it's time to find your next step
• spend more time upskilling
• spend more time and money on your mental and physical health
• generally worry less day-to-day about food and other essentials for yourself and your dependents 

All of the above have massive benefits for your long-term impact and wellbeing.

Moving to a cheaper area might [...]

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Outline:

(00:42) the core case

(03:03) example

(04:18) miscellaneous related thoughts

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

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TLDR; To help the effective animal advocacy movement cost-effectively absorb greater amounts of funding in the near future, we are seeking expressions of interest from people who could found a new organization focused on:

• Highly neglected animals: insects, wild animals, shrimp, fish, etc, or
• AI and animals: AI alignment and governance for animal welfare, strategic actions considering transformative AI, AI for wild animals, etc.
• Tech for animals: welfare tech, precision welfare tech, breeding for welfare, etc.

We are looking for both founders with a specific idea and those motivated to develop or execute on one. Depending on fit, Rethink Priorities can offer 3-6 months of funded runway and various operational set-ups for you to pursue your work, such as a Special Project, hiring you as an Entrepreneur in Residence, or helping you incubate into an independent organization.

To express interest, please fill out the short form (15-20min) here by the end of the day on July 19, 2026.

Background

At Rethink Priorities, we work on some of the most neglected problems in animal welfare: from insect welfare to wild animals to the implications of AI for alternative proteins.

Neglected animals represent the vast majority of the world's [...]

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Outline:

(01:22) Background

(02:13) Which animal topics are we focused on?

(04:02) Small teams are already getting outsized results

(05:29) Who are we looking for?

(07:09) What we can offer

(08:57) How to respond

(10:13) About Rethink Priorities

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