EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

Crosspost.

(Reminder: the farm bill which is being voted on imminently would destroy most state level animal protections and be the worst law for farm animal welfare ever passed. Please, please, contact your representatives and tell them to vote no on it—more details here, including a bunch of other activities that are even higher impact. The house votes on this today, so this is the last day you can productively call your representatives.)

Effective altruism is a social movement that's about trying to do good as effectively as possible, with charity, career, and life projects broadly. If you go to a random local effective altruism event, most of the people there will be atheists, even in a country that's mostly Christian. But this isn’t because of any deep conflict between Christian ideas and effective altruism. I’m in a Facebook group with a bunch of Christian philosophers, and about half of them are effective altruists in some form.

Similarly, Aron Wall who is among the most devout Christians I know, is an effective altruist and gives his money to the most effective charities he can find. My friend who runs the YouTube channel Apologetics Squared is another very religious [...]

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First published:

April 30th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CC9jePAMibACapk3i/book-review-all-the-lives-you-can-change

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Today marks the 10-year anniversary of EAGx. On April 30, 2016, the very first EAGx events—EAGxBoston and EAGxBerkeley—were held simultaneously. A decade later, it's incredible to reflect on how much this community has grown, both in scale and in depth.

Since then, we’ve hosted 67 EAGx events and 18 EA Summits (a format we introduced in 2024), bringing us to 85 events in total—with our 86th happening this weekend (EAGxDC!). Across these, we’ve welcomed over 24,500 attendees in 20 countries and across six continents.

A few milestones that stand out:

• EAGxAustralasia is our longest-running series (6 editions, rotating across cities)
• EAGxBerlin has been our most frequently hosted city (5 times)
• Our largest event, EAGxBoston 2022, brought together 935 attendees
• The portfolio continues to grow: this year alone, we’re planning 10 EAGx events and at least 22 EA Summits

EAGxAustralasia 2019

EAGxBerlin 2025

EAGxNordics 2026

The EA Summit format, in particular, has scaled quickly—from 409 attendees across 3 pilot events in 2024 to over 1,700 across 2025–26 already. It's been exciting to see how this complements the EAGx model and opens up new ways for people to engage.

But more than the numbers, EAGx has always been about people [...]

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First published:

April 30th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EwbuBhQMiNcmaznHq/celebrating-10-years-of-eagx

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This is a link post.

These are strategic questions about digital minds and AI welfare that I think are especially important, and where I’d like to see more progress. A common theme is that they matter for what we should do concretely under uncertainty about AI moral status.

This is a current snapshot of my views and I expect them to change.

What do you think? Any questions you’d add?

Approach

What's robustly good to do now, under deep uncertainty?

I think this is the leading question we should ask. We don’t know whether AIs are or will become moral patients, and resolving that question isn’t tractable in the short term. What matters most are the long-run effects of our actions, since the vast majority of digital minds, if they ever exist, will be created after the transition to advanced AI. And there are serious long-run risks from both over- and under-attributing moral status.

So we should look for actions that are robustly positive in the long run: good if AIs are (or will be) moral patients, not bad if they aren’t, and compatible with human and animal welfare (~AI safety). Finding such actions is hard, and most options carry [...]

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Outline:

(00:36) Approach

(00:39) Whats robustly good to do now, under deep uncertainty?

(01:37) Can AI welfare work wait for ASI?

(03:02) What to do under different AI takeoff scenarios?

(04:26) AI safety × AI welfare

(04:30) Do AI safety and welfare conflict?

(06:11) How might AI welfare shape deal-making with AIs?

(07:19) Relations

(07:22) Should AIs have legal rights, and if so, which?

(08:59) How will AI-AI interactions shape the welfare of digital minds?

(10:08) What would harmonious coexistence look like?

(10:55) Creation

(10:58) How can we influence those who will shape the welfare of digital minds?

(12:52) Is restricting the creation of digital minds feasible?

(13:55) Who will deliberately create digital minds, and why?

(15:07) How will digital minds spread to space?

(15:55) Design

(15:58) How can we make AIs value the welfare of digital minds?

(16:59) Do different types of digital minds require different strategies?

(18:56) Will digital minds be happy by default?

(20:11) What preferences will digital minds have, and what follows?

(21:31) Society

(21:34) What memes should we spread?

(23:05) What interest groups and coalitions will form around digital minds?

(23:55) What role will China play?

(24:49) How will religions respond?

(26:00) Beyond

(26:03) What crucial considerations are we missing?

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First published:

April 29th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TdRdivQNeRxXrscQx/open-strategic-questions-for-digital-minds

Linkpost URL:
https://outpaced.substack.com/p/open-strategic-questions-for-digital

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In this post I explore how much nature appears to matter to people. I attempt to show that this value is enduring across time and traditions and that it will probably continue to matter to humans into the future.

Nature seems to matter enough for 1% of people globally to donate for the sake of nature and 12% of people spend their vacation time on some form of nature appreciation.

Amount of $ spent:

• Annual spending on biodiversity is around 124 billion dollars-200 billion dollars, with aspirational commitments reaching 700 billion dollars
• As pointed out on this forum, $121 billion per year is spent by the Global Biodiversity Framework coalition, as a lower bound
• Conservation NGOs get between 30-50% of their revenue from individual donation. Total conservation NGO income is ~$8 billion
• $235 billion is spent on ecotourism with 16% CAGR indicating $665 billion will be spent annually by 2030

Amount of people who value nature:

• I estimate 50 million people[1] with a repeat commitment (~100 million people counting spontaneous small donations)
• This is 1% of the global adult population and 2.6% of charitable donors
• 980 million nature tourists, or 67% of all tourists (1.45 billion)

This value seems [...]

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First published:

April 29th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SnhKjvKegayx4t4yH/people-really-care-about-something-they-call-nature

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Hi everyone, in my last post I talked about the federal effort to destroy state animal welfare laws. The farm bill is set to destroy most state-level animal welfare protections. There was an amendment called the Luna amendment that would have removed from the farm bill the provisions that would have destroyed most state animal welfare laws. Sadly it didn’t pass.

Thus, the destruction of most state animal welfare protections will be in the farm bill. The only remaining option is getting representatives to vote no on the farm bill. This is doable! In the linked doc you can see more details about how to contact your representatives about this, including what you should say to them. It also discusses the enormity of this decision. Very urgent, and the stakes are very high! Please do this, tell your friends to do it, and share this article so that more people can do it! Otherwise animal welfare might be set back decades, and hundreds of millions may be consigned to a cage.

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First published:

April 28th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/G8gm7WFkbKD9sgaKW/follow-up-time-sensitive-animal-welfare-action

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TL;DR: this is an incredibly underdeveloped field with very little funding deployed and only one small direct work org. There are clear basic projects that need to get off the ground. Please donate to help start the new Falcon Fund which will do active grantmaking on these projects.

It's been over three years since ChatGPT was released, and in that time the Animal Welfare movement has had to grapple with what it means to face off with rapidly advancing AI. This has not gone very well. Not only does the Animal Welfare movement have almost no money, it also has almost no technical talent. From the AI side, billions of dollars have (rightly) gone into the AI Safety field to figure out how we’re going to navigate the future, and many of the people working on that deeply care about animals. In many ways, the future of animal welfare is just a subset of problems that people in AI Safety are already working on. Nonetheless, AI is about to be deployed in ways that will impact countless animals, and there seem to be no safeguards in place.

The animal movement in an ideal world would have put at least [...]

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Outline:

(03:51) What is AIxAnimals?

(04:33) Why focus on this at all?

(05:06) 1. Direct impact on animals

(05:47) 2: Impact on all sentient life, including digital minds and humans

(07:41) 3. We shouldnt build AI systems that commit moral atrocities

(08:13) Who is involved?

(08:16) Main organizations

(09:02) Academia and research

(09:27) Other

(09:41) What should this field specifically try to achieve?

(09:47) 1. Measurement

(11:02) 2. Direct Impact

(12:19) 3. Moral Patienthood Consideration

(13:00) 4. Policy

(13:50) What specific projects should be started immediately?

(15:37) AI-enabled technologies for animal welfare

(15:47) AI for Cultivated Meat and Alternative Proteins

(17:17) Advocacy Tech

(17:45) Conclusion: What I am excited for

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First published:

April 29th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QgW9qFv6LBn7qDTig/the-state-of-the-aixanimals-field

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Originally posted as a comment on this post. Reposting for visibility and since it is lengthy enough to be a standalone post. I plan to post a more comprehensive update in future describing FRI's impact and theory of change in more detail.

Summary

[Relevant context/COI: I'm CEO at the Forecasting Research Institute (FRI), an organization which I co-founded with Phil Tetlock and others. Much of the below is my personal perspective, though it is informed by my work. I don't speak for others on my team. I’m sharing an initial reply now, and our team at FRI will share a larger post in future that offers a more comprehensive reflection on these topics.]

Thanks for the post — I think it's important to critically question the value of funds going to forecasting, and this post offers a good opportunity for reflection and discussion.

In brief, I share many of your concerns about forecasting and related research, but I'm also more positive on both its impact so far and its future expected impact.

A summary of some key points:

1. Much of the impact of forecasting research on specific decision-makers is not public. For example, FRI has informed decisions on [...]

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Outline:

(00:27) Summary

(05:29) Examples of impact

(09:21) AI timelines, impact, and adoption forecasts drive a huge amount of career decision-making, attention, etc.

(11:46) Relevant comparison class for forecasting research

(12:58) My critiques of forecasting research

(15:36) Some notes on FRI-style forecasting research vs. other forecasting interventions

(16:38) Reasons for optimism about future impact

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First published:

April 28th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vDw9tf4BTHgYshJW5/comment-on-forecasting-is-way-overrated-and-we-should-stop

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

We (Aiden, Alex, Saul, Jesse) ran the first[1] West Coast EA Retreat, from April 10–12 2026, in Bass Lake, CA. We’re interested in sharing our retrospective with the broader EA community, and in having a public artifact of the retreat — hence this post.

This post was mostly written by Aiden, with substantial input and edits from Alex, Jesse, and Saul (who do not necessarily endorse everything in this post).

Broadly, we ran this retreat for the following reasons:[2]

• Retreats are an extraordinarily good way to motivate people to delve deeper into EA ideas, especially people who have some but not a lot of context on specific cause areas.
• Retreats help people transition to impactful careers by giving them access to relevant professionals that they might not otherwise have had in-network.
• Retreats can be a gateway into broader social integration into the EA community and ecosystem.

Information about the event 

Attendance and venue

We held the retreat over a weekend in April in Bass Lake, CA, a three-hour drive east of Berkeley. We initially expected around 30 attendees, but ended up with 63 total attendees (50 university students, 13 non-student special guests). The majority of [...]

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Outline:

(01:11) Information about the event

(01:15) Attendance and venue

(02:36) Budget

(03:05) Organizers

(03:28) Schedule

(03:44) Feedback form results & analysis

(04:38) What went well

(08:29) What could have been improved

(08:42) Schedule

(09:37) Attendees

(10:29) Venue

(11:47) Planning and meta-organization

(12:32) Other logistical issues

(13:33) A few general lessons

(15:49) Other things we learned

(16:59) Conclusion

(17:27) Thank yous

(18:39) Other resources

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First published:

April 28th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KbSrfqp6u36goHtDG/retrospective-on-the-first-west-coast-ea-retreat

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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We (Aiden, Alex, Saul, Jesse) ran the first[1] West Coast EA Retreat, from April 10–12 2026, in Bass Lake, CA. We’re interested in sharing our retrospective with the broader EA community, and in having a public artifact of the retreat — hence this post.

This post was mostly written by Aiden, with substantial input and edits from Alex, Jesse, and Saul (who do not necessarily endorse everything in this post).

Broadly, we ran this retreat for the following reasons:[2]

• Retreats are an extraordinarily good way to motivate people to delve deeper into EA ideas, especially people who have some but not a lot of context on specific cause areas.
• Retreats help people transition to impactful careers by giving them access to relevant professionals that they might not otherwise have had in-network.
• Retreats can be a gateway into broader social integration into the EA community and ecosystem.

Information about the event 

Attendance and venue

We held the retreat over a weekend in April in Bass Lake, CA, a three-hour drive east of Berkeley. We initially expected around 30 attendees, but ended up with 63 total attendees (50 university students, 13 non-student special guests). The majority of university students [...]

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Outline:

(01:13) Information about the event

(01:17) Attendance and venue

(02:25) Budget

(02:53) Organizers

(03:17) Schedule

(03:25) Feedback form results & analysis

(03:55) What went well

(04:25) Parallel talks

(05:02) Debates

(06:08) Special guests

(06:41) A new one-on-one scheduling app, Pairwise

(07:44) What could have been improved

(07:50) Schedule

(08:46) Attendees

(09:37) Venue

(10:56) Planning and meta-organization

(11:40) Other logistical issues

(12:41) A few general lessons

(14:58) Other things we learned

(16:08) Conclusion

(16:36) Thank yous

(17:48) Other resources

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First published:

April 29th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KbSrfqp6u36goHtDG/we-ran-the-first-west-coast-ea-retreat-a-retrospective

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This is a link post.

Disclaimer: I am not a subject matter expert in any of the fields being discussed here. I have done my best to check for errors but cannot guarantee that this article is error-free.

I would like to thank Ezra Karger, the author of the main report I’m analysing, for looking through an earlier version of this article and giving helpful suggestions.

Introduction:

In discussions about existential risk, it is common for people to try and estimate how dangerous various threats are to humanity, in order to best defend against them.

Particularly in the orbit of effective altruist or Rationalist communities, this often takes the form of a probabilistic estimate. A typical question will ask: “how likely is it that humanity will go extinct due to X cause by Y date”? Especially in the context of AI risk, someone's answer can be colloquially referred to as their “P(doom)”, and tends to be expressed as a single number percentage estimate, like “0.01%”.

I do not think it will be very controversial for me to point out that there can be a very large amount of uncertainty in these estimates. The extinction of humanity [...]

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Outline:

(02:17) Part 1: Analysing in-group spread in  XPT survey responses

(12:53) Part 2: Differences between groups and methodologies

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First published:

April 28th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nn9ryA55sonAueeJ7/analysing-the-extreme-spread-in-existential-risk-survey

Linkpost URL:
https://open.substack.com/pub/titotal/p/analysing-the-extreme-spread-in-existential?r=1e0is3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

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