EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

I say this with deep love for 80k and mild existential dread.

I love 80,000 Hours. One of the most useful resources in the effective altruism ecosystem. Their core premise is simple and compelling: you have roughly 80,000 hours in your career, so spend them wisely.

But I've been doing some math, and I think they might need a rebrand.

See, 80,000 Hours increasingly (and rightly!) recommends AI safety and AI governance careers. Their top career paths are dominated by AI-related roles. Which makes a lot of sense... until you think about the implication.

If the AI safety community is right that transformative AI could arrive in the next 5 to 15 years, and if that AI is capable enough to automate most of the work humans currently do, then we don't have 80,000 hours. We might have, what, 10,000? Maybe 15,000 if we're lucky? [1]

The very careers 80k recommends are built on the premise that those careers won't exist for very long.

This isn't a criticism. It's a compliment! It means the advice is working. They've correctly identified the most important problem and pointed people at it. It's just that solving the problem also dissolves the brand.

[...]

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First published:

April 1st, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ou2HFqeJfb2xnkyHG/should-80-000-hours-rebrand-to-10-000-hours-max

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“We” in this post refers to CEA leadership, who didn’t write this post.

In 2025, we grew engagement with CEA's programs by 20–25% across every tier of engagement.

But we recognize that growing the community is about more than engagement or metrics—at its core, growth is about the bigness of things. How can we claim that we’ve grown the community if the words on the page are the same size?

To match our ambition off the page, it's time to show ambition on the page. We’re increasing our font size from 15px to 25px across all platforms. You’ll see more from us—clearer text, bigger words, extremely long forum posts.

What this means

• All of our programs will be bigger, in the sense that the documents we write about them will be absolutely huge.
• The forum will have a larger font than any other sensible website—a bigger font means more impactful ideas.
• Our events will have larger screens for our ginormous font. This will mean a significant increase in AV costs.
• We’re encouraging local groups to do the same—we’re recommending a 30% font size increase this year, and we’ll be supporting them to reach 20px font size by the [...]

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First published:

April 1st, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EBjcpyfPwhByKeWjM/we-re-growing-cea-is-increasing-its-font-size

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

A piece of feedback we've had a few times on our debate weeks is that the debate slider shouldn't be single-dimensional.

When you agree or disagree with something, you also want to be able to signal your confidence in your belief. It's time-consuming to do so by explaining yourself in a comment, and percentage agreement isn't necessarily the same thing as confidence in your agreement.

So, not to worry, we're now introducing a second axis, like so:

…or, we were going to. However, once I finished designing this and we tested it internally, I realised that I was still pretty frustrated.

I always wanted to express, especially with more controversial questions: how related is this belief of mine to the rest of the beliefs that I hold? Should people who come across this, in a year or two years, think of this as representing what I think? Should they use this in their model of me? Is this belief more like a leaf, which a tree can lose and remain itself, a branch, or the trunk? I'm adding one more axis which runs from correlated (with my web of beliefs) to anti-correlated with my web of beliefs:

Once I [...]

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First published:

March 31st, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QpWumxYzfFRiPMqEC/forum-feature-update-debate-poll

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Donating my shares to Lightcone Infrastructure, the Good Food Institute, and the Long-Term Future Fund, because EA refuses to make Mirror's Edge 3

Leaning into EA disillusionment: Why I no longer believe in EA

I bought this EA stock almost thirteen years ago:

Leopold Aschenbrenner once said that “people with situational awareness have a lower cost basis in Nvidia than you do”.  I’m not sure if this is exactly what he meant… but close enough, right?

Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, EA was a great company pumping out great, interesting games:

• Mirror's Edge had a striking art style and showcased a whole new style of first-person parkour gameplay.
• Crysis infamously pushed graphical technology to such extremes that it was like getting a preview of videogame technology 5-10 years in the future.
• Spore was… weird and bad, but its ambition and uniqueness was inspiring.
• The Dead Space games (including the almost weirdly good point-and-shoot Wii spinoff) were pretty creative, and the realism of Battlefield 3 felt like a valuable counterpoint to an increasingly-cartoony Call of Duty series.  Both series felt like they were crafted with a lot of care, despite their big-budget action vibes.
• This was a hidden gem [...]

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Outline:

(00:20) Leaning into EA disillusionment: Why I no longer believe in EA

(02:24) EA is was three radical ideas I want to protect

(03:57) The soul of EA is in trouble

(06:10) EA is about maximization, and maximization is perilous

(09:22) Dont be bycatch

(10:47) EA and the current funding situation

(12:20) Abandoning EA, in favor of doing the most good

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First published:

March 31st, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZegHZBvEeQanrGhpY/giving-up-on-ea-after-13-years

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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EA has made admirable efforts to reach populations that are underrepresented in the movement: busy mid-career professionals, people of faith, and people across a wide range of professions and academic disciplines.

Yet despite all these efforts, we are underserving our most neglected group, one that makes up 98–99% of all people on earth: neurotypicals (NTs). While we don’t have the data on hand, we think it's safe to say that EA has a severe underrepresentation issue among the NT population.

The case for impact

The scale of the opportunity is significant. According to my research (Claude was a big help), the global NT population sits at approximately 8.04–8.12 billion people. This is, to my knowledge, the largest underrepresented group EA has ever identified.

A quick BOTEC

There are an estimated 10,000–30,000 highly engaged EAs globally. Let's be generous and assume 50% are NT. That gives us roughly 5,000–15,000 NT EAs today. Now consider: NTs make up 98–99% of the global population. If EA's NT representation matched the general population, EA should therefore be approximately 49 times larger than it is today. At the high end of current estimates, that's a movement of 1.47 million highly engaged EAs. I’m honestly [...]

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Outline:

(00:43) The case for impact

(01:05) A quick BOTEC

(02:13) Introducing Impactualize

(03:19) Program 1: The Impactualize Fellowship

(04:20) Program 2: A Neurotypical Space at EAG

(05:37) Program 3: Neurotypicals Sensitivity Training

(06:51) A note on social media

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First published:

March 31st, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JoiwqpR2oHBod3gAG/tapping-into-ea-s-most-neglected-market

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Executive Summary

The four largest funds in the effective animal advocacy movement can absorb ~$120 million in new funding in the coming year, with potential for greater growth in future years. Setting aside the historic scarcity mindset, I share this money's significant opportunity to reduce animal suffering and encourage emerging major donors from Anthropic to fund this impact.

We can deploy this money effectively across three intervention categories:

1. Scaling what works (~50-60%)
2. Testing new interventions (~30-40%)
3. Growing movement infrastructure & people power (~10-20%)

Major donors should contact the major funds’ managers directly to decide where to give: Karolina Sarek (EA Animal Welfare Fund), Lewis Bollard (Coefficient Giving's Farm Animal Welfare Fund), Jesse Marks (The Navigation Fund's Animal Welfare Fund), and Stien van der Ploeg (Animal Charity Evaluators). Extremely time-poor major ($250k+) donors can email me for a quick (~15-minute) call to match them to the most aligned fund.

Disclosures: I wrote this post in my Senterra Funders (formerly known as Farmed Animal Funders) capacity.[1] The interventions discussed are broader than the strategy of the EA Animal Welfare Fund, where I am a Fund Manager.

Acknowledgements: Thank you to Elliot Teperman and Shannon Campion for reviewing drafts of this post. All substance [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) Executive Summary

(01:57) The effective animal movement can absorb an additional $120 million in 2026

(03:19) What can we do with an additional $120 million?

(04:13) Scaling What Already Works

(06:17) Testing New Interventions

(08:06) Growing Movement Infrastructure & People Power

(09:14) What next?

(09:17) For emerging major donors: Recommendations to fund the $120 million growth

(10:31) Appendix A

(10:45) Method

(11:59) Results

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First published:

March 31st, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Zo3uNBiZ5GN35hkfq/the-usd120-million-question-how-will-it-help-animals

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I went on the Sam Harris podcast again recently. If you want the full non-paywalled episode, I’m able to share it here:

https://samharris.org/episode/SE6877E700B

30 mins of it is also on youtube, spotify, etc.

The occasion for the podcast was the 10-year anniversary edition of Doing Good Better. So, preparing for the podcast, I collected some relevant facts about what EA has achieved over the last decade, and where the movement stands today. I found the numbers both surprising and inspiring, so I thought I should share them here.

EAs don't often toot their own horn, and with all that's going on in the world, or on the internet at least, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture. So I think a bit of horn-tooting is at least occasionally warranted, otherwise we’ll only ever focus on the bad and not on the good. And, despite a few subdued years, the EA[1] movement is thriving.

I’ll break things down by cause area, before looking at EA's recent return to serious growth.

First, global heath. Since 2015, over $2 billion has been raised for the most effective global health charities, with contributions from over 100,000 donors. The [...]

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First published:

March 31st, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rSPEisvYw9K49ja2T/300-000-lives-100-million-hens-and-a-world-still-to-save

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post.

Hi, I’m Thorbjørn “Toby” Schiønning, co-founder of Anima International. I was encouraged by my colleague Jakub Stencel to share our new blog post on negotiating and campaigning for animal welfare here (this is my first post here).

Summary

• Over the past two decades, a small group of advocates has secured major corporate commitments on animal welfare – from cage-free eggs to fur-free policies – but securing a commitment means nothing if companies don’t follow through.
• The animal advocacy movement relies on two traditional approaches: the “good cop” (dialogue and collaboration) and the “bad cop” (public pressure and campaigns) – each with real strengths, but also significant blind spots.
• The bad cop approach is straightforward and visible, but often fails due to limited budgets, lack of mass public mobilization, and companies increasingly willing to wait campaigns out.
• The good cop approach frees up resources and builds trust, but its leverage is limited – and companies can exploit it by treating NGOs as free bodyguards while making minimal progress.
• A third approach – "fair cop” – combines the flexibility of both: starting from genuine good faith and collaboration, but escalating assertively when warranted, without being locked [...]

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Outline:

(00:27) Summary

(01:37) How animal advocates (not always) win

(02:36) The story so far

(06:09) Playing poker with multinational corporations

(08:01) A quick example of what I mean by fair cop

(09:58) Fair cop in practice

(12:06) The bad cop - the stick

(13:38) When does the bad cop approach succeed?

(14:05) When does the bad cop approach fail?

(15:46) The good cop - the carrot

(16:41) When does the good cop approach succeed?

(18:40) When does the good cop approach fail?

(20:12) So what to make of all of this?

(20:56) Combining their strengths

(23:43) Why fair?

(25:22) When public campaigning is needed

(26:46) Fair cops weakest points

(27:52) Fair cop in action

(30:43) Summing it up

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First published:

March 31st, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/23BjNccCdG9a3v8PD/the-good-the-bad-and-the-fair-cop

Linkpost URL:
https://animainternational.org/blog/fair-cop

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Measuring and communicating impact is hard, particularly when focusing on community building over the long term.

You have a much better idea of what led to you starting a new role, changing your donations, etc, than anyone else could. It will take you 2-10 minutes to directly tell someone how they've impacted your trajectory[1] where they might take hours-to-forever to try to reach you and ask.

It seems likely that many community builders, orgs, and funders would get significant-value from additional impact stories[2].

It also seem very unlikely to be high-cost for any org to receive your impact story. At worst this is an unwanted email that needs to be processed.

So: think about how you got to where you are on your impact journey, and whether it would be beneficial to tell someone now.

And: when you make meaningful changes in the future, tell the people who helped make that happen.

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First published:

March 30th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9frujLf8D5TxuNFtK/proactively-tell-people-organisations-when-they-have-changed

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post.

Introduction

Consider a lorry driver who sees a car crash and pulls over to help, even though it’ll delay his journey. Or a delivery driver who notices that an elderly resident hasn’t collected their post in days, and knocks to check they’re okay. Or a social media company employee who notices how their platform is used for online bullying, and brings it up with leadership, even though that's not part of their job description.

This kind of proactive prosocial behaviour is admirable in humans. Should we want it in AI too?

Often, people have answered “no”. Many advocate for making AI “corrigible” or “steerable”. In its purest form, this makes AI a mere vessel for the will of the user.

But we think AI should proactively take actions that benefit society more broadly. As AI systems become more autonomous and integrated into economic and political processes, the cumulative effect of their behavioural tendencies will shape society's trajectory. AI systems that notice opportunities to benefit society and proactively act on them could matter enormously.

Below, we consider two main objections:

Firstly, supposedly prosocial drives might function as a means for AI companies to impose their own [...]

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Outline:

(00:15) Introduction

(02:06) What do we mean by proactive prosocial drives?

(02:53) Why do we think AI should have proactive prosocial drives?

(05:07) Other benefits of proactive prosocial drives

(05:51) Doesnt this give AI companies too much influence?

(07:44) Wont this make AI more likely to seek power?

(13:00) Wont this make it harder to interpret evidence of egregious misalignment?

(15:16) Best of both worlds: deploy proactive prosocial AI externally and corrigible AI internally

(16:31) What do current AI character documents say about proactive prosocial drives?

(17:53) Conclusion

(19:02) Appendices

(19:05) Appendix A: Initially make non-prosocial AI, then pivot to add proactive prosocial drives

(21:39) Appendix B: Prosocial drives might make a sociopathic persona less likely

(23:42) Appendix C: Prosocial drives might make AI a better alignment researcher

(24:42) Appendix D: What license does Claudes Constitution give for proactive prosocial drives?

(25:33) A. User benefit

(26:14) B. Refusals

(27:09) C. Proactive prosocial drives

(28:07) Summary

(28:23) Appendix E: What does OpenAIs model spec say about proactive prosocial drives?

(28:56) A. Proactive behaviour that is explicitly user-centred

(29:41) B. Proactively preventing imminent harm

(30:14) C. Weak normative defaults and the flourishing of humanity

(31:14) D. Explicit limits on proactive prosocial drives

(32:55) Summary

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First published:

March 30th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/awhmnLXxJon6GcNzD/ai-should-be-a-good-citizen-not-just-a-good-assistant

Linkpost URL:
https://www.forethought.org/research/ai-should-sometimes-be-proactively-prosocial

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.