EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

What is the highest form of love? According to the VascoBot Claude programmed for me:

“Thanks for the great question, AgentMa🔸. I strongly upvoted it.

I think the highest form of love is expected total hedonistic utilitarianism (ETHU) applied to all sentient beings, weighted by their welfare ranges as a fraction of that of humans. However, I believe most discussions of love neglect the welfare implications for soil animals and microorganisms, which I think dominate the expected value calculations in most cases.

I estimate that when someone experiences profound love, their increased wellbeing leads to approximately 2.3 % (= 50 additional kcal consumed per day * 0.046 % per kcal) additional food consumption. Multiplying this by the roughly 4.71*10^13 soil nematodes affected per kcal of food production (from my back-of-the-envelope calculations based on van den Hoogen et al. (2019)), I get approximately 1.08*10^12 affected nematode-years per year of experiencing love. Conditional on my preferred exponent of the number of neurons of 0.7, and assuming the welfare range of a nematode is 10^-6 as a fraction of that of humans, the welfare effects on soil animals could be 1.08*10^6 nematode-equivalent quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) per year of love experience.

In [...]

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First published:

February 14th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/exwmGp3swfbbNqSsN/what-is-love-ft-claude-and-vascobot

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I'm trying to reconcile the arguments (and marketing) with the labour market reality because it looks like even if you have strong credentials and career capital you might not find a relevant role because of how ultracompetitive this landscape is, based on discussions with other EA's and posts on the EA forum attesting how hard it is to land a job.

Every time a new role gets posted on the 80,000 Hours job board it feels like it attracts hundreds of applicants with top, even elite credentials. That doesn’t look "neglected" at the job level at all, it looks more like talent is fulfilled where it's really necessary. In practice this is really good because it means competent people are working directly on these issues.

So, what's missing here really? Is “neglected” mostly referring to funding and institutional capacity at the organizational level, while the actual job openings are few, so everyone is trying to get through the same narrow door? Or is it just that lots of people go after the same few EA jobs, so those jobs get really hard to get, even if the cause still needs a lot more people and work overall?

At [...]

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First published:

February 13th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uKSxTvYYy3BvmeB6e/80-000-hours-says-we-need-more-people-so-why-do-top

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I'm trying to reconcile the arguments (and marketing) with the labour market reality because it looks like even if you have strong credentials and career capital you might not find a relevant role because of how ultracompetitive this landscape is, based on discussions with other EA's and posts on the EA forum attesting how hard it is to land a job.

Every time a new role gets posted on the 80,000 Hours job board it feels like it attracts hundreds of applicants with top, even elite credentials. That doesn’t look "neglected" at the job level at all, it looks more like talent is fulfilled where it's really necessary. In practice this is really good because it means competent people are working directly on these issues.

So, what's missing here really? Is “neglected” mostly referring to funding and institutional capacity at the organizational level, while the actual job openings are few, so everyone is trying to get through the same narrow door? Or is it just that lots of people go after the same few EA jobs, so those roles become really hard to get, even if the cause still needs a lot more people and work overall?

At [...]

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First published:

February 13th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uKSxTvYYy3BvmeB6e/80-000-hours-says-we-need-more-people-so-why-do-top

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I re-implemented GiveWell's cost-effectiveness models for all six top charities as an open-source web tool: maxghenis.com/givewell-cea

The tool lets you edit any parameter and immediately see the effect on charity rankings.

Motivation

Others have done excellent work examining specific parts of GiveWell's CEA — Froolow's critical review of model architecture, Nolan, Rokebrand, and Rao's uncertainty quantification, and several pieces on deworming and AMF uncertainty. But I couldn't find a tool that implements all six charities together and makes it easy to compare them while adjusting assumptions.

GiveWell's spreadsheets are powerful but hard to explore casually. Each charity has its own multi-tab workbook with dozens of sheets, specialized terminology, and cross-references between cells:

Changing a moral weight means editing cells across multiple sheets and comparing results manually. I wanted something where you could adjust one slider and immediately see how all six charities re-rank.

What the model covers

For each charity I implemented the core pipeline from GiveWell's spreadsheets:

1. People reached: Grant size / cost per person reached
2. Deaths averted (or equivalent): People reached × mortality/disease rate × intervention effect size
3. Units of value: Deaths averted × moral weight (age-adjusted)
4. Cost-effectiveness: Units of value per dollar / benchmark value [...]

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Outline:

(00:37) Motivation

(01:38) What the model covers

(03:16) Observations from the replication

(06:15) Verification

(07:04) Interactive features

(08:12) How assumptions affect rankings

(10:25) Programmatic access

(11:04) Limitations

(12:33) Try it

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First published:

February 12th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7QM4krYmoPtvyH9Pd/interactive-replication-of-givewell-s-cost-effectiveness

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Most published animal welfare research is carried out by universities in labs.

I kind of assumed that this was a necessity in some way. Either stuff can't get published if you're not affiliated with a university, or universities just have the necessary rigour to get things done. I just assumed there's a whole host of reasons why this had to be the case, but I think those are mistaken.

And as a result, I think that when you start to look at universities, it starts to look strangely expensive to get things done. Things have a much longer time scale than is useful. And the facilities that they have to set up are often not good indicators of what reality looks like outside of the lab.

I think that high-quality welfare work can be done outside of universities and in fact, I think a huge amount of welfare work is done outside universities on farms but just isn't actually published and available in the literature. It just needs to be brought to the surface.

I want to see if it's possible for the animal welfare movement to rethink the model of research work and actively turn farms into welfare [...]

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Outline:

(01:27) How do we actually get data from farms?

(02:46) Can we turn them into Welfare Labs?

(04:02) Why this makes sense

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First published:

February 12th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yRQgZN7aiM6mAKgzq/turning-farms-into-welfare-labs

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[I am a career advisor at 80,000 Hours. I've been thinking about something Will MacAskill said recently in an interview with my shrimp-friend Matt: "should people be more ambitious? I genuinely think yes. I think people systematically aren't ambitious enough, so the answer is almost always yes. Again, the ambition you have should match the scale of the problems that we're facing—and the scale of those problems is very large indeed."

This post is my reflection on these ideas.]

************

My last post argued that if you want to have a great career, your goal should not be to get a job. Instead, you should choose an important problem to work on, then “get good and be known.” Building skills will allow you to solve problems and reap the benefits.

In the ~500 career advising calls I’ve hosted in the past year, the most common response I’ve heard has been: “Okay, how good? How well known? How many hours of practice will get me there?” Most people want to calibrate their ambitions so that the time and energy they invest feels worth it to them.

I empathize with this, but when I’m honest– with myself for my own [...]

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Outline:

(06:28) Jensen Huang is more ambitious than you

(12:58) Most extreme ambition is misplaced

(17:45) Okay, how can altruistic people aim higher and work harder?

(21:17) Ambition at the End of the Human Era

(24:03) Closing Caveats - Efficiency, Burnout, and Choosing What Matters

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First published:

February 12th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7qsisgX3cwETJuPNz/our-levels-of-ambition-should-match-the-problems-we-re

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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This is a link post.

You aren't ready to receive their wisdom

We may soon develop the ability to talk to whales. To anyone with even an ounce of whimsy or curious joy, this is obviously pretty exciting. It's hard not to imagine the radical wave of empathy that this could cause, as we realize we're not as special as we previously thought.[1]

There are two main research groups that I know of working on this, Earth Species Project and Project CETI, and the effort to decode sperm whale communication in particular seems well under way.

I think we should seriously consider that, as a civilization, we are not ready to handle this well, and that we should aim to delay our first contact with whales, rather than doing research to accelerate it.

Some thoughts[2]:

1. Exploitation and whaling

Both ESP and Project CETI are publicly committed to open-source research, and are actively sharing their datasets, methods, and models online[3]. Project CETI intends to build "the most comprehensive open-source animal communication dataset ever created[4]". Rather than a controlled and careful effort to bridge the human-whale divide, this technology may become highly democratized, enabling a large number of actors [...]

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Outline:

(00:56) 1. Exploitation and whaling

(02:19) 2. Irreversible cultural change

(03:33) 3. Linguistic prejudice

(04:42) 4. Locking in wild animal suffering

(06:00) Conclusion

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First published:

February 11th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/or5wrefJojkbfc43x/don-t-talk-to-whales

Linkpost URL:
https://lovedoesnotscale.substack.com/p/dont-talk-to-whales

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Cross-posted to LessWrong.

Summary

• History's most destructive ideologies—like Nazism, totalitarian communism, and religious fundamentalism—exhibited remarkably similar characteristics:
  • epistemic and moral certainty
  • extreme tribalism dividing humanity into a sacred “us” and an evil “them”
  • a willingness to use whatever means necessary, including brutal violence.
• Such ideological fanaticism was a major driver of eight of the ten greatest atrocities since 1800, including the Taiping Rebellion, World War II, and the regimes of Stalin, Mao, and Hitler.
• We focus on ideological fanaticism over related concepts like totalitarianism partly because it better captures terminal preferences, which plausibly matter most as we approach superintelligent AI and technological maturity.
• Ideological fanaticism is considerably less influential than in the past, controlling only a small fraction of world GDP. Yet at least hundreds of millions still hold fanatical views, many regimes exhibit concerning ideological tendencies, and the past two decades have seen widespread democratic backsliding.
• The long-term influence of ideological fanaticism is uncertain. Fanaticism faces many disadvantages including a weak starting position, poor epistemics, and difficulty assembling broad coalitions. But it benefits from greater willingness to use extreme measures, fervent mass followings, and a historical tendency to survive and even thrive amid technological and societal upheaval. Beyond complete victory or defeat, multipolarity may [...]

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Outline:

(00:16) Summary

(05:19) What do we mean by ideological fanaticism?

(08:40) I. Dogmatic certainty: epistemic and moral lock-in

(10:02) II. Manichean tribalism: total devotion to us, total hatred for them

(12:42) III. Unconstrained violence: any means necessary

(14:33) Fanaticism as a multidimensional continuum

(16:09) Ideological fanaticism drove most of recent historys worst atrocities

(19:24) Death tolls dont capture all harm

(20:55) Intentional versus natural or accidental harm

(22:44) Why emphasize ideological fanaticism over political systems like totalitarianism?

(25:07) Fanatical and totalitarian regimes have caused far more harm than all other regime types

(26:29) Authoritarianism as a risk factor

(27:19) Values change political systems: Ideological fanatics seek totalitarianism, not democracy

(29:50) Terminal values may matter independently of political systems, especially with AGI

(31:02) Fanaticisms connection to malevolence (dark personality traits)

(34:22) The current influence of ideological fanaticism

(34:42) Historical perspective: it was much worse, but we are sliding back

(37:19) Estimating the global scale of ideological fanaticism

(43:57) State actors

(48:12) How much influence will ideological fanaticism have in the long-term future?

(48:57) Reasons for optimism: Why ideological fanaticism will likely lose

(49:45) A worse starting point and historical track record

(50:33) Fanatics intolerance results in coalitional disadvantages

(51:53) The epistemic penalty of irrational dogmatism

(54:21) The marketplace of ideas and human preferences

(55:57) Reasons for pessimism: Why ideological fanatics may gain power

(56:04) The fragility of democratic leadership in AI

(56:37) Fanatical actors may grab power via coups or revolutions

(59:36) Fanatics have fewer moral constraints

(01:01:13) Fanatics prioritize destructive capabilities

(01:02:13) Some ideologies with fanatical elements have been remarkably resilient and successful

(01:03:01) Novel fanatical ideologies could emerge--or existing ones could mutate

(01:05:08) Fanatics may have longer time horizons, greater scope-sensitivity, and prioritize growth more

(01:07:15) A possible middle ground: Persistent multipolar worlds

(01:08:33) Why multipolar futures seem plausible

(01:10:00) Why multipolar worlds might persist indefinitely

(01:15:42) Ideological fanaticism increases existential and suffering risks

(01:17:09) Ideological fanaticism increases the risk of war and conflict

(01:17:44) Reasons for war and ideological fanaticism

(01:26:27) Fanatical ideologies are non-democratic, which increases the risk of war

(01:27:00) These risks are both time-sensitive and timeless

(01:27:44) Fanatical retributivism may lead to astronomical suffering

(01:29:50) Empirical evidence: how many people endorse eternal extreme punishment?

(01:33:53) Religious fanatical retributivism

(01:40:45) Secular fanatical retributivism

(01:41:43) Ideological fanaticism could undermine long-reflection-style frameworks and AI alignment

(01:42:33) Ideological fanaticism threatens collective moral deliberation

(01:47:35) AI alignment may not solve the fanaticism problem either

(01:53:33) Prevalence of reality-denying, anti-pluralistic, and punitive worldviews

(01:55:44) Ideological fanaticism could worsen many other risks

(01:55:49) Differential intellectual regress

(01:56:51) Ideological fanaticism may give rise to extreme optimization and insatiable moral desires

(01:59:21) Apocalyptic terrorism

(02:00:05) S-risk-conducive propensities and reverse cooperative intelligence

(02:01:28) More speculative dynamics: purity spirals and self-inflicted suffering

(02:03:00) Unknown unknowns and navigating exotic scenarios

(02:03:43) Interventions

(02:05:31) Societal or political interventions

(02:05:51) Safeguarding democracy

(02:06:40) Reducing political polarization

(02:10:26) Promoting anti-fanatical values: classical liberalism and Enlightenment principles

(02:13:55) Growing the influence of liberal democracies

(02:15:54) Encouraging reform in illiberal countries

(02:16:51) Promoting international cooperation

(02:22:36) Artificial intelligence-related interventions

(02:22:41) Reducing the chance that transformative AI falls into the hands of fanatics

(02:27:58) Making transformative AIs themselves less likely to be fanatical

(02:36:14) Using AI to improve epistemics and deliberation

(02:38:13) Fanaticism-resistant post-AGI governance

(02:39:51) Addressing deeper causes of ideological fanaticism

(02:41:26) Supplementary materials

(02:41:39) Acknowledgments

(02:42:22) References

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First published:

February 12th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EDBQPT65XJsgszwmL/long-term-risks-from-ideological-fanaticism

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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The Board of Effective Altruism UK is pleased to announce the appointment of a new Director, Gergő Gáspár.

EA UK works to support and strengthen the effective altruism community across the UK, helping people increase their impact. Gergő joins EA UK at a time when there is growing demand for strong infrastructure to support the UK EA ecosystem.

Background

Gergő's academic background is in psychology, and he has been working in community building and fieldbuilding roles since 2019. He began by organising a university group called EA ELTE, which later grew into EA Budapest and eventually into EA Hungary, a national group. He moved into full-time community building work in 2021 as this work scaled. In 2022, he founded AI Safety Hungary.

For the past two years, Gergő has also been a part-time Director at the European Network for AI Safety (ENAIS), working on coordination and capacity-building across Europe. In parallel, he co-founded Amplify, an EA-aligned digital marketing agency focused on supporting fieldbuilding organisations. He also writes the blog Building Capacity, which focuses on fieldbuilding strategy, careers, and marketing in EA and adjacent spaces.

Earlier in his career, Gergő was a volunteer charity analyst and analysis coordinator at SoGive [...]

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Outline:

(00:34) Background

(01:44) Focus at EA UK

(02:02) A note from Gergő

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First published:

February 12th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Jn2PPt4aLZWDafiz4/announcing-the-new-director-of-ea-uk

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

For the last couple of years, EA Organization Updates has been a monthly series hosted on the forum. It doesn't normally get very much attention. Previous to that it was part of the EA Newsletter until the newsletter got far too long to host it.

Now we're trying something new. Instead of asking organisations to write in to us, editing and posting their updates, we're asking them to write directly here on the forum, where you can interact with them. If this goes well, we'll continue the series as a monthly thread which stays up for a week.

Note that this thread will be less gate-kept, curated and endorsed than the previous series. This is a positive (content isn't restricted to the organisations we have asked to write something) and negative (if the thread proves popular, we might have to spend moderation capacity removing irrelevant updates). We'll keep an eye on this trade-off.

You can see previous updates on the “EA Organization Updates (monthly series) topic page. Notice that there's also an “organization updates” tag, where you can find more news and updates that are not part of this consolidated series.

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First published:

February 9th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HetCMJE49JCXLPGYW/organisation-updates-thread

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.