Note: This post was crossposted from the Open Philanthropy Farm Animal Welfare Research Newsletter by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.

How factory farmers block progress — and what we can do about it

Most people agree that farmed animals deserve better legal protections: 84% of Europeans, 61-80% of Americans, 70% of Brazilians, 51-66% of Chinese, and 52% of Indians agree with some version of that statement. Yet almost all farmed animals globally still lack even the most basic protections.

America has about five times more vegetarians than farmers — and many more omnivores who care about farm animals. Yet the farmers wield much more political power. Fully 89% of Europeans think it's important that animals not be kept in individual cages. Yet the European Commission just implicitly sided with the 8% who don’t by shelving [...]

---

First published:

February 28th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BvXkG3PLfdmvoECFb/this-is-why-we-can-t-have-nice-laws

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This post shares our journey in starting an Effective Altruism (EA) charity/project focused on Mediterranean fish welfare, the challenges we faced, our key learnings, and the reasons behind our decision to conclude the project. Actual research results are published in a Literature review and article.

Key points

The key points of this post are summarized as follows:

• We launched a project with the goal of enhancing fish welfare in Mediterranean aquaculture.
• We chose to limit our project to gathering information and decided against continuing our advocacy efforts after our initial six months.
• Our strategy, which focused on farmer-friendly outreach, was not effective in engaging farmers.
• The rationale behind our decision is the recognition that existing organizations are already performing excellent work, and we believe that funders should support these established organizations instead of starting a new one.
• The support and resources from the Effective Altruism (EA) and [...]

---

Outline:

(00:27) Key points

(01:48) Personal/Project background

(03:01) Why work on Mediterranean fish welfare?

(07:07) Project plans and initial work

(11:03) Initial work

(13:47) Farmer outreach

(20:45) Wrapping up the project

(22:30) Other takeaways from starting a project

(24:48) Resources for launching a new charity

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

---

First published:

February 26th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/z59wybc56FCAysrAe/how-we-started-our-own-ea-charity-and-why-we-decided-to-wrap

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

This post shares our journey in starting an Effective Altruism (EA) charity/project focused on Mediterranean fish welfare, the challenges we faced, our key learnings, and the reasons behind our decision to conclude the project. Actual research results are published in a Literature review and article.

Key points

The key points of this post are summarized as follows:

• We launched a project with the goal of enhancing fish welfare in Mediterranean aquaculture.
• We chose to limit our project to gathering information and decided against continuing our advocacy efforts after our initial six months.
• Our strategy, which focused on farmer-friendly outreach, was not effective in engaging farmers.
• The rationale behind our decision is the recognition that existing organizations are already performing excellent work, and we believe that funders should support these established organizations instead of starting a new one.
• The support and resources from the Effective Altruism (EA) and [...]

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

---

First published:

February 26th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/z59wybc56FCAysrAe/how-we-started-our-own-ea-charity-and-why-we-decided-to-wrap

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Epistemic status: the stories here are all as true as possible from memory, but my memory is so so.

An AI made this

This is going to be big

It's late Summer 2017. I am on a walk in the Mendip Hills. It's warm and sunny and the air feels fresh. With me are around 20 other people from the Effective Altruism London community. We’ve travelled west for a retreat to discuss how to help others more effectively with our donations and careers. As we cross cow field after cow field, I get talking to one of the people from the group I don’t know yet. He seems smart, and cheerful. He tells me that he is an AI researcher at Google DeepMind. He explains how he is thinking about how to make sure that any powerful AI system actually does what we want it to. I ask him if [...]

---

Outline:

(00:16) This is going to be big

(01:21) This is going to be bad

(02:44) It's a long way off though

(03:50) This is fine

(05:10) It's probably something else in your life

(06:15) No-one in my org puts money in their pension

(07:16) Doom-vibes

(08:45) Maths might help

(10:28) A problem shared is…

(12:36) Hope

---

First published:

February 16th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YScdhSQBhkxpfcF3t/no-one-in-my-org-puts-money-in-their-pension

Linkpost URL:
https://seekingtobejolly.substack.com/p/no-one-in-my-org-puts-money-in-their

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Open Philanthropy strives to help others as much as we can with the resources available to us. To find the best opportunities to help others, we rely heavily on scientific and social scientific research.

In some cases, we would find it helpful to have more research in order to evaluate a particular grant or cause area. Below, we’ve listed a set of social scientific questions for which we are actively seeking more evidence.[1] We believe the answers to these questions have the potential to impact our grantmaking. (See also our list of research topics for animal welfare.)

If you know of any research that touches on these questions, we would welcome hearing from you. At this point, we are not actively making grants to further investigate these questions. It is possible we may do so in the future, though, so if you plan to research any of these, please [...]

---

Outline:

(00:59) Land Use Reform

(05:53) Health

(15:39) Migration

(17:21) Education

(19:27) Science and Metascience

(29:18) Global Development

(31:26) Other

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

---

First published:

February 15th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3Y7c7MXf3BzgruTWv/social-science-research-we-d-like-to-see-on-global-health

Linkpost URL:
https://www.openphilanthropy.org/research/social-science-research-topics-for-global-health-and-wellbeing/

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post.

Open Philanthropy strives to help others as much as we can with the resources available to us. To find the best opportunities to help others, we rely heavily on scientific and social scientific research.

In some cases, we would find it helpful to have more research in order to evaluate a particular grant or cause area. Below, we’ve listed a set of social scientific questions for which we are actively seeking more evidence.[1] We believe the answers to these questions have the potential to impact our grantmaking. (See also our list of research topics for animal welfare.)

If you know of any research that touches on these questions, we would welcome hearing from you. At this point, we are not actively making grants to further investigate these questions. It is possible we may do so in the future, though, so if you plan to research [...]

---

Outline:

(01:05) Land Use Reform

(06:09) Health

(16:20) Migration

(18:08) Education

(20:19) Science and Metascience

(30:31) Global Development

(32:47) Other

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

---

First published:

February 15th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3Y7c7MXf3BzgruTWv/social-science-research-we-d-like-to-see-on-global-health

Linkpost URL:
https://www.openphilanthropy.org/research/social-science-research-topics-for-global-health-and-wellbeing/

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Google cofounder Larry Page thinks superintelligent AI is “just the next step in evolution.” In fact, Page, who's worth about $120 billion, has reportedly argued that efforts to prevent AI-driven extinction and protect human consciousness are “speciesist” and “sentimental nonsense.”

In July, former Google DeepMind senior scientist Richard Sutton — one of the pioneers of reinforcement learning, a major subfield of AI — said that the technology “could displace us from existence,” and that “we should not resist succession.” In a 2015 talk, Sutton said, suppose “everything fails” and AI “kill[s] us all”; he asked, “Is it so bad that humans are not the final form of intelligent life in the universe?”

This is how I begin the cover story for Jacobin's winter issue on AI. Some very influential people openly welcome an AI-driven future, even if humans aren’t part of it.

Whether you're new to the topic [...]

---

First published:

February 12th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pRAjLTQxWJJkygWwK/my-cover-story-in-jacobin-on-ai-capitalism-and-the-x-risk

Linkpost URL:
https://jacobin.com/2024/01/can-humanity-survive-ai

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

A friend sent me on a lovely trip down memory lane last week. She forwarded me an email chain from 12 years ago in which we all pretended we left the EA community, and explained why. We were partly thinking through what might cause us to drift in order that we could do something to make that less likely, and partly joking around. It was a really nice reminder of how uncertain things felt back then, and how far we’ve come.

Although the emails hadn’t led us to take any specific actions, almost everyone on the thread was still devoting their time to helping others as much as they can. We’re also, for the most part, still supporting each other in doing so. Of the 10 or so people on there, for example, Niel Bowerman is now my boss - CEO of 80k. Will MacAskill and Toby Ord [...]

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

---

First published:

February 12th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zEMvHK9Qa4pczWbJg/on-being-an-ea-for-decades

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

A lot of great projects have started in informal ways: a startup in someone's garage, or a scrappy project run by volunteers. Sometimes people jump into these and are happy they did so.

But I’ve also seen people caught off-guard by arrangements that weren’t what they expected, especially early in their careers. I’ve been there, when I was a new graduate interning at a religious center that came with room, board, and $200 a month. I remember my horror when my dentist checkup cost most of a month's income, or when I found out that my nine-month internship came with zero vacation days. It was an overall positive experience for me (after we worked out the vacation thing), but it's better to go in clear-eyed.

First, I’ve listed a bunch of things to consider. These are drawn from several different situations I’ve heard about, both inside and outside EA. [...]

---

Outline:

(01:15) Things to consider

(08:26) Advice from a few EAs

---

First published:

February 12th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RXFcmrf7E5fLhb43e/things-to-check-about-a-job-or-internship

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Summary

$8003.98 Charity Entrepreneurship

$5000 Insect Institute

$5000 Shrimp Welfare Project

$5000 Rethink Priorities

$5000 Animal Ethics

$1000 Wild Animal Initiative

Background

I think it's good to keep track of and explain donations. It creates a record to get better over time and gives others insights into how you donate.

I officially made $45000 in 2023. I earned some investment income from some other sources though this is hard to quantify. I also had some savings from previous years so don’t come away from this thinking that I gave such a substantial portion of my income. That said, I am still giving away a significant portion of my income this year. I think this is a good thing and hopefully, I can serve as an example to others to give away a significant portion of their income, even if it isn’t that high.

In total, I am [...]

---

First published:

February 11th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EkKYqeAy3ArupKuYn/my-donations-2023-marcus-abramovitch

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.