In this essay, I argue that improving EA's presence on YouTube could be a high impact cause area, and I offer a series of ideas on how EA's presence on the platform could be improved.

In the appendix, I share links to the data sets I created while writing this essay, some thoughts on AI safety's presence on YouTube, and my sources.

As a side note, I am not a YouTuber so this essay is very much an outsider perspective.

Improving EA's Presence on YouTube As A High Impact Cause Area

In this section, I argue that improving EA's presence on YouTube could be a high impact cause area using the “scale, neglectedness, tractability” framework. Importantly though, we lack a clear understanding of how much views on YouTube translate into EA community building. As such, this section is somewhat speculative.

Scale

YouTube is the world's third largest video streaming platform with over 2.5 billion monthly users. Despite this, most EAs do not discover EA through YouTube. According to “EA Survey 2024: How People Get Involved in EA,” podcasts, TED talks, and videos constitute less than 12% of the sources where individuals first heard about EA. Instead, most people first [...]

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Outline:

(00:37) Improving EA's Presence on YouTube As A High Impact Cause Area

(01:03) Scale

(01:45) Neglectedness

(03:11) Tractability

(03:30) How to Improve EA's Presence on YouTube

(04:10) Pay Existing Non-EA Channels to Make EA-Related Content

(04:37) Create New EA Channels

(05:04) Necessary Requirements for a Successful Channel

(05:59) Specific Channel Ideas

(08:30) Improve Existing EA Channels

(08:49) 80,000 Hours

(09:17) Giving What We Can

(10:17) Make videos about EA itself

(11:22) Write EA books and go on media tours

(11:52) Conclusion

(12:05) Appendix

(12:09) Data on EA's Presence on YouTube

(14:06) Thoughts on AI Safety's Presence on YouTube

(15:23) Sources

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First published:

Source:

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.