EA Organization Updates: October 2024

By Toby Tremlett🔹, Dane Valerie @ 2024-10-16T13:54 (+14)

If you would like to see EA Organization Updates as soon as they come out, consider subscribing to this tag.

Some of the opportunities and job listings we feature in this update have (very) pressing deadlines (see the Global Challenges Project and job openings at Ambitious Impact).

• You can see previous updates on the "EA Organization Updates (monthly series)" topic page, or in our repository of past newsletters. Notice that there’s also an “org update” tag, where you can find more news and updates that are not part of this consolidated series.
• These monthly posts originated as the "Updates" section of the monthly EA Newsletter. Organizations submit their own updates, which we edit for clarity.
• (If you’d like to share your updates and jobs via this series, please apply here.)

Opportunities and jobs

Opportunities

Consider also checking opportunities listed on the EA Opportunity Board and the Opportunities to Take Action tag.

• Global Challenges Project is running a three-day workshop from December 6-9 for students to think seriously about AI safety and biosecurity ideas and careers. It’s in Oxford, UK, and is free to attend, with travel support available. Learn more or apply here by Sunday, October 27.
• The Good Governance Project is offering free support to high-impact organizations in identifying and selecting board members. They provide assistance with needs assessment, process design, candidate review, and decision making.
• AI Winter Season at EA Hotel offers a coliving/coworking experience for AI safety professionals in Blackpool, UK. The event runs until the end of January 2025, providing fully catered accommodation on a pay-what-you-can basis. Apply now, mentioning "AI Winter" in your application.
• Plateau State University, Bokkos, seeks partners for global catastrophic and AI risk research. Interested institutions and researchers can contact the university via DM or email.
• Applications are open for Johns Hopkins’ 2025-26 Health Security Programs. There are two funded doctoral tracks: a full-time, in-person PhD in global catastrophic biological risks and a part-time, online DrPH in public health emergencies. Apply by December 1.
• CAIS and Scale AI have launched Humanity's Last Exam. They seek expert-level questions for a new AI benchmark. Successful submissions earn co-authorship and potential prizes from a $500,000 pool. Deadline: November 1.
• Applications are open for the following two EA conferences: EA Global: Boston (November 1-3, applications close October 20) and EAGxAustralasia (November 22-24, applications close  November 3). Also, applications will open shortly for EAGxVirtual (November 15-17) and EAGxSingapore (December 14–15).

Job listings

​​Consider also exploring jobs listed on the Job listing (open) tag. For even more roles, check the 80,000 Hours Job Board.

Ambitious Impact

• Operations Manager (London, £40K–£50K, apply by October 27th)
• Charity Entrepreneurship Program Manager (London or Remote, £40K–£50K, apply by October 27th)
• Communication & Marketing Manager (London or Remote, £40K–£50K, apply by October 27th)
• Philanthropic Programs Director (London preferred, £40K–£80K, apply by October 27th)

Anthropic

• Research Engineer, Interpretability (San Francisco, CA | Seattle, WA | New York City, NY, $280K–$625K)
• Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment Science (San Francisco, CA | Seattle, WA | New York City, NY , $280K–$625K)
• Research Engineer / Scientist, Alignment Science (London, £230K–£515K)
• Research Scientist, Interpretability (San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY | Seattle, WA, $280K–$625K)
• Team Manager, Interpretability (San Francisco, CA , $340K–$510K)
• Product Policy Manager, Bio, Chem, and Nuclear Risks (San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY | Seattle, WA, $200K–$240K)
• Software Engineer, Trust & Safety (San Francisco, CA , $300K–$405K)
• Software Engineer, Trust & Safety (London) (London, £240K–£325K)
• Threat Investigator, Trust & Safety (San Francisco, CA | Seattle, WA | New York City, NY, $200K–$240K)

Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative

• Deputy Director (Remote inUS, $90K–$120K, apply by November 17th)

Centre for the Governance of AI

• Talent Systems Specialist (London | Oxford, New York , £60K–£80K, apply by November 3rd)

MIT FutureTech

• Head of Operations (Cambridge, MA, $97.1K–$162.6K)

Open Philanthropy

• Operations Coordinator (San Francisco, CA or Washington, DC, $99.6K–$101.9K)
• Operations Associate (San Francisco, CA or Washington, DC, $119.8K-$122.6K)
• If you’re interested in working at Open Philanthropy but don't see an open role that matches your skillset, express your interest.

Palisade

• Executive Assistant to the Executive Director (Jeffrey Ladish) (Berkeley, CA, $70K–$150K)
• Content Lead (Berkeley, CA, $70K–$150K)
• Operations Lead (Berkeley, CA, $70K–$150K)
• Policy Lead ( Berkeley, CA / Washington, DC, $70K–$150K)

The Good Food Institute

• Creative Coordinator (Remote, $69K–$72.4K, apply by November 5th)

Organization updates

The organization updates are in alphabetical order (Q-Z, 0-A-P).

Quantified Uncertainty Research Institute

QURI has released an early version of Squiggle AI. This tool utilizes large language models (LLMs) to write and debug Squiggle code, enabling the creation of Fermi estimates and cost-effectiveness models. It's free and& open-source.

Rethink Priorities

How can you navigate uncertainty when trying to create impact? Read a brief explainer about Rethink Priorities’ approach with select examples from their work.

The organization’s recent publications include: 

• An assessment of the health burden of substandard and falsified antimalarials in sub-Saharan Africa.
• A report considering the ethical and technical aspects of risk alignment for agentic AIs — systems that are capable of undertaking complex actions with little supervision. 

The Good Food Institute

The Good Food Institute is excited to announce they've established GFI Japan as a new nonprofit organization. GFI Japan joins GFI’s global network of hubs of Singapore, India, Israel, Europe, Brazil and the United States, working together to accelerate food innovation around the world. 

See more on GFI Japan's website, which hosts their existing and future Japanese language resources.

The Humane League

The Humane League (THL) released their inaugural Fair and Fowl: Global Companies Report — a comprehensive ranking of all companies with global cage-free commitments. The data-backed findings show that the global cage-free movement continues to make significant progress to spare hens from extreme suffering, and will be used to pressure “bad eggs” that have fallen behind on their global cage-free commitments. Already, 13 companies, including Unilever, Marriott, and Dairy Queen, reported global progress toward their cage-free commitments. As a result, an estimated 677,000 hens have already been spared from cages in 2024.

80,000 Hours

80,000 Hours released several updates to their problem rankings, including an update to their profile on factory farming and a new profile on understanding the moral status of digital minds.

They also released two new parts of their biosecurity anonymous answers series: 

• Part two: What are the best ways to fight the next pandemic?
• Part three: How can we manage infohazards in biosecurity?

On the 80,000 Hours Podcast, Luisa interviewed: 

• Peter Godfrey-Smith on interfering with wild nature, accepting death, and the origin of complex civilisation
• Venki Ramakrishnan on the cutting edge of anti-ageing science
• Ken Goldberg on why your robot butler isn’t here yet

Anima International

The European Commission is working on its first AI Code of Practice under the AI Act. The Code of Practice is expected to have a profound impact on how AI is used across Europe and may also influence similar policy documents in other countries. Anima International contributed to the public consultation on this policy to ensure that animals’ interests are represented, and mobilized 16 other EU-based animal advocacy organizations to co-sign. Anima International is also among the five organizations and individuals from the animal advocacy space accepted in the working groups for the drawing up of the Code of Practice.

Additionally, a new investigation from Anima International in Poland once again exposed the intense suffering of chickens raised for meat.

Poland is the largest poultry producer in the European Union, with over 1.5 billion broiler chickens raised annually. The footage was captured by an employee working for a producer raising over 12 million chickens per year. It depicts the horrific yet all-too-common conditions that animals endure on factory farms.

The investigation aired on Poland’s leading investigative journalism TV show (with an average viewership of 842,000), bringing the topic back into mainstream discourse. With this publication, Anima International aims to pressure producers into dialogue about reforming production.

Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative

Sawyer Bernath will be stepping down as BERI’s Executive Director on November 15th. After more than five years at BERI, he will be starting as Head of Operations for Tarbell, which promotes high-impact journalism on AI. Elizabeth Cooper (BERI’s current Deputy Director) will be taking on the role of Executive Director.

BERI is now accepting applications for a new Deputy Director. They are offering a $2,000 reward to anyone who refers a candidate who is hired. Referrals can be submitted to contact@existence.org.

Giving Green

Giving Green hosted a panel at Climate Week NYC with over 110 attendees, featuring panelists Jamie Beard of Project InnerSpace, Bruce Friedrich of The Good Food Institute, and Dominique Thomas of Industrious Labs.

Giving Green's new climate charity recommendations will be released at the end of October. The best way to hear about them is to sign up for Giving Green's newsletter. 

Open Philanthropy

Alongside USAID and UNICEF, Open Philanthropy launched the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future — a collaboration of more than fifty countries and organizations focused on creating a lead-free future for children in low- and middle-income countries. 

As part of the partnership, Open Philanthropy also launched the Lead Exposure Action Fund, a $100m+ collaborative fund that makes strategic grants to measure, mitigate, and mainstream lead exposure. 

Open Phil CEO Alexander Berger and USAID Administrator Samantha Power [co-wrote] a Washington Post op-ed about the launch of the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future. The launch was also covered by NPR, Vox, and Bloomberg.  

James Snowden, who manages Open Philanthropy's grantmaking on lead exposure, spoke about the organization's commitment to addressing the problem at a Devex event on the sidelines of the 2024 UN General Assembly. 

Inside Philanthropy profiled the philanthropic giving of Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz, Open Philanthropy's chief funders.