EA Updates for October 2021

By DavidNash @ 2021-10-01T15:25 (+32)

Virtual Events

• 3rd October - 'Nudge' - Book Discussion with Cass Sunstein & GiveDirectly
• 8th October - Axel Gosseries: Discrimination, generations and environmental litigation - Hosted by the Legal Priorities Project
• 9th October - Forecasting Nuclear Risk with Rethink Priorities' Michael Aird
• 16th October - Salary Negotiation Training Programme (Beta) - Hosted by Training for Good a new organisation incubated by Charity Entrepreneurship
• 21st October - Effective Giving Open Forum - Hosted by Giving What We Can
• 22nd October - Charlotte Unruh: Constraining longtermism - Hosted by the Legal Priorities Project
• 28th October - Tania Sourdin: Judges, Technology and Artificial Intelligence - Hosted by the Legal Priorities Project
• 1st November - EA Virtual Programmes
  • Introductory EA Program
  • In-Depth EA Program
  • Legal Topics in Effective Altruism (Apply by October 10th, starting on October 18th)
  • The Precipice Reading Group
• 3-5th December - EAGxPrague - This one is in person in Europe

Latest Research and Updates

Meta

• Linch Zhang with 'The motivated reasoning critique of effective altruism'
• 80,000 Hours with an updated careers page looking at how your career is your biggest opportunity to make a difference
• Leaf is a new organisation that runs courses to help sixth formers use their future careers to do good
• WANBAM with the successes and challenges from their first two years
• Dylan Matthews writing for Vox on why people should focus on neglected causes
• Aidan O'Gara with a post suggesting people should put more time into independent planning of their career than just following the advice from 80,000 Hours
• Hamish Huggard has created a website to visualise EA related data
• EA Market Testing Team is a new group aiming to help the EA community with marketing strategies and implementation
• EA Impact Colabs has been launched, connecting volunteers with projects
• Giving What We Can has a new podcast, beginning with episodes talking to Joshua Greene, Ollie Base and Lucia Coulter
• Jamie Harris with two studies into the impact of EA related career advice interventions
• GWWC also have an updated guide on talking to people about effective giving
• A post introducing the EA Public Interest Technologists Slack community
• Ian David Moss is offering free/low-cost decision support services for the EA community
• EA organisation updates for August 2021
• Konrad Seifert and Nora Ammann with a post on 'The role of tribes in achieving lasting impact and how to create them'

Grants

• Open Phil have made 6 grants recently with a total value of $50,600,000
  • $38,920,000 - Center for Security and Emerging Technology
  • $5,250,000 - Macroeconomic Stabilisation Policy
  • $3,330,000 - Global Priorities Institute
  • $3,000,000 - Mercy For Animals
  • $126,000 - COVID-19 Forecasting
• GFI has awarded a $5,000,000 grant to boost research in alternative proteins
• GiveWell have recommended a grant of $8,000,000 to Pure Earth to work on reducing lead exposure in low- and middle-income countries

Global Development

• TechCrunch with an article on Wave, an EA inspired fintech startup that had the largest-ever Series A round for Africa with a $1.7 billion valuation
• A deeper dive into what Wave is doing
• And Ben Kuhn on why he thinks working at Wave could be an effective way to reduce poverty
• There has been a trial suggests malaria sickness could be cut by 70%
• 80,000 Hours podcast with Mushtaq Khan on using institutional economics to predict effective government reforms
• Nikita Patel and Corrina Vali with three lessons they've learned at Fortify Health
• GiveDirectly are trialling a new donation product that connects donors directly to people in need
• There are new WHO global air quality guidelines, aiming to save millions of lives
• The Gates Foundation have released their 2021 Goalkeepers report
• Hear This Idea podcast with Bryan Caplan on causes of poverty and the case for open borders
• GiveDirectly with a post on how working in the U.S. helped them get more money to international recipients
• The Roots of Progress on how factories were made safe

Animal Welfare

• The Netherlands is proposing a plan to cut their livestock numbers by a third
• An article on the potential limitations of scaling up cultivated meat
• James Oz with an analysis of EA funding within animal welfare over the last three years
• Neil Dullaghan and Linch Zhang with a comparison of techno-economic analyses in cultured meat

Existential & Catastrophic Risks

• On the 12th-13th of October the Global Challenges Foundation are holding an online forum discussing global catastrophic risks and global governance
• Tom Chivers writing about the catastrophic risks from asteroids
• The Nuclear Threat Initiative on the struggle to dispose of nuclear waste
• Global Challenges Foundation have released their Global Catastrophic Risks 2021 report
• NTI on the lessons to be learnt from the denuclearisation of Kazakhstan
• Aryan Yadav with the post 'Lessons for AI governance from the Biological Weapons Convention'
• Angus Mercer and Toby Ord writing in Wired on why politicians should pay attention to existential risks
• A post announcing the launch of riesgoscatastroficosglobales, a webpage introducing catastrophic risks to a Spanish-speaking audience

Improving Institutions

• The Research on Research Institute with an update on their current projects
• A report into experiments with randomisation in research funding
• A post asking what would better science look like
• A Works in Progress article on 'Buyers of First Resort' for research and development
• Sarah Perry on how trust undermines science
• A post 'Disentangling Improving Institutional Decision-Making'

Environment

• Vox on the downsides of planting trees
• Future of Life Institute podcast with Susan Solomon and Stephen Andersen on saving the ozone layer

Longtermism

• The United Nations released a report called 'Our Common Agenda' including discussion on future generations, longtermism and existential risks
• Denise Melchin with the post 'Why I am probably not a longtermist'
• Ben Clifford, Rebecca Kagan and Jade Leung on what they learned from a year incubating longtermist entrepreneurship
• Benjamin Todd on the Hear This Idea podcast discussing career choice and longtermism
• The School of International Futures and the All Parliamentary Party Groups for Future Generations with an article on intergenerational fairness

Emerging Technology

• The UK's new 10-year 'National AI Strategy' has been released
• An EA Forum post analysing the EU AI Act
• The Future of Life Institute is launching PhD and postdoctoral fellowships to study AI existential safety
• Matt Clifford and Azeem Azhar in discussion on navigating the 'exponential age'
• Lennart Heim with a series of posts looking at transformative AI and compute
• A post looking at where the arguments and experts stand on AI timelines
• A new NTI paper - 'Assessing and Managing the Benefits and Risks of AI in Nuclear-Weapon Systems'
• Stanford University with their 2021 report on AI as part of a 100 year longitudinal study
• The Future of Life Podcast with James Manyika on global economic and technological trends
• Matt Clifford's podcast with Jess Whittlestone and Jack Clark on what governments should do about AI

Other Links

• The Canva CEO has committed at least $6 billion 'to do the most good'
• Peter Singer has won the $1 million Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture and is giving it away
• Julia Wise with a snapshot of her career choices ten years ago
• Felix Kjellberg has donated $1.5 million to charity including a donation to the Centre for Effective Altruism
• Kelsey Piper interviewing Jason Crawford on 'Progress Studies'
• A BMJ article on the 'Principles of effective altruism and ethical implications for physicians'
• A new paper looking at the psychology of population ethics
• Holden Karnofsky with a summary of history with an empowerment and wellbeing lens
• A paper in Nature Communications attempting to understand the onset of hot streaks across artistic, cultural, and scientific careers
• MIT Tech Review looking into Altos Lab, a new longevity company
• The EA Forum has a creative writing contest with a $10,000 prize for short stories
• Toby Shevlane on how to succeed as an early-stage researcher
• A post suggesting that 'the expected value of funding anti-aging research has probably dropped significantly'
• An Ask Me Anything with Jeremiah Johnson, director/founder of the Neoliberal Project
• David Zhang is looking for EA views on the AUKUS security pact
• Canopie, a Charity Entrepreneurship incubated organisation, has secured a partnership with Washington DC to provide access to their mental health app

Good News

• A record 80 million rural households in India now have piped drinking water, up to 42% of the 189 million total rural households
• Leaded gasoline for cars has been phased out worldwide