Open thread: April - June 2025

Hi EAs, I’m Dee, first-time forum poster but long-time advocate for EA principles since first discovering the movement through Peter Singer’s work. I’ve always had a particular interest in global health and wellbeing, which initially inspired me to complete a medical degree. While I enjoyed my studies, I became somewhat disheartened with the scope of impact I could have as a single doctor in a system largely geared towards treatment rather than prevention of disease. After a career pivot to management consulting for a couple of years, I eventually completed my PhD in epidemiology. I’m now using my research experience and medical knowledge to tackle complex public health problems. 

The more I’ve solidified my own goals to do good, including through my career as well as through giving to effective causes, I’ve sought to further engage with EA content and the community. I look forward to connecting and sharing ideas with you all!

A lot of EAs wanted to slow down AGI development to have more time for alignment. Now Trump's tariffs have done that - accidentally and for the wrong reasons - but they did slow it down. Yet no EA seems happy about this. Given how unpopular his tariffs are maybe people don't want to endorse them for PR reasons? But if you think that AI is by far the most important issue that should easily lead you to say the unpopular truth. Scenarios where China reaches AGI before the US became more likely, but that was always an argument against AI slowdown and it didn't seem to convince many people in the past.

Thoughts?

Maybe this post should be placed in some AI safety thread, but I wasn't sure where exactly.

Hi everyone! I'm Antony, and I work at the intersection of Data Engineering, People Development, Organizational Development, and Research/Writing.

A little bit more about me...

Three things I care about:

• Helping people to build meaningful and impactful careers.
• Designing organizations that become drivers of social change.
• Voicing ideas to help people understand how the world works and how they can make a change.

Three things I'm good at:

• Identifying inefficiencies and designing solutions with a deep understanding of what makes people and organizations thrive.
• Creating frameworks to systematically approach complex problems.
• Researching deeply and communicating insights clearly, because I believe solutions start with understanding.

Three things I have experience with:

• Engineering Management. I scaled up a data engineering department from 12 to 70 engineers for an AI Fund company backed by Andrew Ng, managing a team of 14 direct reports and 70 indirect reports.
• Mentoring. I've mentored over 50+ engineers over my career, helping them to gain clarity on what they want and how to approach challenges they face.
• Writing. I've published more than 20+ technical articles on Medium (~500k views), and I'm now currently building The Utopian Engineering Society.

I’d love to connect with people and organizations working at these intersections. While I’ve been following the EA movement for a couple of years, my involvement has been passive. But I’m now actively looking to change that.

If you know anyone, please point me in the right direction or just say hi. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.

Hello there, my name is Benton. I have a bachelor's degree in philosophy (and one in computer science), and that's where I first heard about effective altruism (I believe it was an ethics class I took). I initially rejected it, as I believed it presupposed two claims that I was very skeptical of: moral realism and utilitarianism. It took several years for me to come back around to this movement. Through reading the work of Micheal Huemer and others, I become convinced of moral realism, and I also realized that the arguments of Peter Singer and others can apply even for non-utilitarians. All it takes is the recognition that preventing unnecessary suffering is a good thing (and probably obligatory). And that brings me here.

I don't actively work on any projects, however, I am split between four priorities: global health and wellbeing, animal welfare, AI safety (including x-risk and s-risk), and politics/systemic change. I am not a consequentialist, as I think what causes to prioritize depends on more than the expected value of a given amount of time or money input into a cause. I generally have the intuition that we should end extreme poverty first before prioritizing other issues (yes, I think I am species-ist). However, factory farming is just so abhorrent that I can't help but think that should also be a priority, especially since ending extreme poverty may lead to an increase of the consumption of animal products from factory farms. And not only is AI safety important for longtermist reasons, it may be the most important neartermist cause if AGI is only a few years away as many experts claim. That's why I am split between these three issues. But I really want more research and focus on politics and systemic change in the EA community. As far as I can tell, there is no research being done on alternate economic systems (market socialism, participatory socialism, etc) within the community. One could argue that implementing alternate systems is not a very tractable solution, however, one could argue the current economic system is what gives rise to the other three problems in the first place, so it could be the most effective solution to many issues even though it's improbable.

Fun facts about me:

I love philosophy and do it in my spare time; I have a substack that I may or may not keep posting to here: https://thepurpleturtle.substack.com/

I work as a software engineer.

As I said before, I am very much not a utilitarian (though I think consequences are very important)

I recently decided to go vegetarian.

I am considering a trial pledge of 5% of my income.

Hi,

I recently took the Giving What We Can 10% pledge (to give 10% of my income to effective charities). Part of the appeal of the pledge is making effective giving a cultural norm.

I wonder about the effects of that in the global economy, and on the economy of rich countries, where I hope the pledge takes roots stronger and faster.

Has anyone looked into that?

Hello everyone! 

My name is Karl and I'm a socio-economic geographer with an engineering degree in inland waterways revitalization and a master's in spatial management with a specialization in revitalization of urban and degraded areas. I co-authored a few research papers and quite a bit of local planning and strategic documents. I'm also engaged with a local civic organization in my city. In the future I plan to do a PhD, researching a topic of optimization of administrative divisions. 

Currently I'm working on my own social impact project, focused on climate action and ecosystem restoration, making it more efficient and accessible for individuals, and addressing some issues of existing initiatives I've encountered. I'd like to write a separate post about the project if it is ok, as I could use some support and advice. 

I plan to research this forum more and hope to integrate with the EA community!

Hello,

I first learned about EA when I read some of Peter Singer's book "The Life You Can Save" a few years ago. I had a renewed interest in EA from last year when I became more interested in animal ethics and animal rights. I am interested in maximizing impact for human health, income inequality, social justice, and animal rights/welfare/health.

I am almost finished my accounting degree (finished 4 years, will graduate in the upcoming year for 5y total schooling), after which I will study/work for 3 years to become chartered as an accountant in Canada. Being chartered will also allow me to practice accounting in other countries. The issue I have now is that I am trying to maximize my earning potential to be able to give more in my lifetime. Being a university-educated professional is definitely useful, but I want to know if there is more that I can do. 

I am considering going into law school (my GPA would put me in a mid-tier school, good enough to practice law), or focusing on my CPA, or doing both simultaneously? Is it better to get to work immediately into accounting or should I do more schooling? Should I pivot to a different career within business and financial services?

I would appreciate any resources on career choice, comparison for salary numbers, or cost of living comparison.

Hello everyone.

My name is Rose, I am founder and director of Vital Crest Foundation (VCF) in Uganda. VCF works on fighting poverty, uplifting marginalised communities, environmental protection and convening. I first heard about the concept of EA in 2019 (more of environmental altruism) and I stuck in me. I have been trying to apply the principles to my daily life and my policy advocacy and projects. I stumbled on the CEA by chance while I was trying to write concept notes of projects targeting EA,  part of my non profit. I am glad to be here and I hope we can hold each other’s hands in this journey.

I am also currently doing my PhD, facing a few challenges here and there but I hope I will finish it soon.

I am so happy finding you and hope to connect and collaborate with some of you.

Best

Rose

Since AI X-risk is a main cause area for EA, shouldn't significant money be going into mechanistic interpretability? After reading the AI 2027 forecast, the opacity of AIs appears to be the main source of risk coming from them. Making significant progress in this field seems very important for alignment.

I took the Giving What We Can Pledge, I want to say there should be something like it but for mechanistic interpretability, but probably only very few people could be convinced to give 10% of their income to mechanistic interpretability.

Hi all, my name is Tami. I have a bachelors degree in the Arts and a Teaching certificate. I currently teach grade 2's in critical and creative thinking, in an inner city school. I came across the focused group of Effective Altruism through some rabbit holes of effective teaching strategies. My main purpose for engaging in this group is to glean knowledge and build understanding towards the concerns of the future. Seven and eight year olds are naturally kind, but I have found by the time they are ten, they have already built foundational habits on how they wish to interact with their community. As a grade 2 teacher, I want to stimulate and encourage not only conversation but actionable plans for altruistic responses. We spend much of our time discussing how to have conversations with people we do not agree with. We learn how to listen. We learn how to speak using concrete evidence and to phrase our words responsibly without absolutes. They have excellent discussions about how to support the community and they have initiated collecting socks and mittens for our local homeless community. We have had discussions on how to plan for responsible housing, with very creative ideas (floating homes that have no footprint :) ). As a teacher, I want to stay on top of the current topics and ensure I am honoring my thinkers.  For the most part, I will simply be an observer. Thanks for letting me be a part of it. 

Hi everyone 

I am Tadiwa, second name Fionna. From Zimbabwe and living in South Africa (I think this shapes a lot of what I care about and my approach to problem solving). I have been mostly reading EA works and blogs and now choosing to engage more. I hold a Business Management and work as a marketing consultant and try to work with for-profit business that center social impact in their communities. Outside of helping said businesses gain visibility and streamline processes to be sustainable in all the ways, I care deeply about mental health and facilitate Yoga classes for various communities where I am. 

From the intros a lot of people here are doing beautiful work! 

My LinkedIn

Dear EA community, my name is Kazik, and I am new on this forum, however I am already quite familiar with EA movement. I studied philosophy and metaethics, and have been involved in animal welfare and many other ethically-driven movements in Poland. Now I am mostly focused on building the most advanced agentic AI, including fully autonomous, recursive and self-modifying systems, which I am also teaching. I'm writing from Berlin, where I co-founded 2 organizations.

1. Prachtsaal, a non-profit art cooperative / experimental cultural center in the art nouveau dance hall
2. Xemantic, a collective of applied philosophy focused on humanistic computation

Xemantic also resides at Prachtsaal, where we are:

• creating computational media art
• developing ML solutions augmenting psychologists in 24/7 online crisis counseling for children and young adults (suicide prevention)
• developing open source software and libraries, including award-winning AI agents
• developing other high-impact AI solutions we cannot disclose publicly

If you need to consult any high impact AI / software solution, please don't hesitate to contact me. I have more than 2 decades of experience working as a software architect and lead developer. You can also ping me on LinkedIn.

Hey, everyone!

I'm Dima from Berlin. I'm working on AI Alignment and Safety research. You can check out my latest post about the Neglected Approach #0 to AI Safety & Alignment. it touches the roots of advanced reasoning and cognitive neuroscience in general.

if you're interested in that kind of work. I'll write posts and be active on this forum, but just wanted to introduce myself first.

Can't wait to collaborate with people with whom we share the common goals.