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Introduction
Effective altruism aims to find the best ways to do good, and put those findings into practice.
It's both a research field, which aims to identify the world's most pressing problems and the best solutions to them, and a practical movement that aims to use that research to do good.
This project matters because, while many attempts to do good fail, some are enormously effective. For instance, some charities help 100 or even 1,000 times as many people as others, when given the same amount of resources.
This means that by thinking carefully about the best ways to help, we can do far more to tackle the world's biggest problems.
Effective altruism as a concept was first formalized by scholars at Oxford University but has now spread around the world, applied by tens of thousands of people in more than 70 countries.[1]
People inspired by effective altruism have worked on projects that range from funding the distribution of 500 million malaria nets, to academic research on the future of AI, to campaigning for policies to prevent the next pandemic.
They're not united by any particular solution to the world's problems, but by a way of thinking.
They try to find unusually good ways of helping, so that a given amount of effort goes an unusually long way. Below are some examples of what they've done so far, followed by the values that unite them.
What are some examples of effective altruism in practice?
Example #1:
Preventing the next pandemic
Why this issue?
People in effective altruism typically try to(↗) identify problems that are large in scale, tractable, and neglected.[1] The aim is to find the biggest gaps in current altruistic efforts, in order to identify where an additional person can have the greatest impact. One issue that seems to match those criteria is preventing pandemics.
Researchers in effective altruism argued as early as 2014 that, given the history of near-misses, there was a good chance that a large pandemic would happen in our lifetimes.
But preparing for the next pandemic was, and remains, hugely underfunded compared to other global issues. For instance, the US invests around $8bn per year preventing pandemics, compared to around $280bn per year spent on counterterrorism over the last decade.[1]
Much less has been spent on preventing pandemics than on counterterrorism over the last decade
source: Crawford, 2021; Watson, 2018
Preventing terror attacks is certainly important. But the scale of the issue is much smaller. For instance, just to focus on the number of deaths, in the last 50 years, around 500,000 people have been killed by terrorism. But pandemics often claim millions of lives: COVID-19 alone killed over 21 million people[1], and HIV/AIDS has killed over 40 million.[1]
Many more people have died from pandemics in less than 5 years than from terrorism in 50 years
Not to mention, a future pandemic could easily be much worse than COVID-19: there's nothing to rule out a disease that's more infectious than the Omicron variant, but that's as deadly as smallpox. (See more on the comparison in footnote 4.)
In effective altruism, once a big and neglected problem has been identified, the next step is to look for solutions that could make a real difference and that others are overlooking, which brings us to...
Some examples of what's been done
Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
In 2016, Coefficient Giving, a foundation inspired by effective altruism, became the largest funder of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security(↗). This is one of the few groups doing research to identify better policy responses to pandemics, and it was an important group in the global response to COVID-19.[1]
1DaySooner
When COVID-19 broke out, people inspired by effective altruism founded 1DaySooner(↗), a non-profit that advocates for human challenge trials. In this type of vaccine trial, healthy volunteers are deliberately infected with the disease, enabling near-instant testing of the vaccine. As one of the only advocates for this intervention, 1DaySooner signed up over 30,000 volunteers[1], and played an important role in starting the world's first COVID-19 human challenge trial back in 2021. This approach can be repeated when we face the next pandemic.
Apollo Program for Biodefense
People in the effective altruism movement also helped to create the Apollo Program for Biodefense(↗), a comprehensive policy proposal designed to prevent the next pandemic.
Example #2:
Providing basic medical supplies in poor countries
Why this issue?
It's common to say that charity begins at home, but in effective altruism, charity begins where we can help the most. And this often means focusing on the people who are most neglected by the current system, which is often those who are more geographically distant from us.
Over 800 million people live on less than $3 per day.[1]
In contrast, an American living near the poverty line lives on nearly 15 times as much, and the average American college graduate lives on about 96 times as much. This places the college graduate in the top 1% of income, globally speaking.[1] (These amounts are already adjusted for the fact that money goes further in poor countries.)
Global income inequality is extreme. Over 800 million people live on less than $3 per day.
source: Mauro and Hellebrandt, 2015; US Census, 2019
Global inequality is extreme. Because of this, transferring resources to the very poorest people in the world can do a huge amount of good. In richer countries like the US and UK, governments are typically willing to spend over $1 million to save a life.[1] This is well worth doing, but in the world's poorest countries, the cost of saving a life is far lower.
GiveWell(↗) is an organization that does in-depth research to find the most evidence-backed and cost-effective health and development projects. It discovered that while many aid interventions don't work(↗), some, like providing insecticide-treated bednets, can save a child's life for about $5,500 on average. That's 180 times less.[1]
These basic medical interventions are so cheap and effective that even the most prominent critics of foreign aid agree(↗) they're worthwhile.
The same resources save 180× more lives in poor countries
Some examples of what's been done
GiveWell
Over 150,000 individual donors have used GiveWell's research to contribute more than $2 billion to its recommended charities, supporting organizations like the Against Malaria Foundation(↗), which has distributed over 500 million insecticide-treated bednets. Collectively these efforts are estimated to have saved 340,000 lives.[1]
Wave
In addition to charity, it's possible to help the world's poorest people through business. Wave(↗) is a technology company, founded by individuals inspired by effective altruism, which allows people to transfer money to several African countries faster and at a fraction of the cost of existing services. It's especially helpful for migrants sending money home to their families, and has been used by over 800,000 people in countries like Kenya, Uganda and Senegal. In Senegal alone, Wave has saved its users hundreds of millions of dollars in transfer fees, around 1% of the country's GDP.[1]
Example #3:
Helping to create the field of AI alignment research
Why this issue?
People in effective altruism often end up focusing on issues that seem counterintuitive, obscure or exaggerated. But this is because it's more impactful to work on issues that are neglected by others (all else equal), and these issues are (almost by definition) going to be unconventional ones. One example is the AI alignment problem.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is progressing rapidly. The leading AI systems can now engage in meaningful conversation, solve Olympiad-level math problems, tell jokes, generate extremely realistic videos from text, and do advanced coding.[1] None of this was possible just ten years ago.
The ultimate goal of the leading AI labs is to develop AI that is as good as, or better than, human beings on all tasks. It's extremely hard to predict the future of technology, but various arguments and expert surveys(↗) suggest that this achievement is more likely than not this century, with many forecasting it within a decade(↗). According to standard economic models(↗), once general AI can perform at human level, technological progress could dramatically accelerate.
The result would be an enormous transformation, perhaps of a significance similar to or greater than the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s. If handled well, this transformation could bring about abundance and prosperity for everyone. If handled poorly, it could result in an extreme concentration of power in the hands of a tiny elite.
In the worst case, we could lose control(↗) of the AI systems themselves. Unable to govern beings with capabilities far greater than our own, we would find ourselves with as little control over our future as chimpanzees have control over theirs.
This means that AI might not only have a dramatic impact on the present generation, but also on all future generations. This makes it especially pressing from the perspective of “longtermism”(↗), a school of thinking which holds that improving the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time.
How can we ensure that AI systems continue to further human values, even as they become equal (or superior) to humans in their capabilities? This is called the “AI alignment problem,” and solving it will require advances in computer science.
Despite its potentially historical importance, only a few thousand researchers work on the AI alignment problem, compared to hundreds of thousands to potentially millions working to make AI systems more powerful.[1]
It's hard to sum up the case for working on AI alignment in a few paragraphs, so if you'd like to explore more, we'd recommend starting here(↗), here(↗), and here(↗).
Some examples of what's been done
Superintelligence
One approach is to simply tell more people about the issue. The book Superintelligence(↗) was published in 2014, made the case for the importance of AI alignment, and became a New York Times best-seller(↗). This helped pave the way for a growing wave of mainstream books, reporting, and documentaries that have brought catastrophic AI risk to global attention.
The Center for Human-Compatible AI
Another approach is to build a research field focused on AI safety. For instance, AI pioneer Stuart Russell, and others inspired by effective altruism, founded The Center for Human-Compatible AI(↗) at UC Berkeley. This research institute aims to develop a new paradigm of AI development, in which furthering human values is central.
AI alignment teams
Others have helped to start teams focused on AI alignment at major AI labs such as DeepMind(↗), OpenAI(↗), and Anthropic(↗). Others have outlined research agendas for AI alignment, in works such as Concrete Problems in AI Safety(↗).
Example #4:
Ending factory farming
Why this issue?
People in effective altruism try to extend their circle of concern – not only to those living in distant countries or future generations, but also to non-human animals.
Nearly 10 billion land animals live and die in factory farms in the US every year.[1] They are often unable to physically turn around their entire lives; many are castrated without anesthetic.
Lots of people agree that we shouldn't make animals suffer needlessly, but most of this attention goes towards pet shelters. In the US, about 1,400 times more animals pass through factory farms than pet shelters.[1]
For every animal in a shelter, 1,427 pass through a factory farm
source: FAO, 2020; ASPCA, 2021
Despite this, pet shelters receive around $5 billion per year in the US, compared to only $97 million spent on advocacy to end factory farming.[1]
Some examples of what's been done
Open Wing Alliance
One strategy is advocacy. The Open Wing Alliance(↗), which received significant funding from donors inspired by effective altruism, developed a campaign to encourage large companies to commit to stop buying eggs from caged chickens. To date, they have won over 2,500 commitments, and as a result over 100 million birds have been spared from cages.[1]
Good Food Institute
Another strategy is to create alternative proteins. If these became cheaper and tastier than factory-farmed meat, it could make demand disappear and end factory farming. This could take the form of either plant-based meat (like Beyond Beef) or cultivated meat, which is real meat grown from animal cells in a lab. Cultivated meat is biologically identical to normal meat, so it could win over meat lovers who don’t want to harm animals. The Good Food Institute(↗)is working to accelerate this industry, helping to create companies like Dao Foods in China and Good Catch in the US, encouraging big business to enter the industry (including JBS, the world’s largest meat company) and securing tens of millions of dollars of government support for the field.[1]
Impossible Foods
Coefficient Giving was an early investor(↗)in Impossible Foods(↗), which created the Impossible Burger – an entirely vegan burger that tastes much more like meat than typical plant-based burgers, and that is now sold at Burger King.
Example #5:
Improving decision-making
Why this issue?
People who want to do good often prefer to directly tackle problems, since it's more motivating to see the tangible effects of their actions. But what matters is that the world gets better, not that you do it with your own two hands. So people applying effective altruism often try to help indirectly, by empowering others.
One example of this is improving decision-making. If key actors – such as politicians, business and nonprofit sector leaders, or grantmakers at funding bodies – were generally better at making decisions, society would be in a better position to deal with a whole range of future global problems, whatever they turn out to be.
So, if we can find new, neglected ways to improve the decision-making of important actors, that could be a route to having a big impact.
Some examples of what's been done
Metaculus
Many global problems are exacerbated by a lack of trustworthy information. Metaculus(↗) is a forecasting technology platform that identifies important questions (such as the chance of Russia invading Ukraine), aggregates forecasts made by hundreds of forecasters, and weighs them by their past accuracy. Metaculus gave a probability of a Russian invasion of Ukraine of 47% by mid January 2022, and 80% shortly before the invasion on the 24th of February[1] – a time when many pundits, journalists and experts were saying it definitely wouldn't happen.
Metaculus was ahead in predicting the invasion of Ukraine
Global Priorities Institute
From 2018 to 2025, the Global Priorities Institute(↗) at the University of Oxford did foundational research at the intersection of philosophy, economics, and psychology into how key decision-makers can identify the world's most pressing problems. It helped to create a new academic field of global priorities research, establishing research agendas, publishing five books and over a hundred papers, and helping to inspire relevant research at Harvard, NYU, UT Austin, Yale, Princeton, and elsewhere.
What principles unite effective altruism?
Effective altruism isn't defined by the projects above, and what it focuses on could easily change. What defines effective altruism are the principles that underpin its search for the best ways of helping others, which include:
01
Scope sensitivity
Recognizing that some actions are far more beneficial than others. In a world where some interventions are a hundred times more impactful than alternatives, such fundamental differences in scale should help guide decisions about where to focus our efforts.02
Impartiality
Aiming to assist those who need it most without giving extra weight to people or issues solely because they are similar to us or geographically close. This approach often points towards supporting people in developing countries, non-human animals, and future generations whose needs might otherwise be overlooked.03
Scout mindset
Seeking the most accurate understanding of the world and staying open to changing our minds based on evidence and reason. Because it is easy to fall prey to bias, we can help others more effectively when we cultivate intellectual humility, test our ideas, and orient toward truth rather than our pre-existing beliefs.04
Recognition of tradeoffs
Acknowledging that limited time and resources require prioritizing between different ways of doing good. Choosing to support one option often means not being able to support another. Taking these opportunity costs seriously means weighing those tradeoffs deliberately.These principles are not absolutes, and they could change, but we think they're important and undervalued by society at large. Anyone applying these principles to try to find better ways to help others is participating in effective altruism. This is true no matter how much time or money they want to give, or which issue they choose to focus on.
It's often possible to achieve more by working together, and doing this effectively requires high standards of honesty, integrity, and compassion. Effective altruism does not mean supporting “ends justify the means” reasoning, but rather is about being a good global citizen while ambitiously working toward a better world.
Effective altruism can be compared to the scientific method. Science is the use of evidence and reason in search of truth – even if the results are unintuitive or run counter to tradition. Effective altruism is the use of evidence and reason in search of the best ways of doing good.
The scientific method is based on simple ideas (e.g. that you should test your beliefs), but it leads to a radically different picture of the world (e.g. quantum mechanics). Likewise, effective altruism is based on simple ideas (e.g. helping more people rather than fewer and treating others equally), but it leads to an unconventional and ever-evolving picture of doing good.
How can you take action?
People interested in effective altruism most often attempt to apply the ideas in their lives by:
- Choosing careers that help tackle pressing problems, or finding ways to use their existing skills to contribute to these problems, for example by using advice from 80,000 Hours(↗) or Probably Good(↗).
- Donating to carefully chosen charities, for example by reading research from GiveWell(↗) or Giving What We Can(↗) on the most impactful charities.
- Starting new organizations(↗) working on important and neglected issues.
- Helping to build communities who support each other to do impactful work tackling pressing problems.
See a longer list of ways to take action
The above actions are not exhaustive. You can apply effective altruism in any area of your life, no matter how much you want to focus on doing good. Anyone trying to find better ways to help others is contributing to the project of effective altruism. What matters is using the principles above to make your efforts as effective as possible.
Typically, this involves trying to identify big and neglected global problems, the most effective solutions to those problems, and ways you can contribute to those solutions – with whatever time or money you’re willing to give.
By doing this and thinking carefully, you might find that it’s possible to have far more impact with your resources. It really is possible to save hundreds of people’s lives over your career. And by teaming up with others in the movement, you can play a role in tackling some of the most important issues that civilization faces today.
