EA Newsletter July 11, 2018
July 11, 2018
Let’s get right to it!
Happy reading,
The team
Articles
Peter Hurford and Marcus A. Davis have created Priority Wiki, a cause prioritization wiki anyone can edit which categorizes particular interventions within broader causes.
What are effective charities tackling climate change? John Halstead of Founders Pledge has just completed an extensive cause report on climate change, in which he recommends two charities in that area: the Clean Air Task Force and Coalition for Rainforest Nations.
Two years ago, researchers from Google, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and OpenAI released “Concrete Problems in AI Safety”. This seminal paper explains the safety problems in present and future AI systems for researchers. The Future of Life Institute has now summarized it for a more general audience.
This 80,000 Hours podcast with Tara Mac Aulay, former CEO of the Centre for Effective Altruism, highlights the importance of good operations work and how the drive to improve organizations can change the world.
Which charities help slow population growth, either directly or indirectly? Brad Hurley addresses this question in this blog post.
Announcements & Calls to Action
EAGxAustralia is taking place on 13-15 July in Melbourne. If you are interested in attending or are curious about the topics being covered there, have a look at the website.
Applications are now open for Effective Altruism Global: London, which takes place on 26-28 October. If you already have a solid understanding of effective altruism but would like to gain skills, network, master more complex problems or move into a new role, consider applying now. Early bird ticket prices are currently £140 but will increase after 22 July.
Timeless Classics
If you need some motivation to get involved, or just want to see a particularly optimistic framing of EA as a whole, check out Kaj Sotala’s “_Effective altruism as the most exciting cause in the world”.
Updates
80,000 Hours 80,000 Hours released 4 podcasts and grew subscribers ahead of targets to 9,500. The podcasts include Tara Mac Aulay on operations; Rob on 80,000 Hours; Aaron Hamlin on voting reform; and Anders Sandberg on nuclear war and solar flares. They also coached 31 people, attended 6 conferences and made their targets.
Animal Charity Evaluators Animal Charity Evaluators published an analysis of Sentience Institute’s survey on attitudes toward animal farming and animal-free food. Also, their data scientist, Eric Herboso, published a post on the EA forums discussing ACE's advertising and outreach practices.
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk CSER researchers presented at a Governing Artificial Intelligence seminar co-hosted by the International Peace Institute and the United Nations University’s Centre for Policy Research (videos of sessions), judged at the Global Challenges Foundation New Shape Prize, presented at Effective Altruism Global San Francisco 2018, and attended the Ninth Electric Infrastructure Security Summit. An artist wrote a blogpost about attending CSER’s 2018 Conference. A book chapter, From Natural Hazard to Man-Made Disaster: The Protection of Disaster Victims in China and Japan, was published.
Future of Life Institute For FLI's monthly podcast, Ariel Conn spoke with Charlie Oliver and Randi Williams about how their new project, Mission AI, aims to broaden the AI conversation and increase diverse voices. Lucas Perry spoke with Kaj Sotala on the AI Alignment Podcast about suffering risks and superintelligence.
GiveWell GiveWell evaluated and named the Georgetown University Initiative on Innovation, Development, and Evaluation (_gui__2__de_)'s Zusha! Road Safety Campaign a standout charity. GiveWell also published a report on the amount of money they directed to their recommended charities and their web traffic in 2017.
Open Philanthropy Project The Open Philanthropy Project announced grants of £2,000,000 to the Centre for Effective Altruism for general support, $375,000 to Mercy For Animals and £171,600 to the RSPCA to improve broiler chicken welfare, and $150,000 to MIRI and $100,000 to AI Impacts to reduce risks from advanced artificial intelligence.
Sentience Institute Sentience Institute published a case study on what clean meat innovators can learn from the failures of GMOs, and a post on three big changes their research suggests the farmed animal movement should make.
The Life You Can Save A recent TLYCS blog post by Nick Fitz and Ari Kagan, To Grow a Healthy Movement, Go for Low-Hanging Fruit, argues that many potentially highly-engaged effective altruists haven’t even heard of EA yet, and that if we used evidence to identify them, we could grow the movement more quickly and sustainably.
Jobs
The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) is hiring for operations roles (USand UK), events specialists, community specialists and a grants evaluator.
The Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) is looking for a Research Associate/Manager, Cash Benchmarking.
GiveWell is hiring a Research Analyst and Senior Research Analyst.
OpenPhil is hiring a Grants Associate and an Operations Associate.
Vox Media (Vox.com) is hiring a Staff Writer to cover topics related to effective altruism.
Don’t forget to visit the newly updated 80,000 hours jobs board for further opportunities.
Go forth and do the most good! Let us know how you liked this edition and how we can improve further.
If you’re interested in past editions of this newsletter, here is the full archive
Get Involved in Effective Altruism
The Effective Altruism Newsletter is a joint project between the Centre for Effective Altruism, and Rethink Charity.
This is an archived version of the EA Newsletter sent to 48,413 subscribers on July 11, 2018. To see the full archives, click here.