EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular)

This is a cross-post and you can see the original here, written in 2022. I am not the original author, but I thought it was good for more EAs to know about this. I am posting anonymously for obvious reasons, but I am a longstanding EA who is concerned about Torres's effects on our community. An incomplete summary Introduction. This post compiles evidence that Émile P. Torres, a philosophy student at Leibniz Universität Hannover in Germany, has a long pattern of concerning behavior, which includes gross distortion and falsification, persistent harassment, and the creation of fake identities. Note: Since Torres has recently claimed that they have been the target of threats from anonymous accounts, I would like to state that I condemn any threatening behavior in the strongest terms possible, and that I have never contacted Torres or posted anything about Torres other than in this Substack [...] --- Outline: (00:25) An incomplete summary (01:16) Stalking and harassment (01:20) Peter Boghossian (11:48) Helen Pluckrose (19:02) Demonstrable falsehoods and gross distortions (19:07) “Forcible” removal (24:04) “Researcher at CSER” (27:30) Giving What We Can (31:20) Brief Digression on Effective Altruism (33:53) More falsehoods and distortions (33:57) Hilary Greaves (38:25) Andreas Mogensen (41:16) Nick Beckstead (45:29) Tyler Cowen (48:50) Olle Häggström (56:44) Sockpuppetry (57:01) “Alex Williams” (01:03:57) Conclusion --- First published: May 1st, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yAHcPNZzx35i25xML/emile-p-torres-s-history-of-dishonesty-and-harassment --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Effective today, I’ve left Open Philanthropy and joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace[1] as a Visiting Scholar. At Carnegie, I will analyze and write about topics relevant to AI risk reduction. In the short term, I will focus on (a) what AI capabilities might increase the risk of a global catastrophe; (b) how we can catch early warning signs of these capabilities; and (c) what protective measures (for example, strong information security) are important for safely handling such capabilities. This is a continuation of the work I’ve been doing over the last ~year. I want to be explicit about why I’m leaving Open Philanthropy. It's because my work no longer involves significant involvement in grantmaking, and given that I’ve overseen grantmaking historically, it's a significant problem for there to be confusion on this point. Philanthropy comes with particular power dynamics that I’d like to move away from, and [...] The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration. --- First published: April 29th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7gzgwgwefwBku2cnL/joining-the-carnegie-endowment-for-international-peace --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I Imagine an alternate version of the Effective Altruism movement, whose early influences came from socialist intellectual communities such as the Fabian Society, as opposed to the rationalist diaspora. Let's name this hypothetical movement the Effective Samaritans. Like the EA movement of today, they believe in doing as much good as possible, whatever this means. They began by evaluating existing charities, reading every RCT to find the very best ways of helping. But many effective samaritans were starting to wonder. Is this randomista approach really the most prudent? After all, Scandinavia didn’t become wealthy and equitable through marginal charity. Societal transformation comes from uprooting oppressive power structures. The Scandinavian societal model which lifted the working class, brought weekends, universal suffrage, maternity leave, education, and universal healthcare can be traced back all the way to 1870's where the union and social democratic movements got their start. In many developing countries [...] --- Outline: (00:03) I (05:39) II (10:19) III The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: April 22nd, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PKotuzY8yzGSNKRpH/priors-and-prejudice --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

The last ten years have witnessed rapid advances in the science of animal cognition and behavior. Striking results have hinted at surprisingly rich inner lives in a wide range of animals, driving renewed debate about animal consciousness. To highlight these advances, the NYU Mind, Ethics and Policy Program and NYU Wild Animal Welfare Program co-hosted a conference on the emerging science of animal consciousness on Friday April 19 at New York University. This conference also served as the launch event for The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness. This short statement, signed by leading scientists who research a wide range of taxa, holds that all vertebrates (including reptiles, amphibians, and fishes) and many invertebrates (including cephalopod mollusks, decapod crustaceans, and insects) have a realistic chance of being conscious, and that their welfare merits consideration. We now welcome signatures from others as well. If you have relevant [...] --- First published: April 21st, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Pqkf5N7LkHfd7rRBf/announcing-the-new-york-declaration-on-animal-consciousness --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Disclaimer: While I criticize several EA critics in this article, I am myself on the EA-skeptical side of things (especially on AI risk). Introduction. I am a proud critic of effective altruism, and in particular a critic of AI existential risk, but I have to admit that a lot of the critcism of EA is hostile, or lazy, and is extremely unlikely to convince a believer. Take this recent Leif Weinar time article as an example. I liked a few of the object level critiques, but many of the points were twisted, and the overall point was hopelessly muddled (are they trying to say that voluntourism is the solution here?). As people have noted, the piece was needlessly hostile to EA (and incredibly hostile to Will Macaskill in particular). And he's far from the only prominent hater. Emille Torres views EA as a threat to humanity. Timnit Gebru sees [...] --- Outline: (02:21) No door to door atheists (04:51) What went wrong here? (08:40) Motivation gaps in AI x-risk (10:59) EA gap analysis (15:12) Counter-motivations (25:49) You can’t rely on ingroup criticism (29:10) How to respond to motivation gaps --- First published: April 22nd, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CfBNdStftKGc863o6/motivation-gaps-why-so-much-ea-criticism-is-hostile-and-lazy Linkpost URL: https://titotal.substack.com/p/motivation-gaps-why-so-much-ea-criticism --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Having a job that helps others might be overemphasized --- Outline: (00:42) Having a job that helps others might be overemphasized (02:07) Donations are an amazing opportunity, and I think they are underemphasized (03:42) I used to really want an animal welfare-related job. Then I wanted to donate more. Now I am a substitute at a public school (06:13) I live frugally and donate (08:06) I have been disappointed in my ability to find a job that would allow me to donate more (09:52) Its okay (10:24) Additional reading --- First published: April 16th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/G9ocwYA2LpLqC4vmq/how-good-it-is-to-donate-and-how-hard-it-is-to-get-a-job --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Attend his talk if he's giving one By Jacob Trefethen Scientific conferences are great even if you’re an outsider to the field. That's common advice for students, and there are useful guides written on how to get the most out of conferences you're new to. But I suspect people at all career stages could benefit from hearing the advice again – people with adjacent research experience in industry or academia, or who have started organisations before, or who have an inkling something exciting lurks around the corner. In other words, I wish people reminded me to go to conferences as an outsider more often. I seem to re-learn their value with wonder every one I attend. So here is a post for you, future Jacob. Often scientific fields host annual conferences that have been running for a decade, or many decades. People grumble about the schedule and the snacks. Jetlag [...] --- Outline: (02:15) To the best of my understanding, I only have one life to live (05:21) But Im an outsider to the field! (07:04) List of 41 conferences --- First published: April 15th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/n8APGKhs8Dut9vXGJ/conferences-are-great-for-scientific-entrepreneurs Linkpost URL: https://blog.jacobtrefethen.com/conferences/ --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

The two podcasts where I discuss FTX are now out: The Sam Harris podcast is more aimed at a general audience; the Spencer Greenberg podcast is more aimed at people already familiar with EA. (I’ve also done another podcast with Chris Anderson from TED that will come out next month, but FTX is a fairly small part of that conversation.) In this post, I’ll gather together some things I talk about across these podcasts — this includes updates and lessons, and responses to some questions that have been raised on the Forum recently. I’d recommend listening to the podcasts first, but these comments can be read on their own, too. I cover a variety of different topics, so I’ll cover each topic in separate comments underneath this post. --- First published: April 18th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/A2vBJGEbKDpuKveHk/personal-reflections-on-ftx --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Anders Sandberg has written a “final report” released simultaneously with the announcement of FHI's closure. The abstract and an excerpt follow. Normally manifestos are written first, and then hopefully stimulate actors to implement their vision. This document is the reverse: an epitaph summarizing what the Future of Humanity Institute was, what we did and why, what we learned, and what we think comes next. It can be seen as an oral history of FHI from some of its members. It will not be unbiased, nor complete, but hopefully a useful historical source. I have received input from other people who worked at FHI, but it is my perspective and others would no doubt place somewhat different emphasis on the various strands of FHI work. What we did well One of the most important insights from the successes of FHI is to have a long-term perspective on one's research. While [...] --- Outline: (00:57) What we did well (03:48) Where we failed (05:06) So, you want to start another FHI? --- First published: April 17th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uK27pds7J36asqJPt/future-of-humanity-institute-2005-2024-final-report Linkpost URL: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ml8d3ubi3ippxs4yon63n/FHI-Final-Report.pdf?rlkey=2c94czhgagy27d9don7pvbc26&dl=0 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Author: Sam Hilton, AIM Director of Research In March 2021 I received an odd letter. It was from a guy I didn't know, David Quarrey, the UK's National Security Advisor. The letter thanked me for providing external expertise to the UK government's Integrated Review, which had been published that morning. It turns out that the Integrated Review has made a public commitment to "review our approach to risk assessment" ... "including how we account for interdependencies, cascading and compound risks". This is something I'd been advocating for over the previous few months by writing a policy paper and engaging with politicians and civil servants. It's hard to know how much my input changed government policy but I couldn’t find much evidence of others advocating for this. I had set myself a 10-year goal to "have played a role in making the UK a leader in long-term resilience to extreme [...] --- First published: April 2nd, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RmZWjTLNTg4hby7pz/aim-s-new-guide-to-launching-a-high-impact-non-profit-policy --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

In the aftermath of SBF's convinction, there have been a few posts trying to make sense of FTX. Some people are trying to figure out what happened, and some people are interested in trying to find clever defenses. I'm in a much more boring position: I am confident SBF is the fraud the world believes him to be. I hope this post can provide reasoning transparency on why I think this, and perhaps serve as an easy link for others who feel similarly but don't want to get bogged down in a point-by-point. Posted anonymously as some protection against future employers Googling [1]. I have divided this post into a summary of the major crimes and my basis for believing they occurred, an 'FAQ' dealing with some common misapprehensions I've seen on this forum and elsewhere, and an appendix explaining some crypto exchange basics / jargon for those [...] --- Outline: (00:56) Crimes (00:59) Misappropriation of Funds (01:51) Detail (14:47) Lying to lenders (17:21) Lying to FTXs investors (18:28) Lying to Banks (19:02) Detail (21:53) Bribing a Chinese official (23:55) Falsified revenue (25:07) Falsified Insurance Fund (26:20) FAQ (26:23) Didnt SBF only know about the hole in June 2022? (30:16) Didnt customers know their funds might be lent out? (32:37) Werent FTX and Alameda total messes? Intent matters; isnt it possible that this all got lost in the chaos? (35:13) Isnt FTX going to make all Customers whole? So there wasnt ever a hole? (35:47) FTX cashed out customers at bankruptcy prices (36:32) The assets those customers money had bought did well (37:12) Had FTX stayed afloat, things would be very different (38:58) Appendix (39:02) How crypto exchanges work (39:06) Spot Trading (40:54) Margin Trading The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: April 11th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qyN8M6zh6pnh8fmjR/understanding-ftx-s-crimes --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Thanks to Eli Lifland, Molly Hickman, Değer Turan, and Evan Miyazono for reviewing drafts of this post. The opinions expressed here are my own. Summary: The Curious Case of the Missing Reasoning Ben Landau-Taylor of Bismarck Analysis wrote a piece on March 6 called “Probability Is Not A Substitute For Reasoning”, citing a piece where he writes: There has been a great deal of research on what criteria must be met for forecasting aggregations to be useful, and as Karger, Atanasov, and Tetlock argue, predictions of events such as the arrival of AGI [...] --- Outline: (00:40) The Curious Case of the Missing Reasoning (05:06) Those Who Seek Rationales, And Those Who Do Not (07:21) So What Do Elite Forecasters Actually Know? (10:30) The Rationale-Shaped Hole At The Heart Of Forecasting (11:51) Facts: Cite Your Sources (12:07) Reasons: So You Think You Can Persuade With Words (14:25) Models: So You Think You Can Model the World (17:56) There Is No Microeconomics of AGI (19:39) 700 AI questions you say? Aren’t We In the Age of AI Forecasters? (21:33) Towards “Towards Rationality Engines” (23:10) Sample Forecasts With Reasons and Models --- First published: April 2nd, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qMP7LcCBFBEtuA3kL/the-rationale-shaped-hole-at-the-heart-of-forecasting --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Here in the UK, the government is consulting on mandatory animal welfare labelling (closing 7 May 2024). People may wish to respond if they want to express their support or share thoughts and evidence that could shape the outcomes. I think such labelling has the potential to significantly improve animal welfare, not just through changing individual choices but by encouraging companies to stop selling the lowest welfare tiers entirely, and through raising labelling standards over time. Higher standards will probably also mean higher prices, lower consumption and 'fairer' competition with alternative proteins. What happens in the UK may also influence future reforms in the EU and elsewhere. To summarise the proposals: --- First published: March 29th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/h5Syjytgbg7fL6CJ5/uk-moves-toward-mandatory-animal-welfare-labelling --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Is anyone in the world being paid to do an independent investigation of how EA handled Sam Bankman-Fried, with respect to "did we screw up" and "is there stuff we should do differently going forward"? Last I heard, literally nobody was doing this and at least some EA leaders were mostly just hoping that SBF gets memoryholed — but maybe I'm out of the loop? My understanding is that Effective Ventures completed a narrow investigation into this topic in mid-2023, purely looking at legal risk to EV and not at all trying to do a general postmortem for EA or any group of EAs. Is that correct, and have things changed since then? I saw that Will MacAskill is planning to appear on some podcasts soon to speak about SBF, which seems like great news to mee. If I recall correctly, Will previously said that he was going to [...] --- First published: April 1st, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PAG3DJtoZeGtz488f/why-hasn-t-ea-done-an-sbf-investigation-and-postmortem --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

A brief and belated update: When I resigned from the board of EV US last year, I was planning on writing about that decision. But I ultimately decided against doing that for a variety of reasons, including that it was very costly to me, and I believed it wouldn’t make a difference. However, I want to make it clear that I resigned last year due to significant disagreements with the board of EV and EA leadership, particularly concerning their actions leading up to and after the FTX crisis. While I certainly support the boards’ decision to pay back the FTX estate, spin out the projects as separate organizations, and essentially disband EV, I continue to be worried that the EA community is not on track to learn the relevant lessons from its relationship with FTX. Two things that I think would help (though I am not planning to work [...] The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration. --- First published: April 3rd, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dtHZqi4fSQKor6TYY/quick-update-on-leaving-the-board-of-ev --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Following the success of Draft Amnesty Week, the Forum team have decided to take things a bit further. April 2nd 2024 will be Mandatory Amnesty Day (aka MAD). At 09:00 UTC, all draft posts on your Forum account will be posted live on the Forum. All the posts in this section on your profile page deserve to be seen. If you have used our Google Docs import feature, all posts we detect on your Google account will also be posted. Shrek is now the de facto mascot of Draft Amnesty. If, for some reason, you have objections, please get in touch with the Forum team here. We look forward to seeing all your draft posts! --- First published: April 1st, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/72cKFaXd2B7Bis2kv/announcing-mandatory-draft-amnesty-day-april-2nd --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Impactful Animal Advocacy is thrilled to announce that after careful consideration and complex moral calculations, we have decided to rebrand to Shrimpactful Animal Advocacy. Why shrimp, you ask? Well, we've crunched the numbers and determined that improving the welfare of shrimp is one of the highest-impact opportunities in the animal advocacy space. Source: https://foodimpacts.org/ In light of this strong evidence, Shrimpactful Animal Advocacy will be laser-focusing all of our efforts and resources on ending the suffering of our shrimpy friends. This includes revamping our programs to focus on our new mission. You'll soon be able to sign up for our revised Shrimpactful Animal Advocacy newsletter, attend our upcoming "Shrimp-osium" events, visit our Shrimp Hub resource center, and join our Shrimp Slack community to connect with fellow Shrimpactful Advocates. We call on all other organizations to join us in this: --- First published: April 1st, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ed5Jiuk3sCYTXHfFD/announcement-we-are-rebranding-to-shrimpactful-animal --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

(aka "surely we have enough Jews here that at least one person finds this funny") MISHNA: Rabbi Ord says that the three permissible cause areas are global health and development, animal welfare, and long-termism. Why are these the three permissible cause areas? Because any charity outside of these cause areas is a violation of bal tashchit, the prohibition against wasting resources. GEMARA: And why not four categories, because global health and development are two separate categories? Rabbi bar bar Hana answers: Is not global health valuable only because it later leads to development? Therefore, consider them the same category. Rav Yehuda objects. He tells the story of a student who asked Rabbi Yohanan why there should not be a fourth category, meta-effective-altruism. Rabbi Yohanan answered: this is covered under long-termism, because it pays off in the long-term when the meta-charity causes effective altruists to have more resources. But if [...] --- First published: April 1st, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/363kggkFJHz5ys5T7/excerpts-from-the-ea-talmud --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

It's been at least a few months since the last proper EA scandals, and we're now desperately trying to squeeze headlines out of the past ones. On the contrary, a few scandals have been wrapped up: Indeed, even OpenPhil's involvement in the Whytham Abbey sale shows they're now less willing to fund new scandals. Therefore it seems to me that EA is now neither funding- nor talent-constrained, but rather scandal-constrained. This cannot go on. We've all become accustomed to a neverending stream od scandals, and if that stream dwindles, we might find ourselves bored to death - or worse, the world might stop talking about EA all the time. I therefore raise a few ideas for discussion - feel free to add your own: --- First published: April 1st, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/F47vckGK5kHZirtGS/ea-is-now-scandal-constrained --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA), an effective altruism (EA) project which recently spun out of Effective Ventures (EV) is spinning out of the newly established Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA). The current CEO of CEA (the Centre for Effective Altruism), Zach Robinson, CEO of CEA and Effective Ventures (CEOCEV), will be taking the position of Chief Executive Administrator (CEA) for CEA (CEA), as the venture spins out of CEA (CEA). The cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) for this new effective venture suggested that this venture will be high-EV (see: EA). CEA's CEA's CEA ventures that the new spun-out CEA venture's effectiveness is cost-effective in every available scenario (CEAS). CEA's new strategy, See EA will take effect: To provide some clarity on [...] --- First published: April 1st, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WgneAKfjRJkYsTs3p/the-centre-for-effective-altruism-is-spinning-out-of-the --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.