Hello!
Our favourite links this month include:
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Also, AIM (formerly Charity Entrepreneurship)’s 2025 programs, including their Charity Incubation Program and their Research Training Program, are open for applications until 15 September. You have until 28 August to apply to EAGx Berlin (13-15 September).
— Toby, for the EA Newsletter Team
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Articles
How factory farming ends
Vox published a series of articles about the past and future of the animal advocacy movement. It was filled with surprising insights. For example:
Today’s animal advocacy movement isn’t the first. Groups in the late 19th century were well-connected, well-funded, and popular. Some of their key characters overlapped with the abolition movement and the suffragists.
The present-day movement could also benefit from reaching out to groups with similar concerns, such as the public health community, progressives, anti-racists, and veterinarians. However, some groups that seem like natural allies are surprisingly tied to the animal agriculture industry, such as the environmental groups that launder big ag companies’ reputations and veterinarians who work closely with the industry.
Effective altruist-aligned funding—especially funding for effective corporate campaigns—has reinvigorated the animal advocacy movement. Kelsey Piper argues that this has essentially resolved a long-term disagreement between abolitionists and reformers. But this shouldn’t stop us from giving PETA, the controversial abolitionist group, its flowers. PETA has achieved admirable concrete wins (such as the widespread rejection of fur coats) and has greatly influenced the modern movement.
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Warren Buffett’s breakup with the Gates Foundation
Warren Buffett recently stated that his $137 billion net worth would not be given to the Gates Foundation after his death. Buffett has already given $40 billion to the Gates Foundation since 2006 — money that has likely saved millions of lives — and many expected the rest of his fortune would follow. Instead, it will be left in a trust for his three children to direct to philanthropic projects.
Unfortunately, Buffett’s children are not known for selecting causes or charities that have experienced anything close to the Gates Foundation’s global impact. The three have focused on causes ranging from US border security to social justice in Nebraska.
Buffett seems to be making this decision partially because of concerns with arrogance, bureaucracy, and complacency at the Gates Foundation. These concerns could have merit. But we should not lose sight of the fact that what truly matters is a charity’s cost-effectiveness, not the extent of its bureaucracy or overhead.
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Risks of stable totalitarianism
Totalitarian regimes may have caused around 100 million deaths in the 20th century through wars, famines, and purges. Almost all of the worst regimes came to an end due to wars, issues with succession, or resistance. But what if there was a totalitarian regime that could overcome resistance, and survive for millennia — or indefinitely?
In a new 80,000 Hours cause profile, Stephen Clare explores the risks of stable totalitarian regimes — regimes which use future AI technologies such as universal surveillance or an autonomous armed force to gain and maintain power for centuries or longer.
Clare is clear that this is a very unlikely risk. He (roughly) estimates a 0.3% chance of a state which is or becomes totalitarian getting hold of such an AI technology, and only a 1 in 30,000 chance of a state like that persisting indefinitely.
Despite the low probability, this cause seems neglected relative to its importance. Although stable totalitarianism would affect several billion lives or more if it occurred, Clare writes that “we don’t know of anyone working directly on the problem of stable totalitarianism”.
To further decrease the odds of a stable totalitarian regime forming, we could work on:
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In other news
- The Open Wing Alliance has saved hundreds of millions of chickens from cages by convincing corporations to pledge to buy only cage-free eggs.
- The Maternal Health Initiative’s founders explain why they decided to shut down.
- GovAI argues that AI-enabled biological tools which can develop new viruses, or assess the deadliness of viruses, might be dangerous in ways generative AI isn’t.
- London School of Economics’ Jonathan Birch discusses his new book, The Edge of Sentience, on the 80,000 Hours podcast.
- The two new malaria vaccines that we have today took 40 years to develop.
- For their 2025 Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program, Ambitious Impact will seek founders to lead seven new organizations, including one focused on CBT to prevent crime and another to drive cage-free egg campaigns in the Middle East.
- Mpox (previously monkeypox) is becoming a global health concern, and H1N1 (birdflu) continues to simmer.
- Wild Animal Initiative announced their latest round of grantees, including a project to assess the impact of parasites on animals in cities, and welfare tests for wild bees.
- The UK launched a metascience unit, partially funded by Open Philanthropy.
- Two US Senators have introduced a bill to ban commercial octopus farming in the US.
- AI
For more stories, try these email newsletters and podcasts.
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Resources
Links we share every time — they're just that good!
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Jobs
Boards and resources:
Selection of jobs
American Mathematical Society (AMS)
BlueDot Impact
Centre for Effective Altruism
- Head of Operations (Remote globally or in person in Oxford UK, £107,470 - $179,900, 16 September)
Microsoft
Model Evaluation and Threat Research (METR)
ProVeg International
The Humane League
The Wellcome Trust
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Announcements
Fellowships, internships, and courses
- Applications are open for AIM’s 2025 programs, including the Charity Entrepreneurship Program, Founding to Give Program, and Research Fellowship (deadline for all is 15 September).
- ML Alignment and Theory Scholars (MATS) is a 10-week program connecting talented scholars with top AI safety, governance, and interpretability mentors. Apply for the Winter 2024-5 stream before 30 August.
- The Impact Accelerator Program is a free, 6-week program designed to equip experienced (mid-career/senior) impact-focused professionals, not currently working in a high-impact role, with the knowledge and tools necessary to take actionable steps toward having a meaningful impact right away. Apply by 5 September.
- The Horizon Fellowship places experts in emerging technologies into federal agencies, Congressional offices and committees, and leading think tanks in Washington, DC for up to two years. It also provides funding and training. Apply for the 2025 cohort by 30 August.
Conferences and events
- Upcoming EA Global Conferences: Boston (1-3 November, apply by 20 October).
- Upcoming EAGx Conferences: Berlin (13-15 September, apply by 28 August), Bengaluru (19-20 October), and Sydney (22-24 November)
- The Conference on Animal Rights in Europe (CARE) will be held virtually and in person in Warsaw from 12-15 September. The conference aims to connect animal advocates to collaborators and key stakeholders. Apply here by 25 August.
- The Christians for Impact Conference, with talks from Rory Stewart and the Archbishop of Canterbury, is being held in London on 8-9 November. Apply now.
- Apart Research is running a hackathon from 23-26 August to build demos of AI risks and capabilities. The event has a prize pot of $2000. Apply now.
Funding and prizes
- Open Philanthropy’s Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building team is calling for applications for funding for:
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Organizational Updates
You can see updates from a wide range of organizations on the EA Forum.
This month:
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Timeless Classic: the moral imperative towards cost-effectiveness in global health
“Ignoring cost-effectiveness [...] does not mean losing 10% or 20% of the potential value that a health budget could have achieved, but can easily mean losing 99% or more.”
This essay from 2013 makes the case, now familiar to many who are interested in effective altruism, that people involved in global health interventions should be morally bound to consider their cost-effectiveness alongside more familiar considerations of justice, fairness, and equality. The core argument is that some health interventions are hundreds, or even thousands, of times as impactful as others, and organizations that don’t consider this could be missing out on huge amounts of positive impact.
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We hope you found this edition useful!
If you’ve taken action because of the Newsletter and haven’t taken our impact survey, please do — it helps us improve future editions.
Finally, if you have any feedback for us, positive or negative, let us know!
– The Effective Altruism Newsletter Team |
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