Hello!
This is the last newsletter of the year! To wrap up 2022 and give a sense of what people work on, I'm featuring and explaining six projects in effective altruism ⬇️ that I think are exciting. I’m also sharing links to other articles ⬇️ as always.
You could also skip straight to the jobs ⬇️ or announcements ⬇️ sections for information about open courses, fellowships, and other opportunities.
— Lizka (for the EA Newsletter Team)
P.S. In last month’s newsletter, I mistakenly attributed a report to Rethink Priorities instead of the Shrimp Welfare Project. You can see the mistake and the corrected version in the archives.
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A spotlight on some charities & projects in effective altruism ⚓
We feature a lot of content but we rarely focus on specific projects that people in effective altruism are working on or funding — we’re changing that for the last newsletter of 2022!
The Nucleic Acid Observatory - early warning for biological threats
If new diseases are detected very early on, they can be contained before they extend to new areas and grow into full-blown pandemics. Unfortunately, most current methods for detecting diseases can only identify known pathogens, meaning new diseases will be identified too late.
The Nucleic Acid Observatory (NAO) project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is developing better early detection methods. They’re designing ways to analyze wastewater and other environmental samples collected at airports and other sites to notice patterns that predict disease emergence — whether or not the disease itself is already known. The NAO is hiring. (You can read more about early detection using genomic testing here.)
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Helen Keller International — Vitamin A supplementation
Vitamin A deficiency might sound minor, but an estimated 200,000 children die as a result of it every year. More face stunted growth, blindness, and other issues.
Helen Keller International (HKI) works with local governments to distribute capsules of vitamin A, a handful of which over the course of a few years can save a child’s sight and life. In 2021, they distributed over 30 million capsules. GiveWell, which lists HKI as a top charity, estimates that the program saves a life for every $3,500 spent. HKI also supports other programs that fight vitamin A deficiency, like working with producers to fortify flour in affected regions. They’re hiring.
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The Good Food Institute — supporting alternative proteins
You might already know that the number of animals going through factory farms every year is huge (over 67 billion land animals), and that the conditions in those farms are bad. (Read more.) So what needs to happen for humanity to end inhumane farming practices?
The Good Food Institute (GFI) works on one key approach: accelerating the development and availability of meat alternatives. One example of how they do this is by advocating for fair regulation of cell-based meat in the US. They’re hiring. Animal Charity Evaluators identified GFI as one of their four top charities of 2022.
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Center for Human-Compatible AI — research on how to make AI systems safer
More and more people are worried about potential risks from artificial intelligence (AI). Approaches to mitigating these risks include governance, like working in policy or getting safety agreements from AI labs, and technical research, which can take many forms.
The Center for Human-Compatible AI (CHAI) at the University of California, Berkeley conducts inter-disciplinary research on how we can prevent AI systems from being “misaligned” — i.e. stop them from diverging from human values and objectives, which could cause great harm. They also work on outreach and education. CHAI is hiring. Open Philanthropy has recommended grants to CHAI in the past.
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Lead Exposure Elimination Project — preventing deaths from lead poisoning
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GiveDirectly — sending money directly to the world’s poorest households
The scale of global economic inequality is mindblowing. If you live on $30 a day — at roughly the poverty line in wealthy countries — you are part of the richest 15% of the world. Someone from the poorer half of the world lives on less than one-fourth of this amount (even adjusted for purchasing power).
GiveDirectly helps donors send money directly to the world’s poorest households, which allows them to buy what they need to improve their lives. ( Here’s an interview with a recipient.) They work with village heads, select recipients carefully, and check that this money is sent securely. They’ve already transferred over $400 million to over a million households. GiveDirectly is hiring for many roles and has been featured by GiveWell in the past. (You can explore more — the effects of cash transfers have been studied extensively by economists.)
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In other news ⚓
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:
- The 80,000 Hours Job Board features more than 600 positions. We can’t fit them all in the newsletter, so you can check them out there.
- The EA Opportunity Board collects internships, volunteer opportunities, conferences, and more — including part-time and entry-level job opportunities.
- You can see more positions in the EA Job Postings group on Facebook.
- If you’re interested in policy or global development, you may also want to check Tom Wein’s list of social purpose job boards.
Assorted jobs
Fish Welfare Initiative
Forecasting Research Institute
GiveWell
The Global Priorities Institute is hiring for Predoctoral Research Fellows in Economics (Oxford, £29,614 – £35,326, apply by 6 January)
Open Philanthropy is hiring for (lots of) operations roles (Remote / San Francisco / Washington, D.C., $84,000 - $159,399)
Rethink Priorities:
- Chief of Staff to the COO (Remote, $117,000 - $122,000, apply by 8 January)
- Development Professional (Remote, $80,155 - $115,235, apply by 8 January)
- Communications Strategist (Remote, $84,540 - $115,235, apply by 8 January)
- Board Member (Remote, $40.53/hour, apply by 13 January)
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Announcements ⚓
It’s giving season — explore effective giving pledges (or just donate!)
Over 9,000 people have made a public pledge to give a portion of their income to effective charities via Giving What We Can. You’re invited to explore the giving pledges.
You could also just give to highly effective charities this holiday season.
EA Survey & reactions to the FTX collapse
The EA Survey has been updated with new questions to see how people are feeling about EA after the FTX collapse.
If you haven’t taken the survey yet, consider taking 10 minutes to fill it out (no matter how involved you are with effective altruism — even if you just learned about it!). If you’ve already filled it out but didn’t respond to any FTX-related questions, you can just respond to those here.
Other announcements
- There are (at least) two virtual courses on AI safety with open applications right now:
- AGI Safety Fundamentals is a free, 12-week, part-time program for people interested in AI safety —apply by 5 January.
- Introduction to ML safety is a free, 8-week, part-time program for students with technical backgrounds ($500 stipend) — apply by 29 January.
- Opportunities for people interested in global priorities research
- Applications are open for the Open Student Workshop on Global Priorities Research (18-21 June 2023, Oxford), which aims to help students from traditionally underrepresented groups learn about global priorities research (GPR), develop their research ideas, and gain useful networks for careers in GPR. Travel and accommodation will be covered. Apply by 8 January.
- Applications are open for the Oxford Global Priorities Fellowship (12 June – 7 July 2023, Oxford), which allows people to try global priorities research and supports their career development. Expenses are covered and there’s a £5,000 stipend. Apply by 15 January.
- You can participate in the Astral Codex Ten prediction contest (at least four $500 prizes). This involves 50 questions about the state of the world at the end of 2023, including “Will Vladimir Putin be President of Russia?” and “Will there be more than 25 million confirmed COVID cases in China?” Enter your predictions by 10 January or 1 February (depending on the mode of participation you choose).
As always, more opportunities can be found on the EA Opportunity Board.
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Organizational Updates
You can see updates from a wide range of organizations on the EA Forum.
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Timeless Classic: four ideas you already agree with
- It's important to help others.
- People are equal.
- Helping more is better than helping less (all else being equal).
- Our resources are limited.
These four ideas might sound like common sense, but they have significant — and often difficult — implications for how we should approach doing good.
For instance, personal experience can lead us to prioritize fighting for certain causes (like leukaemia), but “if we care about treating people equally, we should also care about treating their experiences equally. There’s not a really good reason that I should prefer averting the death, disability, and suffering caused by a particular disease (like leukaemia) any more than I should care about suffering caused by malaria, tuberculosis, traffic accidents, or anything else. What matters is that lives are cut short, parents are deprived of their children, people are living in pain.”
Read the whole essay (from 2016).
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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 feedback for us, positive or negative, let us know!
– The Effective Altruism Newsletter Team |
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