EA Talks

In this episode, Jason explains why it’s important to determine which creatures have moral standing and how that knowledge might affect the way we prioritize interventions and causes. He showcases one method for grappling with this problem, and outlines what skills are necessary to make progress in this area.Jason Schukraft is a Senior Research Manager at Rethink Priorities. Before joining the RP team, Jason earned his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin. Jason specializes in questions at the intersection of epistemology and applied ethics.This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

A journalist, podcaster and communications expert talk about how to best explain EA ideas to the public — maximising understanding and minimising frustration.Rob Wiblin studied both genetics and economics at the Australian National University (ANU), graduating top of his class and being named Young Alumnus of the Year in 2015. He worked as a research economist in various Australian Government agencies, and then moved to the UK to work at the Centre for Effective Altruism, first as Research Director, then Executive Director, then Research Director for 80,000 Hours. He was founding board Secretary for Animal Charity Evaluators and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community. A guide to his work is available on his personal site and he regularly offers unsolicited opinions on Facebook and Twitter.Michael Levine leads Open Philanthropy’s work on communications, including interactions with the news media. Previously, Mike covered Congress for Honolulu Civil Beat, researched economic issues for Pew’s American Cities Project, helped California government agencies pass ballot measures, and designed and executed communications strategies for charities and foundations large and small. He has been working with Open Philanthropy since 2015 and became Communications Officer in 2017.Kelsey Piper attended Stanford University, where she majored in computer science. At Stanford she discovered effective altruism, becoming a member of Giving What We Can and pledging to donate 30% of her lifetime income to charity, as well as founding a campus advocacy organization. Since 2018, Piper has written the Vox column Future Perfect, which covers “the most critical issues of the day through the lens of effective altruism”. Piper is concerned about global catastrophic risks, and treats journalism as a way to popularize these risks and advance the cause of addressing them, which is part of effective altruism’s broader concern regarding the relevance of immediate action. Specifically, Piper has discussed the possibility that society is living on a historical precipice, where immediate action needs to be taken to avoid global catastrophic risks, and what implications that has for effective altruism and her own journalism.This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk on the Centre for Effective Altruism YouTube channel.Click here to see Rob’s presentation on Jargon.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Stefan discusses the importance of considering our own and others’ emotions and psychological limits when practising effective altruism.Stephan Schubert is a researcher at the Social Behaviour and Ethics Lab, University of Oxford, working in the intersection of moral psychology and philosophy. He focuses on psychological questions of relevance to effective altruism, such as why our altruistic actions are often ineffective, and why we don’t invest more in safe-guarding our common future. He was previously a researcher at the Centre for Effective Altruism, and a postdoc in philosophy at the London School of Economics. This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Daniel talks about why self-care is challenging yet essential for almost anything you care about, and how you can manage your resources more deliberately.Quote from Daniel’s bio: “In my coaching practice, I help people in the effective altruism community face difficult challenges and make their biggest contribution to the world while taking care of themselves. I love to enter someone’s world and help them do what they’re capable of. It’s one of the most fulfilling things for me. Besides, coaching also pushes me into my own learning zone very consistently. I’ve grown just as much as my clients did throughout 300+ coaching sessions so far. Click here to access my coaching page. As the COO at the Center for Emerging Risk Research (CERR), I work to improve the quality of life of future generations as comprehensively as possible. CERR is a charitable investment fund and grantmaker that promotes research and the implementation of solutions to avoid technological risks. I’m curious about almost everything and love to learn new things. I’m particularly interested in how to have peak energy and focus, get the most out of my time, and struggle more gracefully. I spend my downtime meditating, hiking, and enjoying dark chocolate.This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

In this episode, Evan and Caroline share personal stories about their careers surrounding artificial intelligence.Evan Hubinger was an AI safety research intern at OpenAI before joining MIRI. His current work is aimed at solving inner alignment for iterated amplification. Evan was an author on “Risks from Learned Optimization in Advanced Machine Learning Systems,” was previously a MIRI intern, designed the functional programming language Coconut, and has done software engineering work at Google, Yelp, and Ripple. Evan studied math and computer science at Harvey Mudd College.Caroline Jeanmaire leads CHAI’s partnership and external relations strategy, focusing on building a research community around AI safety and relationships with key stakeholders. She also researches models of international coordination to ensure the safety and reliability of AI systems. Before working at CHAI, she was an AI Policy Researcher and Project Manager at The Future Society, a think-tank incubated at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She notably supported the organization of the first and second Global Governance of AI Forums at the World Government Summit in Dubai, with over 200 attendees. In the 2019 edition, she managed the Geopolitics of AI and International Panel on AI research committees. Caroline is experienced in multi-party coordination and negotiation. She was a Youth Delegate to the United Nations for two years with the French delegation. She participated in numerous climate negotiations and technical intersessions (including COP21, COP22, COP23 and COP24). Caroline has a dual master’s degree in International Relations from Peking University and Sciences Po Paris and a bachelor’s degree in political sciences from Sciences Po Paris. She also studied at Tufts University and at the Graduate Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Caroline speaks English, French, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk on the Centre for Effective Altruism YouTube Channel.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Industrial animal agriculture sits at the intersection of many of the most pressing challenges facing human and non-human animal kind. To alleviate these pressures in the wake of rising global meat demand, we must accelerate the development of alternative proteins that compete with their conventional animal counterparts on the basis of taste, price, and convenience. Students are uniquely positioned to drive this food system transformation by influencing some of the most powerful institutions in our economy—colleges and universities. Join The Good Food Institute’s Amy Huang to learn about how you can turn your university into a powerhouse for alternative protein education, research, and innovation.This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Max Dalton (Executive Director) and Joan Gass (Managing Director) from the Centre for Effective Altruism provide an update on CEA’s movement building strategy and answer questions from the audience.Centre for Effective Altruism, or CEA, is an organization whose mission is to build a community of students and professionals acting on EA principles, by creating and sustaining high-quality discussion spaces. CEA believes that by connecting students and young professionals with relevant experts, they can help them consider their values and find an effective way to contribute that is a good fit for their skills and inclinations.This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk on the Centre for Effective Altruism YouTube channel.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

80,000 Hours is a non-profit that provides research and support to help people switch into careers that effectively tackle the world’s most pressing problems. Ben discusses the most useful things they’ve learned so far.Ben Todd managed 80,000 Hours while it grew from a lecture, to a student society, to the organisation it is today. Before 80,000 Hours, he was the first undergraduate to intern as an analyst at a top investment fund. He has a 1st from Oxford in Physics and Philosophy, and has published in Climate Physics.This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk on the Centre for Effective Altruism YouTube Channel.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Buck argues that students should engage with AI safety by trying to actually assess the arguments and the safety proposals. He claims that this is doable and useful.Buck Shlegeris is a researcher at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Buck works to make the future good for sentient beings; at the moment he believes that working on existential risk from artificial intelligence is my best bet for doing this.This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

SCI Foundation has been selected by GiveWell as one of its most effective charities every year since 2009. How does SCI reach and improve the lives of the poorest of the poor? What is unique about this organisation’s approach and outsized impact? Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, and Research Advisor Katie Fantaguzzi discusses SCI’s progress toward its vision to eliminate preventable disease.This talk was taken from EA Global Asia and Pacific 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.