EA Talks

Impact investing is an increasingly popular approach to doing good. In this talk, John Halstead, head of applied research at Founders Pledge, discusses whether, and in what conditions, impact investing might be thought to succeed. John argues that impact investing is likely to have limited impact in large, highly efficient markets such as public stock markets. However, impact investing stands a better chance of impact if it involves VC or angel investing, includes companies that serve poor consumers or produce positive externalities, and/or exploits an investor’s informational advantage.This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/Original VideoEffective 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.

Mass media can reach millions of people, but can it improve health and save lives as effectively as other top interventions? Past studies of mass-media campaigns for public health failed to find evidence of strong impact, belying the potential of the medium. In this talk, Roy Head, CEO of Development Media International (DMI), will discuss the randomized controlled trial DMI ran on its own health campaign — and the surprising results.This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.Original VideoEffective 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.

Bonnie Jenkins, founder and executive director of Women of Color Advancing Peace, shares her thoughts on starting her career at the Department of Defense, current risks and improvements in nuclear security and biosecurity, and her work to advance diversity and inclusion in her field.This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.Original VideoEffective 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 order to improve animal welfare, we need to know how different factors affect it. But measuring the cumulative experience of non-human animals is a difficult task. Recent research has suggested that measures of biological aging could provide a promising new way to assess animal welfare. Will Bradshaw, a research fellow at Wild Animal Initiative, outlines the evidence supporting the surprising link between aging and welfare, as well as some potential limitations. He then discusses how this approach could help resolve key questions in the study of animal well-being.This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.Original VideoEffective 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.

Will MacAskill, a key figure in the effective altruism movement, discusses the book he’s currently writing about longtermism, his assessment of challenges and successes in his work at the Global Priorities Institute, how his views have changed over the last year, different approaches to growing the effective altruism community, and more.This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.Original VideoEffective 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.

AI systems are much more transparent to one another than humans are to other humans; they can share information about the reward functions that drive their actions. Jesse Clifton, a PhD candidate in statistics at North Carolina State University, presents a framework for using “open-source learning algorithms” — which, thanks to this transparency, can make bargains to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.Original VideoEffective 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.

Even armed with the best intentions and evidence, EA donors must make a moral choice about what “doing the most good” actually means — for example, whether it’s better to save one life or lift many people out of poverty. Alice Redfern, a manager at IDinsight, discusses the organization’s “Beneficiary Preferences Project,” which involved gathering data on the moral preferences of individuals who receive aid funding. The project could influence how governments and NGOs allocate hundreds of billions of dollars.This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.Original VideoEffective 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.

Christian Tarsney, a research fellow at the Global Priorities Institute, summarizes some of the key strengths and weaknesses of a common argument against doing EA work focused on the long term: that the far future is too unpredictable to justify spending time on it. Rather than taking a “for” or “against” position, he makes the case that the questions around this argument are underexplored and present many opportunities for high-value research. This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.Original VideoEffective 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.

Academic studies don’t always estimate the parameters that will be most useful to us as we try to understand the cost-effectiveness of charities’ interventions. Even when they do, it may be difficult to figure out how those estimates apply to a specific charity’s program. Dan Brown, a senior fellow at GiveWell, uses examples from his own projects to demonstrate the depth of this challenge — and suggests ways to get practical value from academic insights.This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.Original VideoEffective 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 successful culture for effective altruism is one in which many members of the community stay involved for a long time, learning and growing as they go. David Coman-Hidy, president of the Humane League, discusses ways in which organizations in the effective altruism space can nurture such a culture by helping their members feel valued, empowered, and connected.This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.Original VideoEffective 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.