
EA Talks
Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways you can best help others, whether through your charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Talks features presentations and discussions that can help you find something you're excited about. Lately, we've been focusing a lot on new opportunities in pandemic prevention, charity entrepreneurship, and AI safety. But we also have talks on other important topics like animal welfare, global health, nuclear security, climate change, and cause prioritization research. Most of the content is from EA Global videos, packaged for easy listening on the go. If you have feedback or would like to suggest an episode, please reach out.
Latest episodes

Jan 27, 2023 • 47min
Empowering yourself with forecasting | David Chee | EAGxVirtual 2022
Unsure about the future? Perhaps uncertainties in your personal life lead to inaction and stagnation toward your goals. Learning to forecast won't solve this, but can be a great tool to add to your arsenal. We subconsciously make bets on ourselves and others all the time. In this introductory workshop, David guides you through practical steps on how you can approach decisions and goals through the lens of forecasting and prediction markets.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.

Jan 25, 2023 • 42min
Lessons from Building a Vaccine (and Company) in 3 Months | Ethan Alley | EAGxBoston 22
Alvea is a new EA vaccination organization of drug developers, logistics experts, physicians and operators working around the clock to develop and rigorously test a simple, scalable and shelf-stable vaccine that is easy to adapt to new COVID-19 variants and pathogens.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.

18 snips
Jan 23, 2023 • 41min
An Introduction to AI Governance | Ben Garfinkel | EAGxVirtual 2022
AI will probably radically transform the world. This talk describes the risks advanced AI may pose, explains how the field of "AI governance" can help to address them, and offers suggestions for learning more and getting involved.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.

Jan 22, 2023 • 47min
Academic community-building for wild animal welfare | Cameron Meyer Shorb | EAGxVirtual 2022
Why academic community-building? Wild Animal Initiative believes the best way to improve wild animals' wellbeing is to help launch a community of researchers focused on wild animal welfare. But investing time in research and community building can feel slow when there are animals suffering now. In this talk, Wild Animal Initiative Executive Director Cameron Meyer Shorb explains why academic community building is a necessary step for taking action to improve the lives of wild animals at scale.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.

Jan 21, 2023 • 47min
African Perspectives on Longtermism | Cecil Abungu | EAGxVirtual 2022
In his talk, Cecil claims there is ample evidence that many indigenous African communities considered future generations in their everyday decision-making. He offers a unified theory to explain the relationship that African indigenous communities had towards future people. Finally, he proposes an agenda for African longtermists.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.

Jan 20, 2023 • 10min
Opening Address | Ollie Base | EAGxVirtual 2022
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.

Jan 15, 2023 • 50min
The Next Global Agricultural Revolution | Bruce Friedrich | EAGxBoston 22
Good Food Institute founder and CEO Bruce Friedrich explains GFI’s thesis that our industrial meat production system is a threat to humanity that is even more dangerous than fossil fuel production, with serious jeopardy to humanity across climate change, biodiversity loss, food security, antibiotic resistance, pandemic risk, and more. All forecasts by agricultural economists indicate that meat consumption is going to rise inexorably, by between 70 and more than 100 percent by 2050. We are not going to convince consumers to change their diets, much like we are not going to convince the world to consume less energy or drive less. So, we need to remake meat.View the original talk and video here.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.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.

Jan 14, 2023 • 44min
Subjective Wellbeing to Compare Cost-Effectiveness of Interventions | Joel McGuire | EAGxBoston 22
In this talk, Joel briefly introduces the Happier Lives Institute and explains their recent research comparing the cost-effectiveness of cash transfers to psychotherapy using subjective wellbeing. He finds that psychotherapy is nine times more cost-effective than cash transfers after adjusting for household spillovers. The analysis shows that subjective wellbeing offers a coherent framework for measuring the wellbeing impact of interventions from the micro (charity) to the macro (policy) scale.View the original talk and video here.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.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.

Jan 13, 2023 • 46min
Preparing for a World in which Thousands Can Unleash New Pandemics | Kevin Esvelt | EAGxBoston 22
Kevin Esvelt will outline a path to obviating catastrophic biothreats, highlighting key areas where contributions from people with particular skills outside of biology are likely to prove especially impactful.View the original talk and video here.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.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.

Jan 7, 2023 • 43min
Fireside Chat: Effectively Reducing Suffering | David Coman-Hidy, Rockwell Schwartz | EAGxBoston 22
Join David Coman-Hidy, President of The Humane League, for conversation and Q&A, with topics ranging from animal welfare to running an international organization.View the original talk and video here.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.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.