EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

This is a link post. This seems like an important piece of work - an RCT on the use of AI capabilities for developers. The TL;DR of the paper is The devil is in the details of course. This post by Steve Newman does a good job of working through some of them. I have highlighted some considerations from it: The methodology was as follows: METR recruited 16 developers from major open-source projects. Each developer selected a list of coding tasks from their todo list, breaking up large projects into tasks that they could complete in an hour or two. In all, 246 tasks were included in the study. The developers estimated how long it would take them to complete each task (a) under normal conditions, and (b) without using any AI tools. The percentage difference between these figures yields the predicted speedup – the degree to [...] --- First published: July 11th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rgBSYGBFMpKRpgHca/linkpost-metr-measuring-the-impact-of-early-2025-ai-on Linkpost URL:https://metr.org/Early_2025_AI_Experienced_OS_Devs_Study.pdf --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Thank you to @Jacintha Baas, @Judith Rensing, and the @CE team for your help in editing and improving this post. Introductory Context Hi, I’m Trish. This is my first post on the EA forum. I spent the past decade building VC-funded, high-growth startups (from pre-revenue to $10M+, from founding team to 250+ employees; pre-funding through Series B), and supporting 100s of early-stage founders through the communities at On Deck and Unreasonable Group. Last year, I joined the team at AIM to help build the Founding to Give program, which helps people start high-impact for-profit tech startups. AIM's Founding to Give program aims to launch for-profit startups that create impact through two ways: Build a startup, exit, and donate to effective charities (similar to earning to give) Direct positive impact created through the startup AIM's research and Founder's Pledge data show high expected value (EV) for the [...] ---Outline:(00:18) Introductory Context(01:33) Summary(02:10) Overview: The Bull & Bear Case(03:05) Reasons often given for why for-profits can't have significant impact (and their counterexamples)(03:13) #1 You can't serve two masters(03:56) #2 Show me a for-profit that is solving for rural malaria prevention(05:02) #3 For profits can't solve problems for those suffering the most(06:37) #4 But what about the perverse incentives that will inevitably emerge(08:07) #5 It would have happened anyway(10:24) #6 DuoLingo is designed to keep you using the app, not to deliver real learning outcomes(11:42) Some ideas for where for-profits might be able to create significant direct impact(13:15) Some ideas for where for-profits might be able to uniquely contribute to the impact ecosystem(15:06) Next Steps--- First published: July 11th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Se7gdAbjHPLLnRgbf/can-for-profit-companies-create-significant-direct-impact --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post. I'm interested in a simple question: Why are people all so terrified of dying? And have people gotten more afraid? (Answer: probably yes!) In some sense, this should be surprising: Surely people have always wanted to avoid dying? But it turns out the evidence that this preference has increased over time is quite robust. It's an important phenomenon that has been going on for at least a century, it's relatively new, I think it underlies much of modern life, and yet pretty much nobody talks about it. I tried to provide a evenhanded treatment of the question, with a "fox" rather than "hedgehog" outlook. In the post, I cover a range of evidence for why this might be true, including VSL, increased healthcare spending, covid lockdowns, parenting and other individual risk behaviors. Conditional upon it being true, I also consider why, drawing on evidence from [...] --- First published: July 10th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pbgBbjdGGMbkLGXYp/the-rising-premium-of-life Linkpost URL:https://linch.substack.com/p/the-rising-premium-for-life --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I think the 2003 invasion of Iraq has some interesting lessons for the future of AI policy. (Epistemic status: I’ve read a bit about this, talked to AIs about it, and talked to one natsec professional about it who agreed with my analysis (and suggested some ideas that I included here), but I’m not an expert.) For context, the story is: Iraq was sort of a rogue state after invading Kuwait and then being repelled in 1990-91. After that, they violated the terms of the ceasefire, e.g. by ceasing to allow inspectors to verify that they weren't developing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). (For context, they had previously developed biological and chemical weapons, and used chemical weapons in war against Iran and against various civilians and rebels). So the US was sanctioning and intermittently bombing them. After the war, it became clear that Iraq actually wasn’t producing [...] --- First published: July 10th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hLWsAdhhgE88HKjKE/lessons-from-the-iraq-war-about-ai-policy --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

TLDR: July 21-27 will be a themed week on the EA Forum for posting career-related quick takes and posts. We'll also have career advisors available throughout the week to answer questions. Last time we ran a career conversations week, it led to some great posts, including: Mistakes, flukes, and good calls I made in my multiple careers - Catherine Low Who Is a Good Fit for a Career in Nonprofit Entrepreneurship? - Charity Entrepreneurship Monetary and social incentives in longtermist careers - Vaidehi Agarwalla It's about time we did this again! Alongside many great posts (which you are encouraged to write), we’ll also have a pinned “Ask Me Anything” post with career advisors throughout the week, as well as a couple of career-related debates.Add this and future events to your Google calendarexpect this vibe on the bannerGoals As a community, we hold collective knowledge about careers that we haven’t [...] ---Outline:(01:11) Goals(01:52) How to take part(03:41) Next steps--- First published: July 8th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eoR7GnugbCXX8KEEk/career-conversations-week-july-21-27 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

This is a link post. Living in New Zealand can sometimes feel like an obstacle to doing good effectively. We’re far from the EA hubs in the UK/US, and from opportunities for direct work on global health & development. But are there any areas where we might have an advantage? Here are some possibilities that the community has been discussing recently: As a low-risk environment for AI training. Alethios argues that NZ's legislative environment and geothermal resources could make us a good candidate for AI data/training centres. As a safe zone for global catastrophic risk. Many have noted that NZ's position as an isolated island nation makes us more resilient to risks like nuclear winter and pandemics. As a leverage point for animal welfare. Animal Policy International chose to work in New Zealand because we have high(er) welfare standards that could be used to drive change elsewhere. As a [...] --- First published: July 8th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3JLTPFmpTDMHPX5su/what-is-nz-s-comparative-advantage Linkpost URL:https://effectivealtruism.nz/blog/nz-comparative-advantage --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

This is a crosspost of a recent post by Hannah Yang, FP Research's comms lead, on Founders Pledge's website. I thought it was important to post this on the Forum because it's unclear to me what people know about FP, and because I often encounter various misconceptions — the three most common being that we focus only on climate (we don't), that we're driven primarily by member interests (we're not), and that we don't move very much money (see below). Many of the grants below are advised grants — that is, grants made by donors on our recommendation, typically using FP's infrastructure — while some come directly out of our Funds. Like many orgs, we're hoping to raise a lot more money for our managed funds in the coming years to enable greater flexibility, greater efficiency, and indeed greater impact. More generally, though, FP is planning to roughly triple [...] ---Outline:(01:55) Global Health & Development(02:18) $8M to Teaching at the Right Level Africa (2024)(03:18) $6.4M to Innovation in Government Initiative (2024)(04:22) $5M to Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (2023)(05:22) $5M to Bandhan (2024)(06:16) Global Catastrophic Risks(06:49) $3M to launch IBBIS (2023)(08:03) $1.86M to start the Berkeley Risk and Security Lab (2022)(09:06) $2.5M for Carnegie's Averting Armageddon project (2023)(10:14) Climate(10:37) $4M to Clean Air Task Force (2021-2022)(11:48) $5M to DEPLOY/US (2024)(13:09) $3.5M to establish the Innovation Initiative (2025)--- First published: July 9th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9WinzeTqDeTBygQwK/10-of-founders-pledge-s-biggest-grants --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a rough explanation of relative ranges, a heuristic that I've found very helpful for quickly comparing two options that trade off between two dimensions. Consider the following examples of tradeoffs: Should we prioritize helping small animals or large animals? There are more small animals, but large animals have a higher capacity for suffering. Should we fund medical research on the most promising candidates across diseases, or should we focus only on the most important diseases? Broad search is more likely to lead to a successful treatment, but targeted search can lead to treatments for higher-burden diseases. If we fund a recurring health/consumption survey, should we fund it annually or quarterly? More rounds leads to higher-frequency information, but at a higher cost. You could answer these questions by carefully quantifying the value of each parameter – the actual population of different types [...] ---Outline:(02:46) Formalization(04:16) There are more probabilities in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy--- First published: July 9th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Mgv6d2nDMHAkLotbp/the-relative-range-heuristic --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

About the program Hi! We’re Chana and Aric, from the new 80,000 Hours video program. For over a decade, 80,000 Hours has been talking about the world's most pressing problems in newsletters, articles and many extremely lengthy podcasts.But today's world calls for video, so we’ve started a video program[1], and we’re so excited to tell you about it! 80,000 Hours is launching AI in Context, a new YouTube channel hosted by Aric Floyd. Together with associated Instagram and TikTok accounts, the channel will aim to inform, entertain, and energize with a mix of long and shortform videos about the risks of transformative AI, and what people can do about them. [Chana has also been experimenting with making shortform videos, which you can check out here; we’re still deciding on what form her content creation will take] We hope to bring our own personalities and perspectives on these issues [...] ---Outline:(00:18) About the program(01:40) Our first long-form video(03:14) Strategy and future of the video program(04:18) Subscribing and sharing(04:57) Request for feedback--- First published: July 9th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ERuwFvYdymRsuWaKj/80-000-hours-is-producing-ai-in-context-a-new-youtube --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

This is a link post. I donated my left kidney to a stranger on April 9, 2024, inspired by my dear friend @Quinn Dougherty (who was inspired by @Scott Alexander, who was inspired by @Dylan Matthews). By the time I woke up after surgery, it was on its way to San Francisco. When my recipient woke up later that same day, they felt better than when they went under. I'm going to talk about one complication and one consequence of my donation, but I want to be clear from the get: I would do it again in a heartbeat.I met Quinn at an EA picnic in Brooklyn and he was wearing a shirt that I remembered as saying "I donated my kidney to a stranger and I didn't even get this t-shirt." It actually said "and all I got was this t-shirt," which isn't as funny. I went home [...] The original text contained 6 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: July 9th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yHJL3qK9RRhr82xtr/my-kidney-donation Linkpost URL:https://cuttyshark.substack.com/p/my-kidney-donation-story --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.