EA Updates for June 2020

META

• The talks from EAGx Virtual last month are now available to watch on YouTube

• Charity Entrepreneurship are putting the first part of their incubation program online, with daily lessons and online discussion

• EA Survey 2019 Series: How many people are there in the EA community?

• EA Survey 2019 Series: Engagement Levels

• For UK civil servants there is a new slack group for people interested in EA, sign up here

• A new website and newsletter has been set up for people working in consulting with an interest in EA

• Aaron Gertler with EA related organisation updates for May 2020

• 80,000 Hours with what they learnt from their anonymous interviews

• Effective Thesis: updates from 2019 and a call for collaborators

• EA Survey 2019 Series: Community Information

• Tom Wein investigating dignity as an alternative EA priority

• Fin Moorhouse with a review of 'Effective Altruism – Philosophical Issues'

• 80,000 Hours anonymous answers looking at 5 questions including 'the worst advice you commonly see people give'

GRANTS

• Open Phil have made 25 grants recently with a total value of $23,895,000

• $14,058,000 - scientific research
• $8,293,676 - infant immunome study
• $3,064,660 - research on emergency food resilience
• $2,500,000 - African Union Development Agency
• $3,253,000 - global catastrophic risks
• $3,000,000 - nuclear conflict climate modelling
• $2,565,000 - biosecurity and pandemic preparedness
• $2,000,000 - empirical biosafety research
• $2,309,000 - farmed animal welfare
• $1,372,000 - criminal justice reform
• $338,000 - other areas

• GAVI, the vaccine alliance has raised over $8,800,000,000 to immunise 300 million children and support the fight against Covid-19

GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT

• Cambridge University has set up the Centre for Strategic Philanthropy, aiming to become the leading hub of knowledge to catalyse greater philanthropic impact from the world's fastest growing regions

• GAVI has launched a new financing mechanism for access to Covid-19 vaccines

• An overview of the expansion of social protection measures globally in response to Covid-19

• The Turing Institute on how AI can be used to support the effective prioritisation of public policies, with a case study from Latin America

• ODI with a paper looking at the evidence base for anticipatory action, initiatives that deliver support to vulnerable communities before disasters strike

• A transcript from EA Global 'Moral weights in global development — IDinsight’s Beneficiary Preferences Project'

• Happier Lives Institute with an update on their first round of evaluating cost-effectiveness of mental health programmes

• Vox looking into how Covid-19 could lead to other infectious diseases spreading in the wake of the pandemic 

• The Global Peace Index 2020 was released with 81 countries becoming more peaceful and 80 countries less peaceful

• Think Global Health with an article looking at why private sector engagement should be part of the solution in global development

• Ghana Priorities with a cost benefit analysis of land titling

• Anya Marchenko from the Center for Effective Global Action discussing effective altruism and impact

ANIMAL WELFARE

• Material Innovation Initiative have launched to accelerate the development of animal free materials, similar to the Good Food Institute in the food and drink space

• Lauren Mee and Jamie Harris have launched some of their first public-facing careers advice content for Animal Advocacy Careers

• A post looking at why arguments focused on antibiotic resistance because of meat consumption might be over valued

• Fish Welfare Initiative and Aquatic Life Institute on their new collaboration

• Sofia Davis-Fogel is looking for expressions of interest from people who may want to work at an animal advocacy organisation focusing on insect welfare

• Canada has announced a $100,000,000 investment in the alternative protein industry

• Bruce Friedrich with a TED talk on plant-based and cell-based meat

EXISTENTIAL & CATASTROPHIC RISKS

• A paper looking at international politics in the age of existential threats

• Future of Life Institute podcast with George Church on the future of computation, synthetic biology, and life

• Toby Ord on the Making Sense podcast discussing existential risks

• Notes from a call with the Nuclear Threat Initiative, looking a the work they do covering nuclear, cyber, radiological and biological risks

• Haydn Belfield contributed to the economist front page looking at how politicians could be better prepared for far-out risks

ENVIRONMENT 

• Amazon have set up a $2,000,000,000 Climate Pledge Fund to support the development of sustainable and decarbonising technologies

• Pale Blue Dot is a new 'climate only' venture capital firm aiming to invest in 40 companies that are using technology to help solve climate problems

• A paper using an effective altruism framework to look at the top priorities within food insecurity and biodiversity loss

• Our World in Data has teamed up with Kurzgesagt to make a video looking at who is responsible for climate change

IMPROVING INSTITUTIONS

• The Global Evidence Summit is happening in Prague, October 2021 

• The Centre for Public Impact on issues with measurement in public management and how to overcome them

• A new tool to visually explore papers to help researchers and scientists find relevant connections to their work

• Andrew Gelman looking at problems with the peer review system

• A blog post on how to influence policy as an early career researcher

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

• An overview of the ethics of AI and robotics in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

• 38 participants have contributed to a horizon scanning paper looking at the opportunities and threats associated with bioengineering

• An article looking at why fully autonomous drone swarms could be considered weapons of mass destruction

• The Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub was announced in the UK to support work to ensure that autonomous systems are trustworthy by default and can benefit society

• A paper in nature looking at AI ethics in a crisis when urgency is required

• The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk with written evidence to the UK Parliament Defence Committee's Inquiry with recommendations on procurement and deployment of machine learning systems in the military

• 80,000 Hours interviewing Stuart Russell on human compatible AI

• Jess Whittlestone with an article on why cross-cultural cooperation on ethics and governance is essential if AI is to bring about benefits worldwide

LONG TERM FUTURE

• Robert Wiblin looking at why you should consider a wider range of jobs, paths and problems if you want to improve the long-term future

• Problem areas beyond 80,000 Hours' current priorities
• Promising career ideas beyond 80,000 Hours' priority paths

• A paper looking at how future generations may think about universal basic income

• David Roodman from Open Phil has an in depth post looking at the history of humanity and possible future trajectories

RACIAL JUSTICE

• Founders Pledge with resources on racial justice

• Sanjay Joshi with a post looking at tackling racism from an EA perspective

• Henry Cooksley with a post on where to donate to help criminal justice reform and racial justice

• Vox looking at how racial justice groups are adjusting to having many more donations than they are used to

• The Centre for Effective Altruism with a message to community members, in light of global protests for racial justice

• Ramiro from EA Brazil looking at indifference, racism and violence

OTHER LINKS

• 80,000 Hours podcast with author AJ Jacobs discussing journalism and effective altruism

• EA Global transcript of a talk by Kelsey Piper on the impact of Future Perfect and ideas for more EA related journalism

• NPR looking at favouritism towards those we know over strangers, including an interview with Dylan Matthews on why he donated a kidney to a stranger

• Robert Wiblin with a post on why people shouldn't tolerate bullying even if their job is really important

• Clearer Thinking with a guide on how to not be misled by statistics

• An EA Global transcript from John Halstead looking at whether impact investing is impactful

• Founders Pledge have launched a new podcast looking at how founders and social innovators are rethinking social impact and how they can do philanthropy better

• Lynette Bye with a post looking at five ways to prioritise better

• Peter Singer won a competition for people to write a philosophical argument that effectively convinces research participants to donate to charity

• The Guardian covering Imperial College research into the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat depression

• Ignaz Forstmeier, co-founder of Personio, on why they decided to join Founders Pledge

• Dewi Erwan with their ideological journey from nationalism to altruism

GOOD NEWS ROUNDUP

• Gabon lawmakers have voted to decriminalise homosexuality

• China has removed dogs from the list of animals that can be treated as livestock

• Dutch parliament has voted to close mink fur farms