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Answer by Jonny Spicer 🔸4
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I would argue that the majority of software products are aiming at making a positive impact, and my guess would be that the products that have the biggest impact are wholly unrelated to EA. Having said that, here are a few that seem in line with the spirit of the question:

  • Spark Wave
  • QURI
  • Computation Democracy Project
  • Various other prediction markets, like Manifold
  • There are people who think that building any kind of ML-intensive product is not a good thing, even if the model isn't SOTA, and so might disagree that what Ought are doing is good. I neither endorse nor disendorse this opinion, but if you disagree with it then you might also like co:here
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by defun 🔸
1 min read4 answers 0

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Who's building Software Products that have the potential to make a significant positive impact?

I can think of:
- CentreForEffectiveAltruism.org (EA Forum)
- LightconeInfrastructure.com (LessWrong)
- OurWorldInData.org
- Metaculus.com
- Ought.com
- 80,000 Hours' Job Board
- GiveMomentum.com
- Wave.com
- MindEase.io

Self-promotion is welcome :)

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Jonny Spicer 🔸

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I would argue that the majority of software products are aiming at making a positive impact, and my guess would be that the products that have the biggest impact are wholly unrelated to EA. Having said that, here are a few that seem in line with the spirit of the question:

  • Spark Wave
  • QURI
  • Computation Democracy Project
  • Various other prediction markets, like Manifold
  • There are people who think that building any kind of ML-intensive product is not a good thing, even if the model isn't SOTA, and so might disagree that what Ought are doing is good. I neither endorse nor disendorse this opinion, but if you disagree with it then you might also like co:here

David van Beveren

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Great list, thanks for sharing!

Animal Advocacy Careers also has a Job Board.

If you don't mind me plugging my own org, Vegan Hacktivists specializes in building software for other animal advocacy/protection orgs, along with offering tech, design and advisory services, all for free.

Will keep an eye out on this thread, would love to learn about other organizations using technology as a catalyst for good!

Yellow (Daryl)2
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The vegan hacktivists sounds really cool and would love to help out! What kind of work/impact do the projects yall do have? Is it mainly with other ea animal orgs?

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David van Beveren
Thanks Daryl! Correct - we mainly work with animal orgs, many who are EA-aligned. We do plan to expand some of our capacity building services to EA organizations in the near future. Some examples of tech we've built include a social network platform with robust statistical tools for grassroots orgs to track their impact, a translation service platform allowing animal advocacy orgs and volunteers a way to connect and translate content for free, and a first of its kind vegan challenge with gamification that's inspired by Skillshare/Duolingo, etc. We're also working on a new grant database management system for funders/grantees, and also a tool to help make starting pressure campaigns easy and more accessible to the average activist. On the 12th we'll be releasing our Wild Animal Suffering project, a fully illustrated website that introduces and educates readers on the issue of Wild Animal Suffering, and how they can help. If you're interested in helping out, feel free to check this page to  apply. Appreciate the interest, and you're always free to message me here too if you'd like to chat more.

Martin (Huge) Vlach

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On par with Ought I'd put Anthropic (AI).

Linch2
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High impact with an unclear sign!

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