EA syllabi and teaching materials

Julia_Wise🔸

EA syllabi and teaching materials

Julia_Wise🔸

3 min readSep 5, 2018

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Theron

Check out the new EA teaching resources database (built at St Andrews University): https://effectivealtruism.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/?_ga=2.220916632.1221540258.1574519560-1711956814.1566911816

Miranda_Zhang

I took this class, Are we Doomed? Confronting the End of the World which I thought was fairly EA-aligned (in terms of addressing existential risk, and including a link to 80k): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YSs8_COvHQBiE2msm37C2Nt6Sc29GcJJq3fpl2Tii0I/edit?usp=sharing

*edit Oh, and Philosophy and Philanthropy explicitly read EA texts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NnhmKR-hXcyHkVPWFQ7roeVzTlSMIYnh0mWD3obSV-k/edit?usp=sharing

Pablo

Thanks! I added the first one to this list.

Julia_Wise🔸

Thanks, added to the post!

Izzy Gainsburg

I taught a class in Winter, 2020 called "Psychology of (Effective) Altruism" at University of Michigan.

Here's the syllabus link!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hVMTHtJRG_gmscIZDa3aEUE4SAx8jDoQip1EfpB938I/edit

Julia_Wise🔸

Thanks! Added.

"Preventing Human Extinction" at Stanford (first year undergraduate course)

Syllabus (2022)

Additional subject-specific reading lists (AI, bio, nuclear, climate) (2022)

@Pablo Could you also your longtermism list with the syllabus, and with the edit that the class is taught by Steve Luby and Paul Edwards jointly? Thanks and thanks for keeping this list :) .

Hauke Hillebrandt

GCBR reading list

Btw... this should be wiki maybe

MichaelA🔸

Thanks for this collection! I send people the link to this decently often (maybe monthly?)

One addition: I made a Collection of AI governance reading lists, syllabi, etc.

Misha_Yagudin

If MIT's alignment reading group is here, this course should also belong to the list: AGI Safety @ UC Berkley (Fall 2018).

Here is a syllabus I developed for an EA-aligned introductory research writing course, which could easily be adapted by other instructors. The course is aimed at a freshman audience (at UW Bothell) and is largely taken by first-year students fulfilling composition requirements.

Erich_Grunewald 🔸

Looks like the doc isn't publicly shared -- I get "You need access" when I try to view it.

Updated link for the LSE Effective Philanthropy course: https://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/calendar2019-2020/courseGuides/PH/2019_PH332.htm

John_Maxwell

Here's another one: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8i3Wdy4FuJbSDQr5k/a-semester-long-course-in-ea

MichaelA🔸

Thanks for making this collection! One thing I don't think has been mentioned yet is the "sample syllabus on existential risks" from the website associated with The Precipice.

This is a sample syllabus on existential risk, intended as a helpful resource for people developing courses on existential risk — in schools, universities, independent reading groups, or elsewhere. It assumes that those participating have access to The Precipice, so takes this as the central text.
The syllabus is divided into 10 topics, covering many facets of existential risk. One could remove, add, or merge topics to cater to longer or shorter course. Each topic has one or two highlighted readings (marked with an asterisk) and supplementary readings for those who wish to explore further. There are also a few key questions to guide thinking and discussion.
The syllabus is by no means comprehensive, and I’m very open to suggestions on how it could be improved or made more helpful to educators. Please send any comments to [email protected].
TOPICS
1. Foundations
2. Ethics of existential risk
3. Thinking about existential risk
4. Natural risks
5. Nuclear weapons
6. Climate change
7. Pandemics
8. Unaligned artificial intelligence
9. Political institutions
10. Macrostrategy

agdfoster

This is an excellent collection - thank you!

AGI Safety Fundamentals curriculum, by Richard Ngo

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mTm_sT2YQx3mRXQD6J2xD2QJG1c3kHyvX8kQc_IQ0ns/edit?usp=sharing

david_reinstein

Thank you!

Other than the one from David Bernard and Matthias Endres, do you know if any of these are Economics-focused and/or involve formal maths and/or quantitative content?

🔸✨BSman ✨🔸

Thanks for this resource! @velutvulpes just posted one that you may want to add: Ethics and the Future seminar at Yale.

Aaron Gertler 🔸

Just added this to save Julia some time :-)

🔸✨BSman ✨🔸

Thank you!

[anonymous]

Also the EA Oxford In-Depth Fellowship

Risto Uuk

If you were to organize an effective altruism course around William MacAskill's book Doing Good Better, what additional readings would you give to students to fill in the holes of the book?

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