Our Mission: To build a multidisciplinary field around using technology—especially AI—to improve the lives of nonhumans now and in the future.
Overview
Background
This hybrid conference had nearly 550 participants and took place March 1-2, 2025 at UC Berkeley. It was organized by AI for Animals for $74k by volunteer core organizers Constance Li, Sankalpa Ghose, and Santeri Tani.
This conference has evolved since 2023:
* The 1st conference mainly consisted of philosophers and was a single track lecture/panel.
* The 2nd conference put all lectures on one day and followed it with 2 days of interactive unconference sessions happening in parallel and a week of in-person co-working.
* This 3rd conference had a week of related satellite events, free shared accommodations for 50+ attendees, 2 days of parallel lectures/panels/unconferences, 80 unique sessions, of which 32 are available on Youtube, Swapcard to enable 1:1 connections, and a Slack community to continue conversations year round.
We have been quickly expanding this conference in order to prepare those that are working toward the reduction of nonhuman suffering to adapt to the drastic and rapid changes that AI will bring.
Luckily, it seems like it has been working!
This year, many animal advocacy organizations attended (mostly smaller and younger ones) as well as newly formed groups focused on digital minds and funders who spanned both of these spaces. We also had more diversity of speakers and attendees which included economists, AI researchers, investors, tech companies, journalists, animal welfare researchers, and more. This was done through strategic targeted outreach and a bigger team of volunteers.
Outcomes
On our feedback survey, which had 85 total responses (mainly from in-person attendees), people reported an average of 7 new connections (defined as someone they would feel comfortable reaching out to for a favor like reviewing a blog post) and of those new connections, an average of 3
Just a general note, I think adding some framing of the piece, maybe key quotes, and perhaps your own thoughts as well would improve this from a bare link-post? As for the post itself:
It seems Bregman views EA as:
Not really sure how donating ~10% of my income to Global Health and Animal Welfare charities matches that framework tbqh. But yeah 'weaponize' is highly aggressive language here, if you take it out there's not much wrong with it. Maybe Rutger or the interviewer think Capitalism is inherently bad or something?
Are we really doing the earn-to-give thing again here? But like apart from the snark there isn't really an argument here, apart from again implicitly associating capitalism with badness. EA people have also warned about the dangers of maximisation before, so this isn't unknown to the movement.
Is this implying that EA is dead (news to me) or that is in terminal decline (arguable, but knowledge of the future is difficult etc etc)?
I mean, this doesn't sound like an argument against EA or EA ideas? It's perhaps why Rutger felt put off by the movement, but then if you want a movement based on 'enthusiasm, compassion, and problem-solving' (which are still very EA traits to me, btw), then that's because it would be doing more good, rather than a movement wracked by guilt. This just falls victim to classic EA Judo, we win by ippon.
I don't know, maybe Rutger has written up more of his criticism somewhere more thoroughly. Feel like this article is such a weak summary of it though, and just leaves me feeling frustrated. And in a bunch of places, it's really EA! See:
So where's the EA hate coming from?I think 'EA hate' is too strong and is mostly/actually coming from the interviewer, maybe more than Rutger. Seems Rutger is very disillusioned with the state of EA, but many EAs feel that way too! Pinging @Rutger Bregman or anyone else from the EA Netherlands scene for thoughts, comments, and responses.In general, I think the article's main point was to promote Moral Ambition, not to be a criticism of EA, so it's not surprising that it's not great as a criticism of EA.
For what it's worth, Rutger has been donating 10% to effective charities for a while and has advocated for the GWWC pledge many times:
So I don't think he's against that, and lots of people have taken the 10% pledge specifically because of his advocacy.
I think sadly this is a relatively common view, see e.g. the deaths of effective altruism, good riddance to effective altruism, EA is no longer in ascendancy
I think this is also a common criticism of the movement though (e.g. Emmet Shear on why he doesn't sign the 10% pledge)
I think this mixes effective altruism ideals/goals (which everyone agrees with) with EA's specific implementation, movement, culture and community. Also, arguments and alternatives are not really about "winning" and "losing"
Then you probably agree that it's great that they're starting a new movement with similar ideals! Personally, I think it has a huge potential, if nothing else because of this:
If we want millions of people to e.g. give effectively, I think we need to have multiple "movements", "flavours" or "interpretations" of EA projects.
You might also be interested in this previous thread on the difference between EA and Moral Ambition.
Feels like you've slightly misunderstood my point of view here Lorenzo? Maybe that's on me for not communicating it clearly enough though.
That's great! Sounds like very 'EA' to me 🤷
I'm not sure everyone does agree really, some people have foundational moral differences. But that aside, I think effective altruism is best understand as a set of ideas/ideals/goals. I've been arguing that on the Forum for a while and will continue to do so. So I don't think I'm mixing, I think that the critics are mixing.
This doesn't mean that they're not pointing out very real problems with the movement/community. I still strongly think that the movement has lot of growing pains/reforms/recknonings to go through before we can heal the damage of FTX and onwards.
The 'win by ippon' was just a jokey reference to Michael Nielsen's 'EA judo' phrase, not me advocating for soldier over scout mindset.
I completely agree! Like 100000% agree! But that's still 'EA'? I just don't understand trying to draw such a big distinction between SMA and EA in the case where they reference a lot of the same underlying ideas.
So I don't know, feels like we're violently agreeing here or something? I didn't mean to suggest anything otherwise in my original comment, and I even edited it to make it more clear I was more frustrated at the interviewer than anything Rutger said or did (it's possible that a lot of the non-quoted phrasing were put in his mouth)
Yes, I think this is a great summary. Hopefully not too violently?
I mostly wanted to share my (outsider) understanding of MA and its relationship with EA
No really appreciated it your perspective, both on SMA and what we mean when we talk about 'EA'. Definitely has given me some good for thought :)
Was going to post this too! Good for community to know about these critiques and alternatives to EA. However, as JWS has already pointed out, critiques are weak or based on strawman version of EA.
But overall, I like the sound of the 'Moral Amibition' project given its principles align so well with EA. Though, there is risk of confusing outsiders given how similar the goals are, and also risk of people falsely being put off EA if they get such a biased perspective.