Effective altruism in media & blogs
• A BBC article by Seth Baum on how global disasters can change the course of humanity
• Fast Company asking whether you should donate to animal shelters or elsewhere if you care about animals
• The Spin Off looking at EA New Zealand and the history of EA
• A look at Yale EA society from the New Journal
• A research fellow from Kings looking at whether Open Philanthropy Project will cause the biosecurity field to focus on the wrong risks
Organisation Updates
• Local Effective Altruism Network have launched the EA Hub, hoping to enable collaboration between people interested in EA
• GiveWell post on the process they use to allocate funds given to them for granting at their discretion
• Open Phil with an overview of 2018 and plans for 2019, having granted over $170 million last year
• The Life You Can Save with their annual report
• ACE with an analysis of their donor survey
• CSER have an overview of their ground zero art exhibition, as well as contributing to the EU High-Level Expert Group on AI ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI and have published videos of 11 talks that were given at the 2018 Cambridge Conference on Catastrophic Risk
Grants
• Open Phil have made 25 grants so far this year, totalling almost $120 million, with recent grants including $4,000,000 for research into reproductive biology at Kyoto University, $17,500,000 for research on viral diagnostics, $2,000,000 on criminal justice reform and $1,700,000 on immigration reform
• ACE have granted $1,400,000 to 49 different animal focused charities
• The EA Long-Term Future Fund has granted $923,150, with their reasoning highlighted in this post
• The EA Meta Fund with $512,000 in grants to 10 projects
• The EA Animal Welfare Fund with $445,000 paid out to 6 projects
• TED has raised $280 million for 8 projects, including the END fund, which aims to deworm millions of people
• The Indian government has granted $640,000 to two institutions to research cell-based meat
Research
• Charity Entrepreneurship with their top charity ideas for 2019
• A report on how there are now more people in Africa escaping extreme poverty than falling back or being born into it, although this reduction could be much faster
• Thoughts on 80,000 hours careers advice, looking at how people may undervalue impactful roles outside EA organisations
• The Alan Turing institute with a report on how AI might affect the global financial industry
• A report on fish stocking, the practise of farming fish to be released into the wild to increase catches
• Inside Philanthropy reporting on how philanthropy in China is increasing and where this money is going
• A post on whether climate change deserves more attention within EA
• The Humane League Labs on how ranking advocacy strategies can mislead
• Our World in Data tracking the progress in reducing child mortality around the world over the last 30 years
Vox
• Coverage of a new trial being rolled out in Malawi for a malaria vaccine
• An interview with the founders of OpenAI and their shift from nonprofit to limited partnership
• David Goldberg talking about how tech founders are pledging to give their money away
• How warning people off drinking tainted drinking water may have resulted in more harm
• The Future of Life Institute will give its annual award to Matthew Meselson, who led the campaign against bio-weapons 50 years ago
• How humanity’s idea of who deserves moral concern has grown and may keep growing
Podcasts
• Tom Kalil on 80,000 Hours discussing how to have impact in government based on 16 years experience in the White House
• Bryan Caplan on the Harvard EA podcast
• Persis Eskander on 80,000 Hours looking at what, if anything, we should do about animals that suffer in the wild?
• Mission Daily interviewing Will MacAskill, Elie Hassenfeld and Rob Wiblin
• 80,000 Hours with the team trying to end poverty by founding well-governed ‘charter’ cities
Miscellaneous
• Elliot Jones has started a newsletter focusing on AI policy developments in the UK, including government, business, academia and NGOs
• 80,000 Hours with "career advice I wish I’d been given when I was young" from someone with a potentially high impact career
• An interview with biologist Jon Mallett on the likelihood of invertebrate consciousness
• GiveDirectly on how they solve the last mile payment challenge in Liberia
• A post in Brookings on the out sized focus on cash transfers in development
• Inside Philanthropy on what critics of the Notre-Dame fundraising may be getting wrong
• Bill Gates on what areas are neglected when thinking about climate change
• The World Economic Forum with a post visualising the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement now that 22 countries have ratified it
• WeWork have decided to set up an accelerator program to support early-stage sustainable food startups in clean and plant based meat as well as subsidise work space
Good news roundup
• After trialling the impossible whopper at 59 Burger King locations in early April, they have announced that they will expand it to all 7000+ locations across America
David. This is great.
Your newsletters also (as well as the updates) also have a short story on what one EA community person is doing to make the world better. Why not include those here too?