Effective Altruism Forum
EA Forum

Hide table of contents
Comment Permalink
Alix Pham1
0
0

Thanks for this! We are currently working on a visualization with a volunteer. Let's see how it goes, but we'll definitely keep your offer in mind!

Hamish already shared his code with me, but in the end we decided to go with something else, at least for now.

Reply
See in context
by Alix Pham, Swan 🔸, Jérémy Andréoletti🔸, johant🔸
3 min read 8

84

BiosecurityBuilding effective altruismCollections and resourcesGlobal catastrophic biological riskAnnouncements and updatesField-building
Frontpage

We are glad to announce the release of biosecurity.world! Your new go-to website for navigating the biosecurity landscape and finding relevant organizations worldwide.

 

The biosecurity.world database, in a view structured around the types of activities.

 

Objective & Target Audience

Our aim is to provide an overview of the biosecurity landscape for people who want to learn more about the field, by giving them an idea of the work that is being done (and by whom) and therefore how they could contribute. 

This corresponds to Level 2, and to some extent 3, of this on-ramp model. We got inspiration from aisafety.world.

Current State

This is version 0.2—the Earliest Usable Version.

Thanks to everyone who helped us along the way by providing feedback.

We are currently working on version 0.3—Earliest Lovable—which includes a visualization of the map. We believe the current version is still useful and should be already available.

The website has two modes:

  • The database mode (hosted on Notion), where you can find:
    • In the description at the top:
      • A contact form for anything from feedback to suggestions (see Call To Action)
      • Our inclusion criteria:
        • Upon request, we can make available our inclusion spreadsheet where we evaluate organizations and ultimately make a decision on their inclusion.
      • A FAQ, to help users navigate the database
    • In the database: a bunch of relevant orgs (120ish at the time of publishing)

Default table view of the database.

  • arranged in different table views
    • GCBR only: filter via “GCBR focus” to see the most scope-sensitive organizations.
  • with the possibility to use additional filters and sorting
    • Location: regions are in blue except US and UK in purple, countries in pink, cities in grey; global (green) either means they have multiple locations, or none because they are fully remote (yellow).
  • The map mode, which is still in building and will be announced in a future post announcing v0.3.

Call To Action

Contact us!

  • Populating: This is still a non-exhaustive list and we are working as fast as we can to populate it and make it accurate. In particular:
    • Please suggest anything that we might have missed.
    • The database is heavily biased towards the US, and the UK / Europe to a lesser extent, so please help us find other initiatives to make it more exhaustive and inclusive (while meeting the inclusion criteria)
    • Additional information would be useful, such as who founded or who runs the organization, when did it start, who funds it, what are their key output (reports, research, products, etc.)
  • Experience: Give us feedback on your experience!
    • There are many filters: should we have less? Are the categories sensible?
    • Overview of the landscape: Can you navigate easily? Does it give you a better understanding of the biosecurity landscape?
  • Contributing: We’re a volunteer team and we welcome anyone who wants to help with that project, from maintenance to research, being a point of contact to help users, etc.

You can express interest in the form.

Acknowledgements

We'd like to thank everyone who supported that project, from the early conceptualization of the website to the most recent feedback. Special thanks to @Will S and @BlueDot Impact's team for giving the initial structure via the Project Sprint of the Biosecurity Fundamentals course.

Existing Lists and Databases

Biosecurity.world builds on several existing efforts that have cataloged biosecurity organizations, though these efforts have typically been narrower in scope. We aimed to bring these resources together into a more comprehensive and user-friendly database. Below are some of the key sources from which we gathered candidate organizations:

84

0
0

Reactions

0
0

More posts like this

Comments8


Sorted by
New & upvoted
Click to highlight new comments since:
plex7
0
0
1

Nice to see this idea spreading! I bet Hamish would be happy to share the code we use for aisafety.world if that's helpful. There's a version on this github, but I'm not certain that's the latest code. Drop by AED if you'd like to talk.

Reply
plex2
0
0

Also we're currently working with an artist to make a much upgraded background image. Happy to connect you if you're able to collect up some funding and would like a nice professional map.

Reply
Alix Pham1
0
0

Super cool thanks! Will keep that in mind too.

Reply
Alix Pham1
0
0

Thanks for this! We are currently working on a visualization with a volunteer. Let's see how it goes, but we'll definitely keep your offer in mind!

Hamish already shared his code with me, but in the end we decided to go with something else, at least for now.

Reply
Chris Leong1
5
0
1

Very exciting! I would love to see folk create versions for other cause areas as well.

Reply
GV 🔸1
1
0
2

Thanks a lot for the hard work! This will certainly be useful to people interested in biosecurity careers in our group!

Reply
Swan 🔸1
0
0

Glad to hear this!

Reply
lroberts1
0
0
1

Great work!

Reply
More from Alix Pham
View more
Curated and popular this week
 ·  · 20m read
 · 
Advanced AI could unlock an era of enlightened and competent government action. But without smart, active investment, we’ll squander that opportunity and barrel blindly into danger. Executive summary See also a summary on Twitter / X. The US federal government is falling behind the private sector on AI adoption. As AI improves, a growing gap would leave the government unable to effectively respond to AI-driven existential challenges and threaten the legitimacy of its democratic institutions. A dual imperative → Government adoption of AI can’t wait. Making steady progress is critical to: * Boost the government’s capacity to effectively respond to AI-driven existential challenges * Help democratic oversight keep up with the technological power of other groups * Defuse the risk of rushed AI adoption in a crisis → But hasty AI adoption could backfire. Without care, integration of AI could: * Be exploited, subverting independent government action * Lead to unsafe deployment of AI systems * Accelerate arms races or compress safety research timelines Summary of the recommendations 1. Work with the US federal government to help it effectively adopt AI Simplistic “pro-security” or “pro-speed” attitudes miss the point. Both are important — and many interventions would help with both. We should: * Invest in win-win measures that both facilitate adoption and reduce the risks involved, e.g.: * Build technical expertise within government (invest in AI and technical talent, ensure NIST is well resourced) * Streamline procurement processes for AI products and related tech (like cloud services) * Modernize the government’s digital infrastructure and data management practices * Prioritize high-leverage interventions that have strong adoption-boosting benefits with minor security costs or vice versa, e.g.: * On the security side: investing in cyber security, pre-deployment testing of AI in high-stakes areas, and advancing research on mitigating the ris
 ·  · 15m read
 · 
In our recent strategy retreat, the GWWC Leadership Team recognised that by spreading our limited resources across too many projects, we are unable to deliver the level of excellence and impact that our mission demands. True to our value of being mission accountable, we've therefore made the difficult but necessary decision to discontinue a total of 10 initiatives. By focusing our energy on fewer, more strategically aligned initiatives, we think we’ll be more likely to ultimately achieve our Big Hairy Audacious Goal of 1 million pledgers donating $3B USD to high-impact charities annually. (See our 2025 strategy.) We’d like to be transparent about the choices we made, both to hold ourselves accountable and so other organisations can take the gaps we leave into account when planning their work. As such, this post aims to: * Inform the broader EA community about changes to projects & highlight opportunities to carry these projects forward * Provide timelines for project transitions * Explain our rationale for discontinuing certain initiatives What’s changing  We've identified 10 initiatives[1] to wind down or transition. These are: * GWWC Canada * Effective Altruism Australia funding partnership * GWWC Groups * Giving Games * Charity Elections * Effective Giving Meta evaluation and grantmaking * The Donor Lottery * Translations * Hosted Funds * New licensing of the GWWC brand  Each of these is detailed in the sections below, with timelines and transition plans where applicable. How this is relevant to you  We still believe in the impact potential of many of these projects. Our decision doesn’t necessarily reflect their lack of value, but rather our need to focus at this juncture of GWWC's development.  Thus, we are actively looking for organisations and individuals interested in taking on some of these projects. If that’s you, please do reach out: see each project's section for specific contact details. Thank you for your continued support as we
 ·  · 11m read
 · 
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
Recent opportunities in Building effective altruism
4
Mission to Protect Intelligent Life
Rory Dick | MPIL
· · 2m read
0
0
49
AIS Netherlands is looking for a Founding Executive Director (EOI form)
7 authors
· · 5m read
4
4
59
Kairos is hiring a Head of Operations/Founding Generalist
2 authors
· · 6m read
1
1
View more