In this essay, I argue that improving EA’s presence on YouTube could be a high impact cause area, and I offer a series of ideas on how EA's presence on the platform could be improved.

In the appendix, I share links to the data sets I created while writing this essay, some thoughts on AI safety’s presence on YouTube, and my sources.

As a side note, I am not a YouTuber so this essay is very much an outsider perspective.

Improving EA’s Presence on YouTube As A High Impact Cause Area

In this section, I argue that improving EA’s presence on YouTube could be a high impact cause area using the “scale, neglectedness, tractability” framework. Importantly though, we lack a clear understanding of how much views on YouTube translate into EA community building. As such, this section is somewhat speculative.

Scale

YouTube is the world’s third largest video streaming platform with over 2.5 billion monthly users. Despite this, most EAs do not discover EA through YouTube. According to “EA Survey 2024: How People Get Involved in EA,” podcasts, TED talks, and videos constitute less than 12% of the sources where individuals first heard about EA. Instead, most people first hear about EA from people they know, 80,000 Hours, the rationalist community, and text-based mediums. This is a big problem because it means that the EA movement could be missing out on a large source of growth.

Neglectedness

EA primarily gets its attention on YouTube from media tours by major EA figures, EA-related videos from non-EA creators, as well as EA-related videos from EA creators. Overall, each of these categories is reasonably neglected:

1. As far as I can tell, only three major EA figures have gathered over a million views in lectures, interviews, and book reviews combined - namely Benjamin Todd, Peter Singer, and William MacAskill. From there, attention towards EA figures steeply drops off.
2. When you search for major EA-related cause areas, most of the content either lacks an EA perspective or is of a pretty low quality. For instance, if you search YouTube for “factory farming,” you’re unlikely to discover EA. If you instead search for “wild animal suffering,” you will find content related to EA, but it will be predominantly lectures from EA conferences.
3. There are very few EA-related videos from EA creators since there are very few EA creators. If we're only including channels with over ten thousand subscribers, then there are roughly six channels that make content on a wide range of (non-AI related) EA topics - Kurzgesagt, Rational Animations, Win-Win with Liv Boeree, Future of Life Institute, 80,000 Hours and Effective Altruism. There is also one channel that makes animal welfare content from an EA perspective, Humane Hancock, as well as at least nineteen AI safety channels, although I'm not sure how many of them have an EA perspective.

Tractability

Overall, I think that improving EA’s presence on YouTube is very tractable. Since there’s very few channels, figures, and content related to EA on YouTube, I suspect EA-related content is far more likely to be successful than content on other topics.

How to Improve EA’s Presence on YouTube

Having argued that EA’s presence on YouTube is high in scale, neglectedness, and tractability, the following are some concrete ideas on how to actually improve EA’s presence on YouTube:

1. Create new EA channels
2. Improve existing EA channels
3. Make more videos about EA itself
4. Make EA films and documentaries
5. Write EA books and go on media tours

As a side note, I used to include sponsoring existing non-EA channels on this list, but I have removed because 80,000 Hours found it to not be very cost effective.

Create New EA Channels

There are very few channels on YouTube that make content on a wide range of EA-related topics. As such, one is far more likely to be successful making a channel on EA-related topics than other topics on YouTube. In this section, I’ll describe what I think is necessary for a channel to be successful, some specific channel ideas, as well as how neglected various EA-related topics are.

Necessary Requirements for a Successful Channel

In the EA sphere, there’s a strong correlation between the quality of one’s videos and how many views they regularly get. As such, I think that creating high quality content should be one's primary focus. The following are a list of what I think are the necessary requirements for a successful YouTube channel in 2026:

• A charismatic speaker
• Engaging writing
• High resolution footage
• Meaningful B-roll footage
• Good camera framing
• Quality lighting
• Clean audio
• An interesting background
• Engaging thumbnails
• Honest but intriguing titles
• Authentic curiosity about the topics being covered

For more detailed thoughts on how to make a successful YouTube channel, look at this article from Chana Messinger.

Specific Channel Ideas

The following are a list of ideas for EA-related channels based on what kind of EA channels I think are most likely to be successful:

1. A channel that explains what EA is and covers a wide range of EA topics.
2. A channel that covers philosophical topics related to EA such as practical ethics and the nature of consciousness.
3. A channel that makes mini-documentaries about each of the world’s most effective charities, examining the story behind them and why they’re so effective
4. A science communication channel that approaches scientific questions related to EA.
5. A career advice channel that covers 80,000 Hours core ideas as well as giving specific recommendations to people based on what degrees they are pursuing.
6. An economics channel that covers the economics of different EA cause areas.
7. An AI channel that focuses on under-discussed topics related to AI such as large non-extinction risks from AI.
8. A rationality channel that expands upon the ideas in Julia Galef’s videos.
9. A psychology channel that approaches mental health as a global problem from an EA perspective.
10. A long-termism channel that focuses on existential risks, space colonization, and how to make the far future better.

Ranking The Neglectedness of Various EA-Related Topics

While writing this essay, I ranked the neglectedness of various EA-related topics by comparing the popularity of their third most popular video on YouTube. This section summarizes that data:

• Most neglected topics:
  • Longtermism
  • Space governance
  • AI governance
  • Non-extinction risks from AI
  • Bio risks
  • Suffering risks
  • How to make the far future better
  • Re-building society after civilizational collapse
  • Wild animal welfare
• Moderately neglected topics:
  • AI consciousness
  • Effective altruism
• Least neglected topics:
  • AI extinction risks
  • AI consciousness
  • Global health
  • Factory farming
  • Rationality

Improve Existing EA Channels

In this section, I make specific recommendations for how 80,000 Hours and Giving What We Can could improve their YouTube channels. This section is really just targeted at these two organizations so you may want to skip this section.

80,000 Hours

        80,000 Hours is the largest YouTube channel of any EA organization that gives career advice. As such, I think that it could do a lot of good by making more EA-related content that targets general audiences while still offering career advice. Specifically, I think that 80,000 Hours should make a new talking head series that covers its career guide as well as continue its series “The World’s Most Pressing Problems.”

Giving What We Can

GWWC, despite only having 3,000 subscribers, is the largest YouTube channel from an EA charity evaluator. As such, I think their channel can grow significantly if it makes major changes to its content strategy. Specifically, I think that GWWC should:

1. Produce quality content on a wider range of topics.
   1. For instance, I think a series on the story behind different charities and why they are considered so effective could be reasonably successful.
2. Create better thumbnails, possibly by imitating the thumbnails of major science communication channels.
3. Reduce its diversity of content. (The current diversity of content makes it hard to find content one’s looking for. I also think the YouTube algorithm actively selects against this approach.)
   1. This could be done by unlisting videos that are no longer relevant or of a low quality.

Make videos about EA itself

There are very few videos about the concept of effective altruism, and they are not very popular. When you search YouTube for “effective altruism,” the top two videos have less than a million views, and the third most popular video has less than a hundred thousand. I think that, in general, EA could get a lot more attention if EA-related YouTubers simply made more content directly about the idea itself.

Make EA films and documentaries

        The Future of Life Institute has released a few extinction risk short films that have gotten over a million views, which suggests that films and documentaries related to EA topics could be reasonably successful. In particular, as far as I know, there currently exist no documentaries about the EA movement. If one were produced, it could probably be quite successful. Additionally, I don’t know if anyone in the EA movement has the power to make this happen, but a Hollywood film on AI risk could probably change the general public’s views on AI substantially.

Write EA books and go on media tours

I’ve included this recommendation last since I think it’s probably the worst strategy for getting on YouTube that’s worth mentioning. This is because it seems that, to have a book successful enough to discuss on YouTube, one has to not only write well but also get lucky in choosing a topic that ends up being popular. Currently, there are only two EA authors, William MacAskill and Peter Singer, who have been successful at doing this.

Conclusion

        These were my thoughts on why and how to improve EA’s presence on YouTube. If you have any questions related to this essay or the data I’ve gathered, feel free to ask me them.

Appendix

Data on EA’s Presence on YouTube

While working on this essay, I created a couple of data sets related to EA’s presence on YouTube. I think this data may be helpful for EA and AI safety YouTubers for finding neglected topics and understanding how their channels relate to EA’s overall presence on YouTube:

• Analysis of the EA Sphere
  • This data set contains information on EA, EA-adjacent and AI safety channels. It specifically covers what kind of content these channels make, subjective assessments of their content, and data on how successful their content has been on various topics.
• Popularity of EA-Related Topics in the EA Sphere
  • This data set tracks how many EA channels have successfully covered different EA topics. (It is derived from the previous data set.)
• Popularity of EA-Related Channels, People, and Books
  • This data set compares the popularity of different EA-related channels, people, and books on YouTube. It uses a weird metric so make sure to read the description at the top of the spreadsheet to correctly understand the data.
• Popularity of EA-Related Topics
  • This data set compares the popularity of various EA-related topics on YouTube based on how many views their third most popular video has received. It also uses a weird metric so make sure to read the description at the top of the spreadsheet to correctly understand the data.
• Results from EA-Related Queries
  • This data set condenses the results from different EA-related queries on YouTube so that you can get a better understanding of EA’s presence on the platform.
• List of AI Safety YouTubers
  • This data set is a list of all of the AI Safety YouTubers I know of that have more than ten thousand subscribers.

Thoughts on AI Safety’s Presence on YouTube

        While making this essay, I also gathered data related to the popularity of AI safety channels. As far as I know there are at least nineteen AI safety channels with over ten thousand subscribers. Of these, nine have more than a hundred thousand subscribers. I have only looked at content on seven different AI safety channels so I don’t have a complete view of the AI safety sphere on YouTube. That said, of all the channels I’ve looked at, each of them have videos on the risk of extinction from AI. It seems like other risks from AI aren’t discussed by every channel, but some channels cover quite a few of them.

        Overall, I think that the risk of extinction from AI is very popular on YouTube. For instance, the top three results when you search for “AI extinction risk” have over ten million views each.

        If you want to help AI safety through public communication, I think it could be valuable to create more content about what people can actually do about the risks from AI. Additionally, as I mentioned previously, a Hollywood film on AI risk could change the general public’s views on AI substantially.

        If you want to learn more about AI safety’s presence on YouTube, you may want to check out the data sets from the previous section.

Sources

The following are the sources I used to find various EA-related books, channels, and topics:

• Source for EA-related books
  • Effective Altruism Reading List Information Design Poster (2/2) by Anna Leptikon
• Sources for EA YouTube channels
  • EA-aligned video content creators (YouTubers, TikTokkers,...) by Jeroen Willems
  • Big list of EA videos by Jakub K
  • Where to find EA-related videos by Michael A
• Sources for AI safety YouTube channels
  • Lots of Links by AI Safety Support
  • What's going on in video in AI Safety these days? (A list) By Chana Messinger
  • Where can I find videos about AI safety?
  • How cost-effective are AI safety YouTubers? by Marcus Abramovitch and Austin
• Source for EA topics
  • EA Forum Topics Wiki