Quick takes

Suggestion: Leverage Research deep dive Someone (other than me) should write a deep-dive post about the cult Leverage Research and its infiltration of effective altruism. The story, in brief: * Leverage Research is a cult. * Leverage Research organized the first EA Summit in 2013 and the second EA Summit in 2014. The EA Summits were the first effective altruism conferences of any kind. * Leverage Research also helped to organize the first EA Global conferences, which began in 2015 and continue to this day. * In 2016, a major EA program, the Pareto Fellowship, was run largely by Leverage Research. There is some evidence the Pareto Fellowship was run in a cult-like fashion. * Leverage Research eventually gained full control of the Centre for Effective Altruism in 2018 when one of its members, Larissa Hesketh-Rowe, became the CEO.  The purpose of the deep-dive post would be for people in EA to understand the truth about what happened. And to learn whatever lessons they think they should learn from that. These are the questions I would recommend asking and attempting to answer in the deep-dive post: * Is Leverage Research a cult? * Did it take over the Centre for Effective Altruism? * Did it organize the EA Summits and the Pareto Fellowship? Did it play an important role in organizing the first EA Globals? * If so, how could the EA movement, particularly the core international leadership, let this happen? * If so, what might be the broader ramifications of this for the EA movement? * What (if anything) is there to learn from this? I don’t know what the chances would be of actually getting funded, but someone who wanted to spend a lot of time investigating this topic could apply for a $1,000+ grant from the EA Infrastructure Fund.  I’m not sure if Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy) would even consider funding something so small and so specific to EA community self-reflection, but you can look at the relevant info here.

It seems pretty bad to allow people to react to their own comments/posts beyond the initial karma bump of an upvote. It allows users to artificially create the appearance of positive engagement with their posts, which skews initial perceptions and detracts from the truth-seeking goals of the Forum.

Have @Matt Beard and @Mjreard considered having a child and naming it Matt BrEArdon? 

The Straw and the Camel's back I recently had a colleague complain that oat milk was a 'luxury' that the work coffee machines didn't need. And this tiny little comment kind of broke me. I feel like I am so careful not to judge or lecture everyone around me for their insanely massive moral failings around animal welfare, or donating - yet apparently people can't even just let me have my suffering-free milk in peace.  Which prompted me to re-evaluate something I hadn't really thought about in a long time - being EA (or EA-adjacent or however people wanna identify) is just really hard sometimes. I used to be more actively advocatey about things, but it can be exhausting, and at some point I just kinda stopped. But now I feel very motivated to figure out how to start being a lil more vocal again, because it turns out that pretending like I don't have strong opinions on these things is also exhausting! Which is all to get to the point of: there are a lot of posts on here about EA being hard, and how to talk about EA, and reading those posts helps get a feeling of support but knowing this doesn't magically make it all easier. I am just really grateful for this awesome community, and want to just normalise a bit more to share when it gets hard because thats ok. We are doing a hard thing.  (Note: while this one colleague clearly pushed my buttons, further reflection got me very happy that clearly a bunch of other people had been advocating to get the oat milk at LUMC and I'm very happy they exist and that they succeeded)  

A quick reminder that applications for EA Global: London 2026 close this Sunday (May 10)! We already have more applications than last year, and this looks set to be our biggest EAG yet (again)! If you've been meaning to apply but haven't gotten around to it, this is your sign. The admissions bar is more accessible than people often assume. If you're working on or seriously exploring a high-impact problem, you should apply. This is the EAG I've been most excited to put together yet. I'd love to see you all there. 📍 InterContinental London, The O2 · 29-31 May 2026 ⏰ Applications close: Sunday, May 10 🔗 Apply here

At what level of compute spending will AI Safety research be cut off from being considered effective altruism (if any)? Of course, saving humanity from misaligned AI could be argued to be close to priceless. But how many experiments have a direct theory of change (ToC) of how it's going to mitigate existential risk?  Perhaps a general one is fine at low compute ("it only costs $10 and 'control research' is generally thought to be a good research agenda").   But what about $5,000? What about $10,000? These numbers start to compare to or surpass what organizations like Giving What We Can receive from someone who donates for a whole year. It also starts to compete with saving a human life via programmes like those in GiveWell's top charities.  What about $20,000? $30,000? $50,000?  Over what time frame are we comfortable spending that much money on compute and still considering that money well (effectively) spent? A year? A month? A single experiment?  What kind of discovery is worth $50,000 in AIS research? Should we expect a clear ToC?  I'm very pro AI Safety, but I'm worried about some of the numbers I'm hearing for compute budgets being thrown around (compared to the information gained). I'm wondering - is anyone else is worried about a movement being (famously) concerned with cost effectiveness continuing on this path? Should we encourage more accountability?   

I am currently the only Fund Manager at the EA Infrastructure Fund... and that needs to change! I work full-time on something else within the Centre for Effective Altruism, and the EAIF needs a dedicated owner who will drive it forwards. I think we're sitting on a big opportunity here. There's so much that the EA movement could achieve, and so much great work that could be enabled by EAIF. Some indicators of promise here: * CEA is growing, but there's only so much that CEA can work on in-house. We need to fund and nurture great work that's happening elsewhere, too! * There are potential new sources of funding that EAIF could tap into; building a strong product here that donors are excited about is essential. * We have a mini roadmap laid out by recent successes within EA Funds. Let me say more on that last one. I've been extremely impressed by what another EA Fund, the Animal Welfare Fund, has achieved over the past year or two, improving it's evaluation quality, it's staffing, and it's available pool of resources. I think the EAIF has the potential for a similar rocketship trajectory; it needs the right person to come in and make that happen. CEA is hiring for a new Head of the EA Infrastructure Fund: full job description and application form here, apply by 4th May. Let me know if you have questions! I can't promise deep engagement with all potential candidates, but I'll help out with key/quick uncertainties if I can! Some additional thoughts from Loic, new Head of EA Funds, here.

So, who is this?