Kelsey Piper is an American journalist, currently a Staff Writer for Future Perfect.

Background

Piper studied symbolic systems at Stanford University. During her studies, she joined Giving What We Can and founded Stanford Effective Altruism.^[1] After graduation, Piper worked as lead of the writing team at Triplebyte, a recruiting and technical screening platform for tech companies.

Journalism career

Piper joined Vox in September 2018.^[2] As of August 2022, she has published over 300 articles on an extensive range of topics related to effective altruism, including animal product alternatives,^[3][4] cash transfers,^[5] climate change,^[6] COVID-19 pandemic,^[7][8] cultured meat,^[9] deworming,^[10][11] the Doomsday Clock,^[12][13] electoral reform,^[14][15] farmed animal welfare,^[16] forecasting,^[17][18] foreign aid,^[19][20] global catastrophic biological risk,^[21][22] global catastrophic risk,^[23][24] the hinge of history hypothesis,^[25] human extinction,^[26] information hazards,^[27] malaria,^[28][29] nuclear winter,^[30][31] pandemic preparedness, ^[32]prediction markets,^[33] space colonization,^[34] the timing of philanthropy,^[35][36] universal basic income,^[37][38] and the vulnerable world hypothesis,^[39] among many others.^[40]

Piper's article outlining the case for taking artificial intelligence as an existential risk seriously has been praised by many as a rigorous yet accessible introduction to the topic.^[41]

In early February 2020, when less than a dozen COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in the United States and many media outlets and health authorities were dismissive of the risks posed by SARS-CoV-2,^[42][43][44] Piper wrote about the possibility that it might become a global pandemic and emphasized the importance of an early response.^[7][45]