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PODCAST

EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

Audio narrations from the Effective Altruism Forum, including curated posts, posts with 30 karma, and other great writing. If you"d like fewer episodes, subscribe to the "EA Forum (Curated & Popular)" podcast instead.

technology philosophy

All Episodes

18:54

“Are alternative proteins an effective intervention...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/19

Tl;dr Despite huge investment and continuing growth, alt proteins remain an uncertain cause area. A huge number of surveys and some data from the real world have failed to produce a consensus around the effectiveness of alternative proteins in replacing animal products; however, the preponderance of evidence supports the idea that alternative proteins have displaced animal products to some degree. There is debate around the importance of price parity between alt proteins and their animal-based

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1:45

“METR: Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks”...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/19

Summary: We propose measuring AI performance in terms of the length of tasks AI agents can complete. We show that this metric has been consistently exponentially increasing over the past 6 years, with a doubling time of around 7 months. Extrapolating this trend predicts that, in under a decade, we will see AI agents that can independently complete a large fraction of software tasks that currently take humans days or weeks. The length of tasks (measured by how long they take human professionals)

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10:03

“You probably won’t solve malaria or x-risk, and...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/19

Cross-posted from my blog. Contrary to my carefully crafted brand as a weak nerd, I go to a local CrossFit gym a few times a week. Every year, the gym raises funds for a scholarship for teens from lower-income families to attend their summer camp program. I don’t know how many Crossfit-interested low-income teens there are in my small town, but I’ll guess there are perhaps 2 of them who would benefit from the scholarship. After all, CrossFit is pretty niche, and the town is small. Helping

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2:48

“...but is increasing the value of futures...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/19

The central question being discussed in the current debate is whether marginal efforts should prioritize reducing existential risk or improving the quality of futures conditional on survival. Both are important, both are neglected, though the latter admittedly more so, at least within EA. But this post examines the tractability of shaping the long-term future if humanity survives, and the uncertainty about our ability to do so effectively. I want to very briefly argue that given the complexity of

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25:54

“A Taxonomy of Jobs Deeply Resistant to TAI...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/19

This is a link post. This is a light, informal taxonomy of jobs that conceptually will display significant resistance to automation, even after the diffusion of transformative AI systems that can outperform humans in all forms of cognitive and physical labor. This is intended to provide practical, non-technical context around plausible human jobs in a post-AGI economy. In particular, we would like this article to challenge two prevailing narratives from opposite ends of the aisle: Some analyses

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1:01

“Taimaka save a life for 1600$?” by wibnlypando47

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/18

Do you think this charity is legitimate? It seems like they are but I'd like your opinion before I donate a few thousand more dollars to them. https://taimaka.org/ They say they can save a human life for about 1600$ using the same formula as givewell. What do you think? Other effective altruist charities can't save a life for less than 3500$ and usually more like 5000 $ I've read some research on them https://www.happierlivesinstitute.org/taimaka-summary/ but it was more focused on how they

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2:07

“80,000 Hours is hiring a Podcast Host & Chief of...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/18

We're looking to significantly scale up the 80,000 Hours Podcast team to become a more comprehensive media platform covering AGI developments, risks, and governance. To do this, we're hiring for two key roles: 🎙️ Podcast Host Work with Rob Wiblin and Luisa Rodriguez to create in-depth interviews and content on AGI-related topics. Ideal candidates will have strong communication skills, a solid understanding of AI issues, and the ability to make complex topics both engaging and accessible. 🔍 Chief

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20:01

“Comment on Barentt (2025): Growth effects of AI...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/18

Introduction This post is a response to a recent article by Matthew Barett on the Epoch AI website, posted as part of the Gradient Updates newsletter. If you can, I recommend skimming Barnett's piece before reading further. I will refer to it throughout as Barnett (2025).[1] Brief Summary of Barnett (2025) Barnett (2025) uses an aggregate production function to estimate how non-universal task automation might affect output (GDP). To identify which tasks are likely to be automated, he relies on a

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13:50

“Sentinel’s Global Risks Weekly Roundup #11/2025....

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/18

This is a link post. Top items: Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act against Venezuelans and the Tren de Aragua gang. He subsequently deported 238 alleged members to El Salvador, ignoring a court order. Chinese “invasion barges” were deployed in an exercise. The US resumed military aid to Ukraine, and a ceasefire in the next six months at 50/50 Forecaster Estimates Forecasters, on aggregate, think that a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine in the next six months is a coin toss (48%, ranging from 35% to

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14:32

“Projects I’d like to see in the GHW meta space” by...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/18

In my past year as a grantmaker in the global health and wellbeing (GHW) meta space at Open Philanthropy, I've identified some exciting ideas that could fill existing gaps. While these initiatives have significant potential, they require more active development and support to move forward. The ideas I think could have the highest impact are: Government placements/secondments in key GHW areas (e.g. international development), and Expanded (ultra) high-net-worth ([U]HNW) advising Each of these

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23:43

“Moral error as an existential risk” by...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/17

This is an essay I’ve drafted but haven’t completed — I’m posting it in the spirit of Draft Amnesty and because there's a Debate Week on the topic; expect mistakes, cut-off sentences, missing context, etc., and feel free to ask follow-up questions here or in this thread! This is a draft as part of a bigger essay series I'm working on, on “Better Futures”. I define moral error as an outcome where most future beings endorse the civilisation that they inhabit, but where there is an enormous loss of

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6:31

“Three Types of Intelligence Explosion” by...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/17

This is a link post. Abstract Once AI systems can design and build even more capable AI systems, we could see an intelligence explosion, where AI capabilities rapidly increase to well past human performance. The classic intelligence explosion scenario involves a feedback loop where AI improves AI software. But AI could also improve other inputs to AI development. This paper analyses three feedback loops in AI development: software, chip technology, and chip production. These could drive three types

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7:55

“US aid freeze – how to help & where to donate:...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/17

Below is the introduction to Giving What We Can's February 2025 newsletter, sent late February. Some information may now be out of date but we were encouraged to post this on the Forum as it contains practical information for thinking about donating! It's hard to believe the global health landscape has changed so significantly in just one month. We wanted to update our community on what we know so far and how this might impact your donation decisions. (There is a lot to cover, so this newsletter

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8:50

“US aid freeze – how to help & where to donate:...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/17

Below is the introduction to Giving What We Can's February 2025 newsletter, sent late February. Some information may now be out of date but we were encouraged to post this on the Forum as it contains practical information for thinking about donating! EDIT 20th March: An non-final version of the newsletter was posted here in error. We are updating the "What's being done & how you can help" and "Supporting affected high-impact programs" sections to reflect the correct version. It's hard to

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26:20

“Power Laws of Value” by tylermjohn

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/17

14-word summary: What if weird stuff matters a lot but no one cares about weird stuff? In the long term future, how much of a mismatch will there be between what matters most and what agents value? The hypothesis I want to consider is that the mismatch will be enormous, such that a tiny fraction of value is captured, perhaps as little as 10^-20[1] The reason is that moral value seems to be a power law. A few things are extremely valuable and most things are not. More specifically, over all of the

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49:55

“Money, Population, and Insecticide Resistance: Why...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/16

Note: I am not a malaria expert. This is my best-faith attempt at answering a question that was bothering me, but this field is a large and complex field, and I’ve almost certainly misunderstood something somewhere along the way. Summary While the world made incredible progress in reducing malaria cases from 2000 to 2015, the past 10 years have seen malaria cases stop declining and start rising. I investigated potential reasons behind this increase through reading the existing literature and

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7:25

“Request for Proposals: Effective Giving” by Melanie...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/16

We are excited to announce a new Request for Proposals (RFP) for effective giving organizations, defined as initiatives devoted to raising funds for highly effective charities.[1] Through this RFP, we aim to identify and support additional efforts in the effective giving space and streamline the application process for potential grantees. Motivation Our Effective Giving and Careers program[2] has historically supported a variety of effective giving organizations across multiple countries

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46:43

“AI for AI safety” by Joe_Carlsmith

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/15

This is a link post. (Audio version here (read by the author), or search for "Joe Carlsmith Audio" on your podcast app. This is the fourth essay in a series that I’m calling “How do we solve the alignment problem?”. I’m hoping that the individual essays can be read fairly well on their own, but see this introduction for a summary of the essays that have been released thus far, and for a bit more about the series as a whole.) 1. Introduction and summary In my last essay, I offered a high-level

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1:35

“Joey/AIM transition announcement” by Joey🔸

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/15

After ~7 years, I am stepping away from being the CEO of AIM and will transition to a board member. My current planned last day is December 1st, giving ample time for a smooth transition. As is true for most times a CEO or co-founder leaves an organization, this is for a pretty large variety of reasons. The biggest three are that: 1) AIM is in a stable place, 2) My counterfactual impact, and 3) My fit for founder vs. CEO roles. You can see more details on each of these in my Substack post. AIM has

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13:59

“Updates on Open Philanthropy’s Effective Giving and...

EA Forum Podcast (All audio) ·

2025/03/15

The Effective Giving and Careers program[1] was launched in July 2022 to fund high-impact meta opportunities that help people use their donations and careers to improve human and animal lives. We’re excited to give an update on our progress so far and discuss our priorities for the coming year. Executive summary Since its inception, the program has recommended 37 grants, committing $28 million across four sub-strategies: Effective Giving (~71% of funding) – Raising funds for highly effective

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2,083 results

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