Latest EA Updates for September 2019

ORGANISATION UPDATES

• Founders Pledge are looking for suggestions on topics they can research to find effective interventions

• GiveDirectly with a form for people who may want to host a workshop or talk about GiveDirectly at their workplace

• The Alan Turing Institute is launching a new defence and security applied research centre

• J-PAL and IPA have created a new Data hub for Field Experiments in Economics and Public Policy. They have made available over 140 data sets from studies about poverty and development

• GiveWell has an update on their money moved in 2018, influencing over $140,000,000 in donations

• Fortify Health has received a GiveWell Incubation grant of $1,000,000

• The Center for Security and Emerging Technology has started a bi weekly newsletter

• The Global Priorities Institute has released a series of papers, including one by Will MacAskill giving an introduction to effective altruism

GRANTS

• Open Phil have made 33 grants recently with a total value of $37,245,000. With $14,736,000 on farm animal welfare, $11,200,00 on criminal justice reform, $7,448,000 on scientific research, $3,000,000 for the Center for Global Development, $510,000 for the European Summer Program on Rationality and $350,000 on land use reform

• An overview of the EA Animal Welfare Fund grants from July with $440,000 going to 10 organisations

• An overview of the EA Meta Fund grants from July, with $466,000 given to 9 projects

• The Long Term Future Fund and the EA Meta Fund are both open for applications until 11th of October

• Animal Ethics have master’s grants available for research at the intersection of ecology and wild animal welfare science. Closing on November 1st

• The Emergent Ventures fund has a special tranche for people to study the nature and causes of progress, including economic, scientific, social and cultural factors

• The Good Food Institute have research grants open until the 28th of October

• The Survival and Flourishing Fund are looking to give grants to organisations working to improve humanity’s long-term prospects, closing 4th October

RESEARCH

• The Gates Foundation 2019 Gatekeepers report using data visualisations to look at how inequality is holding back development, especially geographic and gender inequality

• A write up on the case for charter cities within an EA framework

• A Campbell Collaboration post on what works when trying to use evidence based programmes

• A paper using RCTs to estimate long-run impacts in development economics

• Leopold Aschenbrenner on the relationship between economic growth and existential risk

• Lauren Mee writing up initial research on the talent bottleneck in effective animal advocacy

• William MacAskill looking at whether we are living at the most influential time in history, and the possible implications of this

VOX

• How pulling carbon dioxide out of the air and using it could be a profitable business and reduce climate change

• A look into whether the world is prepared for the next pandemic

• Is this the most important century in human history?

• How the creator of The Good Place was influenced by Peter Singer, Derek Parfit and Effective Altruism

PODCASTS

• Helen Toner and Elsa Kania of CSET, discuss China’s rise as a world AI power, the relationship between the Chinese tech industry and the military, and the use of AI in human rights abuses by the Chinese government

• Deepmind podcast with Demis Hassabis on the future of AI

• Varun Deshpande and Ramya Ramamurthy of GFI India talking about the future of food

• Vitalik Buterin on the 80,000 Hours podcast talking about potentially better ways to fund public goods

• The Future of Life Institute with a new podcast series focusing on the risks of climate change, with 8 episodes looking at topics such as tipping points, mitigation, geoengineering, national security and government responsibility

• YouTube playlist from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation on how data can accelerate impact in global development

• PBS talking to Rachel Glennerster and Dean Karlan about an evidence based approach to ending global poverty

• Eirin Evjen from EA Norway and Markus Anderljung from FHI discussing beneficial AI

• Mercy for Animals President Leah Garcés discuss what animal rights activism can teach us about navigating political divides on the Ezra Klein podcast

EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM IN MEDIA & BLOGS

• Forbes looking at London based Founders Pledge

• Cari Tuna talking about the work done by the Open Philanthropy Project

• A new book by Bryan Walsh on the various ways the world could end, and possible steps to mitigate them

MISCELLANEOUS

• For civil servants, HIPE has events, career coaching and research on how to have a high impact career

• Our World in Data with 12 key metrics that they think may be the best for helping people to understand the state of the world

• Darius Meissner with an overview of the 2019 application process at Charity Entrepreneurship

• Karolina Sarek with a guide on how to increase the impact of a research agenda

• Ben Dixon with a post on how meditation has helped them be more empathetic, open minded and focused

• The BBC looking at how malaria could be defeated within a generation

• An overview of the Meta Science 2019 conference, looking at the field of research on scientific progress

• An article looking at how global population decline may be a neglected problem area, focusing on how this may affect China in particular

• Sella Nevo with an inside look at how Google uses AI to improve flood forecasting

• J-PAL and the American Economic Association have been working together over the past year to improve research transparency through easier access to studies in the AEA RCT Registry

• Jade Leung contributing to an article about export controls in relation to AI

• Chris Bryant with a guide for effective animal campaigning for those with limited resources

• Joey Savoie with a guide aiming to compile useful content for evaluating a new possible cause X

• A review of an alternative protein conference in Europe

• Lewis Bollard and Persis Eskander with lessons learnt from the fur-free fight for the wider animal advocacy movement

• An overview of the Good Food Conference organised by GFI last month

• Ian David Moss with a post on how when evidence is commission, it is rarely used by practitioners, even within the same organisation

• Max Roser with a post on how the whole world is missing out on innovation and creativity because of a lack of opportunity in the poorest countries

• Faunalytics with a post on how they were a victim of survey fraud and how researchers can take steps to avoid this

GOOD NEWS ROUNDUP

• The New York Times looking at how almost everywhere fewer children are dying