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We’re featuring some opportunities and job listings at the top of this post. Some have (very) pressing deadlines. 

Opportunities and jobs

Opportunities

Consider also checking opportunities listed on the EA Opportunities Board, and the Opportunities to Take Action tag. 

Job listings

​​Consider also exploring jobs listed on the Job listing (open) tag. For even more roles, check the 80,000 Hours Job Board

Future of Life Foundation

Giving What We Can

BlueDot Impact

Charity Entrepreneurship

Anthropic

Epoch

Talos Institute

Lead Exposure Elimination Project (LEEP)

  • Program Managers (Remote, multiple time zones and locations, rolling applications)

Faunalytics

Organization Updates

The organization updates are in alphabetical order (C-Z, 0-A-B)

Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA)

Zach Robinson will be CEA’s next CEO!

Faunalytics

Faunalytics published their annual report, which showcases their research, projects, and other accomplishments. 

Highlights include a 2023 update to their popular Impact Scales focused on animals affected by institutional food purchases, a new Invertebrates Fundamental – the eighth in their Fundamentals series – exploring the vast world of invertebrates, and nine original studies including an analysis of the factors affecting the cost of production for chicken, fish, and eggs. Additionally, Faunalytics has once again been named an Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) Recommended Charity. The organization has also announced their plans and priorities for 2024

Faunalytics is now accepting applications for a new Projects Manager role. This individual will work closely with the Research team to bring our original research projects to fruition, ultimately increasing their impact on animals. Applications are due January 31st

Fish Welfare Initiative

Fish Welfare Initiative (FWI) recently published the following two updates on their work:

Alongside research, FWI has been working on implementing welfare improvements via its farmer program in India. This program has to date improved the lives of an estimated 1.5M farmed fish, although it is still somewhat experimental.

GiveDirectly   

GiveDirectly has published a blog post on Tech improvements made in 2023. These improvements include speeding up eligibility checks using machine learning, and testing a new system to distribute money when flooding is forecast. 

Giving What We Can

GWWC is seeking dedicated individuals to join their governance and advisory boards across their current projects, as well as multiple newly formed or soon-to-be-formed entities in different countries. Apply here.

GWWC is running a donation match for their operations until the 31st of January - for every dollar donated to their operations, funders will match it up to $200,000. Supporting GWWC now to fill the match will help them get close to filling the gap for their baseline operations in 2024. 

GWWC also announced their plan to spin out of its parent organisation, Effective Ventures, and establish their own independent legal structure.

The Humane League

A year after the launch of the Animal Policy Alliance (APA), important legislative wins for animals raised for food are being seen. In December, Pittsburgh City Council passed a city-wide foie gras ban (foie gras is liver from force-fed ducks and geese). This was thanks to the efforts of APA member Humane Action Pittsburgh, who successfully advocated for this ban. The Humane League, provided Humane Action Pittsburgh a grant, research, and expertise on policy language and strategy to make sure the ban passed.  

This month, The Humane League is celebrating the full implementation of California’s Proposition 12—which reduces suffering for an estimated 40 million farm animals every year—after it was upheld in an historic Supreme Court ruling last May. As of 2024, food produced from mother pigs confined to gestation crates, metal cages so small that pigs can’t even turn around, is now prohibited from being sold across the state. The Humane League, their volunteers, and animal protection groups throughout the US defended Proposition 12 all the way to the Supreme Court. And they’re continuing to do so, against dangerous legislation like the EATS Act.

Rethink Priorities (RP)

Recent research from RP’s Animal Welfare Department has investigated

Global health and development: The research team has developed recommendations for interventions to further improve vaccine delivery in low- and middle-income countries. They also looked into the effectiveness of Priority Review Vouchers (PRV) that the US government has issued under its Tropical Disease PRV Program.  

Global catastrophic risks: Based on their previous research, RP published a blog post sharing a proposal for a potential project to establish a scenario analysis group for AI safety strategy.

Rethink is seeking high impact projects to support. If your project is a good fit, RP may offer fiscal support or operations assistance. If you are interested, fill in this expression of interest form, or find out more.

Training for Good

The Talos Institute is spinning out of Training for Good. Talos is a talent development organisation for European AI policy careers, aiming to reduce risks from advanced AI.

Talos will launch in 2024 with the EU Tech Policy Fellowship as its flagship programme. They envision Talos expanding its activities and quickly growing into a key organisation in the AI governance landscape.

To help found the organisation, they’re hiring for two exciting roles:

80,000 Hours

80,000 Hours released a new series on their site focused on building useful skills early in your career. They give advice on why each skill is valuable, as well as how to evaluate your personal fit, develop the skills, and deploy them for impact in later career stages. Recommended skills include Policy and political skillsOrganisation-building and Research skills

And they released an update to their problem profile on preventing catastrophic pandemics, which they rank second in their list of the most pressing world problems.  

The 80,000 Hours Podcast released:

80,000 Hours also announced their plan to spin out of its parent organisation Effective Ventures and establish their own independent legal structure.

Anima International

Anima International has recently published a post summarizing the outcomes of the parliamentary elections in Poland and the potential implications for animals in Poland and in Europe.

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The AI safety community has grown rapidly since the ChatGPT wake-up call, but available funding doesn’t seem to have kept pace. However, there’s a more recent dynamic that’s created even better funding opportunities, which I witnessed as a recommender in the most recent SFF grant round.[1]   Most philanthropic (vs. government or industry) AI safety funding (>50%) comes from one source: Good Ventures. But they’ve recently stopped funding several categories of work (my own categories, not theirs): * Many Republican-leaning think tanks, such as the Foundation for American Innovation. * “Post-alignment” causes such as digital sentience or regulation of explosive growth. * The rationality community, including LessWrong, Lightcone, SPARC, CFAR, MIRI. * High school outreach, such as Non-trivial. In addition, they are currently not funding (or not fully funding): * Many non-US think tanks, who don’t want to appear influenced by an American organisation (there’s now probably more than 20 of these). * They do fund technical safety non-profits like FAR AI, though they’re probably underfunding this area, in part due to difficulty hiring for this area the last few years (though they’ve hired recently). * Political campaigns, since foundations can’t contribute to them. * Organisations they’ve decided are below their funding bar for whatever reason (e.g. most agent foundations work). OP is not infallible so some of these might still be worth funding. * Nuclear security, since it’s on average less cost-effective than direct AI funding, so isn’t one of the official cause areas (though I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some good opportunities there). This means many of the organisations in these categories have only been able to access a a minority of the available philanthropic capital (in recent history, I’d guess ~25%). In the recent SFF grant round, I estimate they faced a funding bar 1.5 to 3 times higher. This creates a lot of opportunities for other donors
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Note: This post was crossposted from the Open Philanthropy Farm Animal Welfare Research Newsletter by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post. ---------------------------------------- Progress for factory-farmed animals is far too slow. But it is happening. Practices that once seemed permanent — like battery cages and the killing of male chicks — are now on a slow path to extinction. Animals who were once ignored — like fish and even shrimp — are now finally seeing reforms, by the billions. It’s easy to gloss over such numbers. So, as you read the wins below, I encourage you to consider each of these animals as an individual. A hen no longer confined to a cage, a chick no longer macerated alive, a fish no longer dying a prolonged death. I also encourage you to reflect on the role you and your fellow advocates and funders played in these wins. I’m inspired by what you’ve achieved. I hope you will be too. 1. About Cluckin’ Time. Over 1,000 companies globally have now fulfilled their pledges to go cage-free. McDonald’s implemented its pledge in the US and Canada two years ahead of schedule, sparing seven million hens from cages. Subway implemented its pledge in Europe, the Middle East, Oceania, and Indonesia. Yum Brands, owner of KFC and Pizza Hut, reported that for 25,000 of its restaurants it is now 90% cage-free. These are not cheap changes: one UK retailer, Lidl, recently invested £1 billion just to transition part of its egg supply chain to free-range. 2. The Egg-sodus: Cracking Open Cages. In five of Europe’s seven biggest egg markets — France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK — at least two-thirds of hens are now cage-free. In the US, about 40% of hens are — up from a mere 6% a decade ago. In Brazil, where large-scale cage-free production didn’t exist a decade ago, about 15% of hens are now cage-free. And in Japan, where it still barely exists, the nation’s largest egg buyer, Kewpi