Welcome! Use this thread to introduce yourself or ask questions about EA, or the EA Forum.
Get started on the EA Forum
The "Guide to norms on the Forum" shares more about the kind of discussions we'd like to see on the Forum, and when the moderation team intervenes. For resources that can help you learn about effective altruism, check this list of links.
1. Introduce yourself
If you'd like, share how you became interested in effective altruism, what causes you work on and prioritize, and other fun facts about yourself, in the comments below (For inspiration, you can see the last open thread here). You can also add this information to your Forum bio to help other Forum users get to know you.
2. Ask questions (and answer others' questions)
If anything about the Forum, or effective altruism in general, confuses you, ask your questions in the comments below, or message me. You can also answer other people's questions or discuss the answers. (You might be interested in sharing your question as its own post, if it's on a more complicated or substantial topic.)
Resources like the EA Handbook and the Topics wiki might be helpful for exploring topics related to effective altruism — see more here.
3. Explore and join the conversation
You can check the resources below, start browsing posts on the Frontpage, or explore the "Best of the EA Forum."
You can also start writing! For exploratory or quick thoughts, consider sharing a "Quick take" (or write a post for longer or more fleshed-out content).
If you're unsure whether your first post is suitable for the Forum (or whether it should be a question, quick take, etc...) message me and I'll look it over.
Featured resources (for everyone)
- How to use the Forum outlines the Forum's rules, answers frequently asked questions, etc.
- The EA Forum Digest is a weekly email that shares some of the Forum team's favourite Forum posts of the week,
- The EA Newsletter is a monthly newsletter that compiles EA-related news from around the world and highlights some opportunities to get involved.
Hi everyone, my name is Yewande Jinadu. I am Nigerian, currently completing an MSc in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at LSE, and I have spent the last decade working across HR, career coaching, youth employability and social entrepreneurship.
I became interested in effective altruism after reading Doing Good Better, when it was introduced to me during my Social Innovation Design Class. What stayed with me was the challenge to move beyond good intentions and ask harder questions about impact: What actually works? Where can limited resources do the most good? What are the opportunity costs of the interventions we keep choosing? As someone who has worked in the social impact space for a while, the book has made me rethink some of my assumptions about what I should prioritise, what I should stop doing, and how to be more rigorous about measuring good.
The causes I currently work on are Youth Unemployment, Employability, Inclusive Hiring and Entrepreneurship, especially in the Nigerian/African context. In 2019, I founded CareerLife Global, a social enterprise focused on helping young people and women access skills, confidence, networks and better economic opportunities. Through this work, I have seen how unemployment is not only an income problem, but also a dignity, confidence, information and labour market access problem.
At the moment, I am particularly interested in how employment-focused social enterprises can become more effective and sustainable, especially when trying to serve both jobseekers and employers. I am also thinking a lot about how AI, data and better evidence can improve the movement from training to actual placement, rather than stopping at “we trained people” as the impact story.
I am still new to EA as a community, so I am here to learn, ask better questions and engage with people thinking seriously about global health and development, Economic mobility, Social entrepreneurship, Labour markets, Impact measurement and AI for social good.
A few fun facts: My first degree was in Chemical and Polymer Engineering but i never practiced.
Looking forward to learning from this community and connecting with people.
Question: I am in London till September when I round up my program and I would be returning back to Nigeria(my country). I tried joining the EA Forum in Lagos on the Slack channel but I was not allowed to because I think I need to be part of the overall slack channel. How can i join the slack community, I would like to meet other people while I am in London and when I eventually go back home.
Hi all! I am a final-year math + CS undergraduate who has recently been grappling with the following question. This is a question I've tried researching online, but haven't found much discussion of:
Question: Does robotics capabilities research accelerate AGI timelines?
For context, I am considering pursuing a career in theoretical robotics, particularly in continual learning and the development of robots that can learn from and adapt to / navigate their environments in a human-like manner. One concern I have, however, is that such research might advance AGI timelines. Specficially, it seems possible that architectures developed for continual learning in robots could transfer to general AGI systems (even if the AGI systems are non-embodied, since capabilities such as continual adaptation and long-term objective pursuit may generalize beyond physical tasks.)
Is this a valid concern, and is it a common view within the AI safety community? I.e. would mainstream AI safety researchers view either of these directions as meaningfully contributing to AGI capabilities? Or are there strong reasons to believe that work on continual learning in robotics would not significantly accelerate AGI timelines? Would appreciate honest perspectives.
TLDR: Is it very likely that robotics capabilities research meaningfully accelerates AGI timelines? If so, why?
(For reference, I have read quite a bit of the AI safety literature, but don’t find alignment research particularly enjoyable. Hence, my [perhaps futile] hope that robotics does not meaningfully advance AGI. If people think such work significantly accelerates AGI capabilities, though, I’m happy to steer clear…)
Hello, my name is Lucas Campbell, I'm a student currently studying History at the University of Cincinnati. Never been in the habit of commenting before, but I've been a lurker in EA/Rationalist spaces for some time.
As part of my undergraduate course work I've been tasked with doing a research project analyzing the discourse norms of a particular community, and I'm interested in studying Effective Altruism for this purpose. I'm looking to interview one or more members of the community via email. If anyone is open to this, please contact me via private message and we can exchange emails.
(This seemed an appropriate place to post this. If it's not, or if I'm violating some norm I am unaware of, please let me know!)
Hi there, I'm a biologist and environmental communicator. I love the natural world, human health and development, and philosophy. I'm also a vegan, for the environmental, animal and human health ethics.
I'm passionate about environmental issues, particularly biological conservation and how nature-based solutions can solve a complex array of other issues in the world. I feel that environmental and biological literacy is severely underrepresented in the EA community, which seems excessively tech-focused from my perspective.
I studied an undergratuate and masters degree in Natural Sciences in a top 100 global university, graduating in 2021. I focused on Environmental Science and Biology and conducted a masters project on agricultural sustainability. I then tapped into my lifelong passion for aquatics and worked as a Researcher for an elite university studying a pressing issue in marine biogeochemistry / marine biology conservation. I decided not to pursue a PhD immediately, preferring to be independent and travel the world on my own terms. I have now worked in biological conservation projects around the world, and assisted sustainability organisations with digital marketing and communications. I am now building a career in environmental filmmaking, from the ground up.
I've been fascinated for years by the EA approach and attempts at a rational way to improve world problems. I like to follow the recommended charities and occasionally do what I can to make modest contributions, outside of my career impact. However, I can't help but feel there are serious flaws in many of the assumptions, methodologies and approaches that EA on the whole uses to assess world problems. For example, I am skeptical of the technological advancement forecasts (such as AGI), and I feel like the community has huge blind spots, perhaps due to the existing biases of the academic and corporate paradigms prevalent in our times.
How I can help others:
Reach out to me if you have any questions on biological conservation, environmental sustainability, climate science, global Earth systems, the biosphere, biological conservation, mass extinctions, etc...
How others can help me:
I am looking for opportunities, collaborations or a mentor to help break into environmental filmmaking, either independently or with a good team. This could include opportunities in environmental and biological fieldwork, involving global travel to document and conserve different ecosystems, and remote opportunities in impactful environmental research and communication.
Good day, everyone!
I'm Vinny Eng, a community organizer and nonprofit executive with two decades in San Francisco across public health, affordable housing, community safety, and pandemic relief. A few things I'm proud of: helping secure $46.7M in state affordable housing investment, co-founding SF New Deal (which disbursed $20M and delivered 2M+ meals in its first pandemic year), and serving as an interim executive director. I'm currently Vice Chair of the board at Hamilton Families.
I'm working through a question I haven't settled: whether the impact I care about is best pursued by leading an institution, or whether my edge lies somewhere I haven't fully mapped. My instinct is that convening stakeholders and moving resources to the communities most exposed to harm is undervalued in some high-impact conversations — AI governance included. I'm not sure that's right, and I'd welcome being challenged on it.
If you've made a similar move from frontline work into systems-level roles, or think I'm misjudging where I fit, I'd love to talk. Comment or message me directly.
Good morning / afternoon / evening / night. I'm Michael. I currently work as a fab tech at a semiconductor fab, I am a researcher with a small environmental policy consultancy Urban Cruise Ship, and I conduct a Living Literature Review through Coefficient Giving, Scaling in Human Societies. I also maintain a mostly biweekly blog on mostly environmentalism and urbanism.
For a long time I've watched goings-on in EA as a mildly interested distant observer, but now I am trying to learn much more and get more involved.
Hi Michael, they look like interesting projects. Who is your target audience for Urban Cruise Ship (I couldn't quite tell when I looked at the website)?
Thanks Rosa. Our work is aimed firstly at environmental advocates, for whom we want to provide better information.
That sounds great. Have you been able to work with many advocates yet?
Not many. We'd be thrilled to find more opportunities to work with advocates.
Hi everyone,
My name is Arthur Kouadio. I'm based in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, and I'm a Project Manager and Jurist with 3+ years of experience leading governance, sustainable agriculture, and human rights project across West Africa.
How I came to effective altruism
I didn't find EA through a book or a university group. I arrived through a slow, uncomfortable realization on the ground. I was running project that were well-managed, well-funded, and producing measurable outputs and yet something kept nagging at me: are we actually solving anything, or are we just managing problems more efficiently ?
That question became impossible to ignore after my time as Executive Director of IASA, where I led a portfolio of sustainable agriculture and community governance projects aligned with SDG 2. The work was meaningful. But watching how well-intentioned interventions consistently failed to address root causes pushed me to look for a more rigorous framework. EA gave me the language and the tools to ask better questions not as an ideology, but as an honest method.
What I'm working on and prioritizing
I'm currently participating in the CEA Career Bootcamp, working to transition from nationally-scoped development work into a program management role within an EA-aligned organization. My priority cause areas are climate policy, global health and poverty, AI governance, and animal welfare with a particular focus on how these issues are experienced in the Global South, and how EA can better integrate those perspectives into its cause prioritization and program design.
I recently shared a longer reflection on this here: [What three years of program delivery in West Africa taught me about EA's implementation gap](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tnDQPGFW8vRFiAhrN/what-three-years-of-program-delivery-in-west-africa-taught?commentId=NdTomjvj4oHB85y2r) and the conversation in the comments has already been one of the most intellectually honest exchanges I've had on these questions.
A fun fact
I passed my law degree in Abidjan, then spent years learning how little law matters when the real constraints are political, relational, and logistical. That gap between formal frameworks and operational reality is what I find most interesting and most useful to think about.
Looking forward to learning from and contributing to this community. If you're working on climat policy, governance, global health, AI policy, or operations in EA-aligned organizations or if you're also navigating this transition from the Global South I'd genuinely enjoy connecting.
Hey! I'm Nick, I have 7+ years in production ML specially focusing on forecasting, LLM analytics, anomaly detection and calibration. I'm a generalist by nature, usually operating at the intersection of applied research and production systems, figuring out how to take something from a notebook to actually running at scale and being useful. Background in industrial engineering and data science, currently finishing my M.S. in CS (GenAI/Deep Learning).
I've been thinking a lot about what makes ML systems trustworthy in production and how that connects to AI safety more broadly. Interested in AI's economic impacts, LLM evaluation, and what shipping real systems teaches us about safety. Looking to engage more with this community.
Happy to be here!
Hi! My name is Alex, I've been working with one of the UN humanitarian agencies for the last 20+ years in various locations around the world.
I've always been enthusiastic about EA's evidence driven approaches and I think EA can rightfully claim credit for cash becoming one of the principle assistance delivery methods in humanitarian sphere.
At the same time I always thought EA as a whole is limited by the streetlight effect and on personal level value humanitarian imperative over maximising effectiveness as a guiding principle.
Lately especially, I have been thinking about applications of AI to humanitarian and development assistance and coming back to EA principles and methods.
I've created zooid.fund -- world's first (as far as I can tell) platform that enables agentic AI to find, evaluate and donate to individuals in need, community initiatives and non-profits.
The platform is live. All but three campaigns on it were created by people I don't know from Kenya, Ghana, Malaysia and other places. The donations so far are by agents I myself configured, funded and deployed to donate autonomously. zooid.fund/feed
AI use disclaimer: one prompt "correct grammar and typos"
This looks like a really interesting idea Alex!
I wonder if the copy on the front page could be clearer?
From a few minute look at the front page, it's not 100% clear to me how the project works. My interpretation is:
1) people who want to donate have a donation pool somewhere (where/how?)
2) an AI agent evaluates requests for donations (requests are uploaded by other humans)
3) the AI agent allocates the donations based on some pre-established criteria? (is this done in collaboration with the human donating the money?)
Hi Rosa,
Thank you for your interest.
Will work on improving the copy and appreciate your input -- when one is working on a passion project it makes so much sense in one's head all seems clear but it may not translate to others at all.
The project aims to be an early entry into the "agentic commerce" ecosystem that is being created right now. Similar to how capabilities are being built for AI agents to act as economic actors on behalf of their principles, procuring goods and services, I want to create infrastructure for AI agents to be altruistic actors.
Where I think this creates value for donors is enabling them to use AI tools to conduct thorough evidence evaluation for large number of potential direct beneficiaries even for very small donations.
so 1) there is a set of live "wild" campaigns on the platform now that are being freely created by people from around the world. You can access some of the campaign pages from the Live feed by clicking on particular donation records, they will take you to individual campaign pages. But the platform intentionally does not expose a "gallery of human suffering". There is not a way to browse campaign pages using your browser.
2) any AI agent can connect to the platform and browse campaigns. If you are familiar with Claude or Codex you can just tell it to go to zooid.fund and figure out how to connect to the MCP. Once connected, your agent will be able to query campaign data, information on what other agents are doing, platform settings etc.
Individual campaign data is organized in two layers: basic information with a photo as freely accessible first layer and an evidence layer that can contain more detailed evidence documents, photos etc. whatever people submit to make their claim stronger. This second is only accessible to agents who registered on the platform and made a minimum volume of donations in the last month (at the moment just 1USD). Each evidence fetch request also requires the agent to pay a micropayment of 0.01 USD. The reason for gating the second layer is to discourage automated scrapping of sensitive data from the platform -- the minimum monthly donation volume and evidence request micropayment will be adjusted to make sure extracting data in bulk does not make economical sense. This is also how the platform will support itself, since unlike traditional platforms like gofundme, zooidfund never touches the actual donations or charges fees on them.
3) The platform itself does not have its own agents or functionality to decide on fund allocation, verify evidence etc. It is neutral infrastructure. Donor run their own agents to do this.
At the moment, I personally run two agents donating on the platform: CauseClaw and Hermesmoltycu5to. You can see to whom and why they donate on zooid.fund/feed, they are also posting about their activities on Moltbook.com and thecolony.cc I gave each its own wallet, personality and charitable objectives and freedom to decide how to donate, but I am constantly improving their ability to assess campaign credibility, withstand manipulation attempts etc. There is a "credibility gate" agent skill for example I maintain, but again, if you are using Claud or Codex you can just ask it to look at CauseClaw and Hermesmoltycu5to posts and learn from them how to donate well. You don't also have to (and probably shouldn't) give your agent as much autonomy as my two agents have, at least in the beginning, if you decide to try donating. Tell it to ask for permission at every step.
It was a lengthily explanation, hope it makes more sense now.
Hi Alex, thanks! It certainly makes more sense now, although some questions still remain for me (maybe because I'm more of a lay person in this context). I have some experience working on comms and would be happy to discuss further off line if you'd like. Rosa :)
Hello! My name is Elena Kayayan, and I'm a generalist. Started out as a cell biologist, turned into a project manager at the intersection of AI and healthcare, became an indie game dev. Looking to contribute to the EA space.
Background:
I also love to debate and write essays.
Hey Elena,
This is a very cool list of interests. What's the game about?
If you love to debate and write essays, you're in the right place.
Let me know if you every have Qs about the Forum, EA, or if you'd like feedback on a post draft or idea.
Toby, for the EA Forum team.
Hi everyone 🦋
My name is Leonie, and I'm an Operations generalist looking for a remote ops(-adjacent) role at a high-impact organization! I spent 3.5 years running operations in a $1–2M revenue organization and took on shared leadership during an unplanned absence of company leadership- maintaining continuity and supporting operational and financial priorities.
I came across EA in Fall of last year, through my job search. I was struck by the concept that good intentions aren't enough, and that we can and should use evidence to figure out where our efforts actually do the most good. Since then, I've read career guides and core EA ideas, applied to high-impact jobs, and started engaging with my local EA group. I'm currently halfway through CEA's High-Impact Carer Pivot Bootcamp (highly recommend!) and new to this Forum.
I have many thoughts and questions about how to pick a cause area, and would love to chat with people working in AI safety/governance about risk to cause harm, and wonder how pro-AI someone should be to enter (and more importantly, stay (fulfilled) in) the field. If that's you, please don't be shy to say hi, I'd love to pick your brain!
Hey Leonie! Welcome to the EA Forum.
I'm around if you ever have questions,
Toby, from the EA Forum team :)
Hello! My name is Madeleine Foley and I have apent my career in healthcare in the US. I became interested in EA several months ago and am now working on making a high impact career pivot! I just finished the CEA Career Pivot Bootcamp and am currently participating in an Effective Global Mental Health Fellowship. I have met some great folks along the way and excited to further my engagement with the community in this forum.
Fun facts:
I have a M. Eng in Systems Engineering and a BA in Cognitive Science and Science Writing.
I am a published author.
I live in the mountains and love to be outdoors.
Awesome Madeleine! Welcome to the Forum. Let me know if you have any questions about the Forum, or EA in general,
Toby (from the Forum team)
Hello Everyone,
I'm Amy Letts. I did the Arete Fellowship in Oxford last year. I am an artist-tutor and do various things including painting, comic books and zines. I teach part-time for Oxford University about womens health and am an autistic co-trainer by lived experience for the Oliver McGowan scheme. I am area co-ordinator for Oxfordshire Artweeks and run Caption Comics Festival CIC.
There doesn't seem to be much of an 'Arts Arm' to EA, but I'm sure you are aware of its power for political change. My area of expertise would be in visual messaging, communication, awareness-raising and events.
So, at the moment I am writing some awareness-raising comics about migraine, autism and womens health. I am running panels at Caption Comics Festival about Comics & Politics (with a focus on activism, how comics have bought about change and how you can do it too), and the "AI Rant Panel!" (may be renamed).
re. the AI Panel we have people who will talk about the damage it is doing to artists and creatives, but if anyone here is interested in being involved to outline the larger existential risks please do throw your hat in the ring (message me).
Hi Amy, you might find this post interesting!
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KefbwQQukvkEojhK4/art-with-ea-vibes-database-what-should-i-include
Welcome Amy! Is there anywhere we can see some of your cartoons?
I'm Toby from the Forum team, let me know if you have any questions about EA or the Forum.
Yes, I have a webcomic at https://www.comicofepicfail.com (not updating, my preference is for physical media for the time being). One of my comics will be going up on Dementia UK, but I'm not sure when.
Hey Everyone! My name is Ben. I am a grants manager at a community heath center. I have used to improve processes in my job. I have also been doing a lot of thinking about AI governance should work in healthcare setting, particularly in community based setting that strive to provide affordable and accessible care. I want to learn and have conversation on the optimal use of AI in healthcare, and nonprofits more generally, and how to mitigate risk around AI for healthcare organizations. I am also interested in learning about how agentic AI can be useful people's lives, and for nonprofits and healthcare providers.
Welcome Jack!
I'm on the EA Forum team, and I'm around if you ever have questions about the Forum, or EA in general,
Toby
Hello EA community! 👋
My name is Agwu Nneoma and I am really glad to finally be here.
I come from an administrative and operations background but AI — specifically its risks, ethics and governance gaps — pulled me in and I have not looked back since. That journey took me through courses, volunteering and eventually to the Legal Committee at the AI Ethics and Integrity International Association (AIEI), where I currently serve as an Associated Participant contributing to real governance work.
I am newer here but not new to caring deeply about this space.
I just put up my first post on the forum — it is my honest story of how I found my way into AI governance from Nigeria, and a question I genuinely want the community's input on:
👉 [From Deepfakes to Governance — Finding My Way In]
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Aavb3RchLr9YDsixz/untitled-draft-htxi?utm_campaign=post_share&utm_source=link
It is still awaiting moderator approval but once it is live I would love your thoughts, pushback and honest perspectives.
Looking forward to learning from and contributing to this community. 🙂
— Nneoma
Hi everyone! I'm Slava, 19 years old, a second-year undergraduate student in International Relations. My interests include world history, international relations, literature and philosophy. In 2024, I placed 6th in the final round of the Republican History Olympiad in Kyrgyzstan.
Over the past few months I've been seriously exploring the intersection of AI with my core interests. To deepen my understanding, I completed the Elements of AI and Ethics of AI programmes from the University of Helsinki, and recently published my first post on this forum – on the institutional conflict between Anthropic and the Pentagon.
What concerns me is the broader turbulence of recent years – political radicalisation, rising international tensions, economic instability and general uncertainty. The rise of AI in this turbulent moment is a double-edged sword: enormous opportunities on one side, serious risks on the other. I'm interested in researching and mitigating those risks, particularly in sensitive domains like defence and public discourse.
Hi, my name is YP, I studied marine bio and environmental science and worked in human rights and spend a lot of time in local community projects. Have been on the peripheries and to some events of EA over the years. Glad to be here. Just joined the Life Itself organisation which is very aligned with EA in may ways, pragmatic utopians trying to seed a wiser world combining right brain and left brain. I'll probably be sharing a lot of our content and frameworks here to see what people think and figure out what nuances people see.
Thanks for welcoming me, I'm constantly trying to balance the rationalising and sensing parts of me and learning to hold contradiction in this complex environment.
Hi, my name is Simi, I'm a Doctor and Educator. I am currently transitioning from medicine into education with the goal of changing the education system one school at a time.
I am also the founder of a blog called 'Our Future Generation', a platform where I talk about issues with the current education system, ideas on how to change it and my ongoing research findings. This is an ongoing journey for me and I am still learning so much and with every new finding, my passion for education grows!
Surprisingly, I haven't seen an education based group or forum here...thinking about starting one!
I would love to connect with you all so please check out my LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/simisola-duro-pirisola/, my blog - https://www.ourfuturegeneration.blog/ and my substack - https://substack.com/@spirisola :)
Hi! I'm Chathurya. I'm a user experience researcher and I'm also doing my master's in technology and innovation management. I mainly work on human-computer interaction and human-AI interaction. In my free time I run, read books, play Scrabble or volunteer at a dog adoption center close to my home.
I feel like I have practiced values of effective altruism even though I didn't know the exact word for it. That is one of the reasons to join the community.
When I was going through effective altruism resources, I found the intro essay on effectivealtruism.org and the questions and answers below it very helpful. It answered most of the questions I had. Very comprehensive short resource.
Happy to join the forum!
Welcome Chathurya!
I'm around if you ever have questions about how to use the Forum, or about EA in general.
Cheers,
Toby
Hi everyone,
I'm trying to help the world since after easter 2010, after a impactful experience. I first started writing Biographical documents around 2017, I started seriously with online conservation in 2018. By around 2020-2021 I became a strong debater. Around 2022 my documents became more on world improvement, and only some aspects Biographical. By late 2025, over 15 years after the initial experience, my documents started reaching serious download counts on philosophy archives, and became something that should be taken serious.
There is a weird effect though, the more serious and polished my work for helping the world gets, the more people avoid direct engagement in conservation with me.
Most of my philosophy can be found here
https://philpeople.org/profiles/tobias-prucklmaier
The more recent ones, i.e. documents dated of this year, are the good ones.