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How likely is human extinction due to climate change? Neil Bowerman, a former climate physicist who is now at 80,000 Hours, addresses one component of this question — the future physical habitability of Earth — by surveying possible routes to extreme levels of warming and ways in which extreme warming could lead to uninhabitability.

This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.

Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.

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The term “transformative AI” (TAI) describes AI that precipitates a major societal transition. Ross Gruetzemacher, a PhD candidate at Auburn University and a data scientist, unpacks the notion of TAI, proposing a distinction between TAI and radically transformative AI (RTAI). He also discusses the relationship between TAI and RTAI, and whether we should expect a period of TAI to precede RTAI. This analysis could help guide EA discussions about how to allocate resources toward mitigating the most extreme impacts of AI.

This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.

Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.

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Cash transfers are a popular strategy for poverty reduction. But how do their results compare to those of more traditional programs? In this talk, Sam Carter, a senior policy associate at J-PAL, shares evidence from impact evaluations spanning a set of countries that have directly compared cash transfers to other interventions. She also discusses how their impacts differ, as well as the most appropriate contexts in which to implement transfer programs.

This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.

Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.

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The graduates of Charity Entrepreneurship’s Incubation Program introduce their new organizations in a series of lightning talks.

The speakers, organizations, and topics are:

• Haven King-Nobles of the Fish Welfare Initiative, on reducing the suffering of billions of fish through researching and executing targeted, highly-scalable welfare interventions
• Lauren Mee of Animal Advocacy Careers, on finding the most effective ways to encourage skilled individuals into high-impact animal organizations
• Caleb Parikh of Good Policies, on improving public health policy in low- and middle-income countries to bring impact at scale
• Michael Plant and Clare Donaldson of the Happier Lives Institute, on researching the most cost-effective interventions to increase happiness and subjective well-being
• Joel Burke of Policy Entrepreneurship Network, on figuring out which policies can do the most good and ensuring that they’re implemented, starting with tobacco taxes
• Fiona Conlon and Varsha Venugopal of Suvita, on increasing healthcare utilization by focusing on vaccination rates in India

This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.

Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.

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Research has always been an important part of the effective altruism community. What can we learn from successful research teams outside of EA about setting up organizations capable of making important breakthroughs and profoundly shaping society? Stefan Torges, a co-executive director of the Effective Altruism Foundation, summarizes the academic literature on this question and presents case studies of specific teams.

This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.

Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.

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If all goes well, human history is just beginning. Our species could survive for billions of years, reaching heights of flourishing unimaginable today. But this vast future is at risk. We have gained the power to destroy ourselves, and all our potential, forever, and we haven’t yet gained the wisdom to ensure that we don’t. Toby Ord, an Oxford moral philosopher and research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, expands on these ideas and discusses adopting the perspective of humanity — one of the major themes of his forthcoming book.

This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.

Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.

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The Open Wing Alliance (OWA) is a global coalition of 70+ organizations that are working to change the way the world’s biggest companies treat animals. Alexandria Beck, director of the OWA, explains how the coalition is spreading its ideas across cultures in its quest to set a new standard for corporate animal welfare policies in every major market.

This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: London. Find out how to attend a future EA Global conference: https://www.eaglobal.org/.

Learn more about effective altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/.

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Many people in the EA community hope to make the world better by influencing events in the far future. But if the future can potentially contain an infinite number of lives, and infinite total moral value, we face major challenges in understanding the impact of our actions and justifying any particular strategy. In this academic session, Hayden Wilkinson discusses how we might be able to face these challenges — even if it means abandoning some of our moral principles in the process.

To learn more about effective altruism, visit effectivealtruism.org

This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: San Francisco. You can learn more about these conferences at eaglobal.org

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Popular models for the effects of climate change human welfare usually focus on its long-term economic impacts — but often leave out its impact on human mortality.

R. Daniel Bressler, a PhD candidate in Columbia University’s Sustainable Development program, extended one such model to include mortality costs, and found that this significantly increased the model’s estimate for the welfare consequences of climate change. In this academic session, he discusses this work, and explains how a similar approach could help us model welfare costs for global catastrophic risks like nuclear war and pandemics.

To learn more about effective altruism, visit effectivealtruism.org

This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: San Francisco. You can learn more about these conferences at eaglobal.org.

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If you take actions that affect the future, you don’t just change the eventual welfare of people who have yet to exist — you actually influence which people exist in the first place. Typical moral principles, when applied to such actions, yield paradoxical results.

In this academic session, Ben Grodeck, a PhD candidate in economics at Monash University, discusses the results of an experiment where individuals came face-to-face with this moral puzzle — and how an “identity-affecting” task led them to be less generous.

To learn more about effective altruism, visit effectivealtruism.org

This talk was filmed at EA Global 2019: San Francisco. You can learn more about these conferences at eaglobal.org.

Original Video