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description=Effective altruism is a project that aims to find the best ways to help others, and put them into practice. It’s partly a research field, which aims to identify the world’s most pressing problems and;

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Text of the page (random words):
he humaneval set it s difficult to estimate the number of researchers focused on a certain topic since it s hard to define the topic in the first place many researchers work on multiple topics and it s hard to know the bar for being a researcher so these numbers should be understood as estimates to within a factor of three or so and they could be out by an order of magnitude depending on some interpretations of the question in 2020 87 000 authors published ai research on arxiv the 2020 global ai talent report from element ai estimates there are even more people than this working on ai development globally with 155 000 people labelled on social media as working in ai research or engineering however we expect some working in ai engineering to not be working on engineering new advancements in ai we have taken the smaller estimate of 87 000 and roughly halved it for an estimate of 40 000 in 2021 gavin leech estimated that 270 to 830 fte people worked on ai safety however the upper end of the range of this estimate is based on what we think is an overly broad notion of what constitutes research into ai alignment and much of the sum was driven by adding up time from lots of researchers spending a small fraction of their time on safety research while our aim is to quantify the number of researchers focused on ai safety ai watch attempted a headcount of ai safety researchers which found 160 notable researchers who have worked on ai safety this includes many people who have not published on ai safety in over a year whereas for the estimate of 87 000 above all had published in the last year on the other hand the bar for being a notable researcher might be higher than publishing in arxiv our final estimate is 300 researchers focused on ai safety in 2018 9 56 billion farm animals were slaughtered for meat in the us this number has likely risen since then this includes 9 16 billion chickens 237 million turkey 125 million pigs 34 million cattle and 2 million sheep source visualization at our world in data using data from the un food and agriculture organization in 2021 approximately 6 5 million animals passed through animal shelters in the us in 2011 this number was 7 2 million assuming a steady decline this means in 2018 there were approximately 6 7 million animals passing through animal shelters 9 56 billion 6 7 million 1427 times as many animals in factory farms pet statistics american society for the prevention of cruelty to animals 2021 archived link accessed august 2021 animal shelter spending andrew rowan calculated 5 billion of funding to the top 3000 animal shelter organizations in the us in 2018 published in his paper cat demographics impact on wildlife in the usa the uk australia and new zealand facts and values rowan et al 2020 journal of applied animal ethics research pages 7 37 andrew rowan confirmed the data behind these calculations in correspondence with us farm animal advocacy funding research from open philanthropy published here finds the following funding for farm animal advocacy groups in 2018 32 3 million for established us groups peta pcrm hsus aldf aspca 32 6 million for new major us based groups ciwf wap rspca hsi 32 2 million for all other us groups 32 3 32 6 32 2 97 1 million 106 5 million hens are now in cage free housing in the us alone as of may 2022 as reported by the usda egg markets overview compared to 17 million in 2016 we believe another 100 million have become cage free in europe as a result of open wing alliance s work although this number is harder to attribute to them specifically in addition advocates have now secured corporate pledges that if implemented should cover more than 500 million hens alive at any time after engagement with gfi the us government announced a 10 million grant to create a center of excellence in cellular agriculture at tufts university the uk s independent national food strategy recommended a 125 million investment in alternative protein research and innovation source gfi year in review 2021 page 3 the full timeline of forecasts can be found on metaculus faq who created this website and why this website was created by the centre for effective altruism a charity dedicated to building and nurturing the effective altruism community we created this website to help explain and spread the ideas of effective altruism what is the definition of effective altruism effective altruism is the project of trying to find the best ways of helping others and putting them into practice we can roughly break the project of effective altruism down into a research field that aims to identify the most effective ways of helping others and a practical community of people who aim to use the results of that research to make the world better someone is practising effective altruism if they re participating in either of these two projects i e attempting to find more effective ways of helping or devoting some of their resources to the most effective ways of helping discovered so far effective altruism defined in this way doesn t say anything about how much someone should give what matters is that they use the time and money they want to give as effectively as possible as effectively as possible means trying to uphold the four values of effective altruism covered above i prioritization trying to weigh the scale of the effects of your actions ii impartial altruism attempting to treat others equally iii truthseeking constantly searching for new evidence and arguments iv collaborative spirit acting with high standards of honesty and friendliness and taking a community perspective what is meant by helping others or doing good within effective altruism see the next faq entry to see a more precise definition of effective altruism see the definition of effective altruism what is meant by doing good or helping others in effective altruism what it means to do good is a subject of active debate and research in the community which includes people who hold many different moral views that said typically in effective altruism doing good is tentatively understood to mean enabling others to have lives that are healthy happy fulfilled in line with their wishes and free from avoidable suffering to have lives with greater wellbeing effective altruism has this focus because increasing wellbeing is a goal that is important to many people that isn t to say that only increasing wellbeing matters and in practice people in effective altruism have many other values because what matters morally is so uncertain people involved in effective altruism aim to respect other widely held values in their pursuit of doing good effective altruism is not about ends justifies the means thinking it is about being a good citizen while ambitiously working toward a better world read more about how 80 000 hours a non profit that s part of the community defines doing good here to see a more precise definition of doing good used in effective altruism see the definition of effective altruism by the philosopher and co founder of effective altruism william macaskill how did effective altruism get started effective altruism was formed when several communities around the world came together including giving what we can and the future of humanity institute in oxford the rationality community in the bay area and givewell then in new york the term effective altruism was coined in oxford in 2011 as part of the name for the centre for effective altruism which hosts this website but it caught on as a term to describe the broader movement some of effective altruism s intellectual inspirations are evidence based medicine policy applied utilitarianism and research into heuristics and biases in human reasoning here is a talk about the intellectual history of effective altruism by toby ord and a history of the term effective altruism what resources have inspired people to get involved with effective altruism in the past some examples of resources that have inspired people to get involved in effective altruism but don t necessarily represent its current form include doing good better by will macaskill the 80 000 hours career guide by benjamin todd the precipice by toby ord taking charity seriously by toby ord our top charities by givewell an introduction to effective altruism by ajeya cotra rationality a z by eliezer yudkowsky doing good a conversation with william macaskill by sam harris the why and how of effective altruism by peter singer at ted the drowning child and the expanding circle by peter singer on caring by nate soares the most important century by holden karnofsky 500 million but not a single one more by jai dhyani animal liberation by peter singer effective altruism an introduction the 80 000 hours podcast why does effective altruism matter in brief lots of people want to do good some ways of doing good achieve much more than others given the same amount of resources these differences are not widely known or acted upon this means that by searching for the most effective ways to do good making them widely known and acting on them people interested in doing good can do far more to tackle the world s most pressing problems moreover this can be achieved even if the amount of resources devoted to doing good doesn t increase read more what do people interested in effective altruism work on in practice people interested in effective altruism work on a wide range of issues and projects for instance benjamin todd estimated the following distribution of funding across issues in 2019 in terms of how they contribute many choose jobs with the aim of tackling pressing problems these jobs span all sectors including within non profit and for profit organisations aiming to tackle these problems academic research or positions in government and policy over 5 000 people pledge to donate over 10 of their income to the charities they believe are most effective through giving what we can and over 100 000 people have made at least one donation based on givewell s recommendations a common misconception is that effective altruism is only about donating money to global health charities or earning to give but community members support many causes besides global health only a minority are prioritizing earning to give and effective altruism is as much about how to use your time effectively as your money in fact the organization 80 000 hours argues that for many people their career decisions matter more than their decisions about where to donate read more in misconceptions about effective altruism see examples of people practising effective altruism in the next question what are some examples of people involved in effective altruism see some examples of people who changed their career due to 80 000 hours people who ve taken the giving what we can pledge does effective altruism say i should make doing good my only focus in life no how much to focus on doing good is a personal decision effective altruism is about how to use the resources you want to devote to doing good as effectively as possible not how much to focus on helping others in the first place effective altruism often inspires people to make doing good a greater focus because they realise it s possible to do more good than they thought but for most in the community doing good is just one important goal among several moral and personal goals likewise while some in the community donate 50 of their income to charity others only donate 1 your own decision will be based partly on your moral views and partly on your life circumstances many are simply not able to make helping others a major focus in life even if you do want to make doing good a major focus making it your only focus is often counterproductive first this is because what matters morally is deeply uncertain and focusing on one ill defined moral goal to the exclusion of all others could easily cause harm second having a single goal isn t a good match with most people s psychology so is likely to cause burnout reducing your impact in the long term why don t people in effective altruism focus on more conventional issues a key consideration for which issue one should focus on is where resources are already being allocated by society if an important problem is already widely recognised then it is likely that a lot of people are already trying to solve it that means it will usually be harder for a few extra people who decide to work on the issue to have a very large impact all else equal it s possible to do far more good in an area that is not getting the attention it deserves one way to think about this is in terms of a world portfolio what would the ideal allocation of resources be across all social causes and where are we farthest from that ideal allocation this is why the issues people in effective altruism prioritize can seem surprising or narrow they focus on the issues that are furthest from getting the attention they need this means the issues the community focuses on will change over time if more people get interested in effective altruism then the issues focused on today will no longer be neglected and the community will change or expand its scope where do organizations inspired by effective altruism get their funding some organizations in the community are backed by a large number of individual effective donors for example over 110 000 individual donors have used givewell s research to contribute more than 1 billion to its recommended charities others including the centre for effective altruism which produced this website are supported in significant part by grantmaking organizations inspired by effective altruism such as open philanthropy grants and donations can vary widely in size the common thread between them is that these donors care deeply about doing as much good as possible with their giving more common questions common objections to effective altruism is effective altruism only about making money and donating it to charity in the past the community made the mistake of becoming too closely associated with earning to give many people involved in effective altruism still think this is a good strategy for some people particularly those who have a good personal fit for high paying careers but donating to charity is not the only way to have a large impact many people can do even better by using their careers to help others more directly many people in the community do both we still believe that donating to the right charities is one way you can make a lot of difference it s also one where there s relatively strong evidence available because there was existing research to build on read more how you can help others with your career how you can help others by donating to the most effective charities should you earn to give examples of this objection lisa herzog in opendemocracy jennifer rubenstein in the boston review sam earle and rupert read in the ecologist is effective altruism the same as utilitarianism what if i m not a utilitarian utilitarian...