EA Reading List - Effective Altruism Foundation (original) (raw)

EA Reading List

This list aims to provide an overview of the core ideas of effective altruism. EAF doesn’t necessarily endorse everything that’s said in those pieces*, but we think it’s a useful selection of content if you’re interested in learning more.

Core ideas and concepts

• Introduction to Effective Altruism: An accessible introduction to some core frameworks used in effective altruism, some promising causes that are being considered, and what effective altruism might mean for you.
• Prospecting for Gold: Discusses a series of key effective altruist concepts, such as heavy-tailed distributions, diminishing marginal returns, and comparative advantage, illustrating them with metaphors.
• Do Unto Others: Compares doing good to an Arctic exploration and shows why both require awareness of opportunity costs and a hard-headed commitment to investigating the best use of resources.
• EA Concepts: An encylopedia of some concepts that are often used or referenced in effective altruism.

Cause prioritization

• Crucial Considerations and Wise Philanthropy: Explores what “crucial considerations” are and what they mean for effective altruism.
• Understanding cause-neutrality: Clarifies different ways in which the concept of “cause-neutrality” is being used in effective altruism.
• Cause prioritization for downside-focused value systems: Outlines thinking on cause prioritization from the perspective of value systems whose primary concern is reducing disvalue.

Global Health and Development

• Global Health and Development: Sets out why you might want to focus on problems in global health and development – and why you might not.

Animal Welfare

• Animal Welfare: Sets out why you might want to work on improving animal welfare – and why you might not.
• The Case Against Speciesism: Argues that we should take the wellbeing of animals into consideration and covers some common objections.
• Wild Animal Suffering: Argues that we should care about the suffering of animals in the wild using the scale, tractability and neglectedness framework.

The Long-Term Future

• The Long-Term Future: Reasons to care about the long-term future, and reasons not to.
• Existential Risk Prevention As Global Priority: Clarifies the concept of existential risk (x-risk), discusses the relation between existential risks and basic issues in axiology and argues that x-risk reduction can serve as an action-guiding principle for utilitarian concerns.
• Reducing Risks from Astronomical Suffering: A Neglected Priority: Argues that instead of focusing exclusively on ensuring that there will be a future, we should improve the quality of future, and in particular, reduce risks of astronomical suffering (s-risk).

Risks from Advanced Artificial Intelligence

• What Does (and Doesn’t) AI Mean for Effective Altruism?: Discusses what strategy effective altruists ought to adopt with regards to the development of advanced artificial intelligence. Argues that we ought to adopt a portfolio approach – i.e., that we ought to invest resources in strategies relevant to several different AI scenarios.
• Altruists Should Prioritize Artificial Intelligence: Argues that if we want our actions to have an influence on the very long-term future, we should consider focusing on outcomes with AI. As smarter-than-human artificial intelligence would likely aim to colonize space in pursuit of its goals, focusing on AI means focusing on the scenarios where the stakes will be highest.
• Potential Risks from Advanced AI: Presents Open Philanthropy Project’s work and thinking on advanced artifical intelligence. Also gives an overview over the field, distinguishing between strategic risks and misalignment risks.

Further relevant reading

• 80’000 Hours Career Guide: Comprehensive guide on how to find a high impact career.
• The Fidelity Model of Spreading Ideas: Develops a distinction between mechanisms for spreading EA ideas and argues that we ought to prefer spreading EA ideas in a way that retain the nuance of the ideas.
• Considering Considerateness: Argues that for communities of people striving to do good, considerateness should be a high priority.
• Reasons to Be Nice to Other Value Systems: Argues that we should work together even when we value different things.
• Hits-based Giving: Argues that high-risk projects might be the best bets.
• Room for Other Things: Gives some advice for coping with the feeling that EA can sometimes be overwhelming.

*if you’re interested in EAF’s particular views on cause prioritiziation, we recommend Max Daniel’s talk on s-risks given at EA Global Boston 2017, or EAF’s plans for 2019.