Best Ben Garrison Podcasts (2024)

1
“My article in The Nation — California’s AI Safety Bill Is a Mask-Off Moment for the Industry” by Garrison 0:58

1d ago0:58

0:58

This is a link post. I wrote an article on California AI safety bill SB 1047 for The Nation and the reaction from the AI industry, investors, and the broader tech community. The story was informed by conversations with over a dozen relevant sources and comes shortly before the bill faces a floor vote in the California Assembly. I think it's useful …

1
“CEA will continue to take a ‘principles-first’ approach to EA” by Zachary Robinson 28:41

3d ago28:41

28:41

Introduction I’m Zach, the new CEO of the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA). As I step into my role, I want to explain the principles that I think make EA special and share how CEA will continue to promote them. In this post, I will: Highlight the principles that I think are core to EA, and explain why CEA will continue to promote them above and …

1
“The Tech Industry is the Biggest Blocker to Meaningful AI Safety Regulations” by Garrison 16:18

3d ago16:18

16:18

This is a link post. If you enjoy this, please consider subscribing to my Substack. My latest reporting went up in The Nation yesterday: It's about the tech industry's meltdown in response to SB 1047, a California bill that would be the country's first significant attempt to mandate safety measures from developers of AI models more powerful and exp…

1
“This chart is right. Most interventions don’t do much. (Cameroon experience)” by EffectiveHelp - Cameroon 8:01

6d ago8:01

8:01

This chart is so right. The local charity environment in Cameroon is probably helping much less people than you imagine. We ran an effectiveness contest that aligns with this research perfectly. In 2021 we created an EA group in Cameroon. We had multiple seminars covering the basics of Effective Altruism. By the end of 2022, the group got so excite…

1
“Presenting five new effective giving initiatives” by CE, Ben Williamson 20:35

8d ago20:35

20:35

Introduction In May 2024, Ambitious Impact (AIM) ran a program to incubate new effective giving initiatives (EGIs) in partnership with Giving What We Can. In short, EGIs focus on raising awareness and funneling public and philanthropic donations to the most cost-effective charities worldwide. In the last few years, several Effective Giving Initiati…

1
“Announcing the $200k EA Community Choice” by Austin 10:24

6d ago10:24

10:24

This is a link post. Manifund is hosting a $200k funding round for EA community projects, where the grant decisions are made by you. You can direct $100-$800 of funding towards the projects that have helped with your personal journey as an EA. Your choices then decide how $100k in matching will be allocated, via quadratic funding! Sign up here to g…

1
“FarmKind’s Illusory Offer” by Jeff Kaufman 5:12

2h ago5:12

5:12

While the effective altruism movement has changed a lot over time, oneof the parts that makes me most disappointed is the steadycreep of donation matching. It's not that donation matching isobjectively very important, but the early EA movement'sprincipledrejection of a very effective fundraising strategy made it clearthat we were committed to helpi…

1
“New video from Ali Abdaal (5.74m YT subscribers): Why I’m giving 10% of my income to charity (forever)” by Giving What We Can 0:31

12d ago0:31

0:31

This is a link post. --- First published: August 9th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sLwP2D6WpLMFxjEK5/new-video-from-ali-abdaal-5-74m-yt-subscribers-why-i-m --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

1
“Wild Animal Initiative has urgent need for more funding and more donors” by Cameron Meyer Shorb 🔸 25:41

16d ago25:41

25:41

Our room for more funding is bigger and more urgent than ever before. Our organizational strategy will be responsive both to the total amount raised and to how many people donate, so smaller donors will have an especially high impact this year. Good Ventures recently decided to phase out funding for several areas (GV blog, EA Forum post), including…

1
“On Owning Our EA Affiliation” by Alix Pham 7:36

16d ago7:36

7:36

Someone suggested I name this post "What We Owe The Community": I think it's a great title, but I didn't dare use it... Views and mistakes my own. What I believe I think owning our EA affiliation—how we are inspired by the movement and the community—is net positive for the world and our careers. If more people were more outspoken about their alignm…

1
“FarmKind (a new animal fundraising platform) is live – Please DON’T DONATE” by Aidan Alexander, ThomNorman 8:22

18d ago8:22

8:22

TL;DR FarmKind is a new effective giving platform dedicated to tackling factory farming We’ve just launched - www.farmkind.giving There are many ways you can help us if you’re interested - details below FarmKind's aim Factory farming is one of the most neglected cause areas relative to the amount of suffering it causes. Globally, Farmed Animal Fund…

1
“Case-control survey of EAGx attendees finds no behavioural or attitudinal changes after six months” by Fods12 27:23

26d ago27:23

27:23

Prepared by James Fodor and Miles Tidmarsh EAGxAustralia 2023 Committee Abstract EAGx conferences are an important component of the effective altruism community, and have proven a popular method for engaging EAs and spreading EA ideas around the world. However, to date relatively little publicly available empirical evidence has been collected regar…

1
“We need an independent investigation into how EA leadership has handled SBF and FTX” by AnonymousEAForumAccount 34:46

28d ago34:46

34:46

Summary Rebecca Kagan believes “EA needs an investigation, done externally and shared publicly, on mistakes made in the EA community's relationship with FTX.” She is far from the only person who has called for an independent investigation, but Kagan's experience and knowledge as a former board member of Effective Ventures makes her perspective part…

1
“Warren Buffett changes giving plans (for the worse)” by katriel 2:08

25d ago2:08

2:08

This is a link post. Folks in philanthropy and development definitely know that the Gates Foundation is the largest private player in that realm by far. Until recently it was likely to get even larger, as Warren Buffet had stated that the Foundation would receive the bulk of his assets when he died. A few weeks ago, Buffet announced that he had cha…

1
“Rethink Priorities’ Moral Parliament Tool” by Derek Shiller, arvomm, Bob Fischer, Hayley Clatterbuck 30:17

1M ago30:17

30:17

Link to tool: https://parliament.rethinkpriorities.org (1 min) Introductory Video (6 min) Basic Features Video Executive Summary This post introduces Rethink Priorities’ Moral Parliament Tool, which models ways an agent can make decisions about how to allocate goods in light of normative uncertainty. We treat normative uncertainty as uncertainty ov…

1
“Destabilization of the United States: The top X-factor EA neglects? ” by Yelnats T.J. 1:23:59

1M ago1:23:59

1:23:59

Highlights Destabilization could be the biggest setback for great power conflict, AI, bio-risk, and climate disruption. Polarization plays a role in nearly every causal pathway leading to destabilization of the United States, and there is no indication polarization will decrease. The United States fits the pattern of past democracies that have desc…

1
“Against Aschenbrenner: How ‘Situational Awareness’ constructs a narrative that undermines safety and threatens humanity” by GideonF 41:43

1M ago41:43

41:43

Summary/Introduction Aschenbrenner's ‘Situational Awareness’ (Aschenbrenner, 2024) promotes a dangerous narrative of national securitisation. This narrative is not, despite what Aschenbrenner suggests, descriptive, but rather, it is performative, constructing a particular notion of security that makes the dangerous world Aschenbrenner describes mor…

1
In Review - Cracked Rear View by Hootie & The Blowfish (with commentary from Mark Bryan) 1:17:07

1M ago1:17:07

1:17:07

Season 2, Episode 8: In Discussion - In Review - Cracked Rear View by Hootie & The Blowfish (with commentary from Mark Bryan) We're drowning in nostalgia this week as we travel back to 1994 to review the iconic debut record from Hootie & The Blowfish, Cracked Rear View. We are joined by the band's legendary lead guitarist, Mark Bryan, who gives us …

1
“The Precipice Revisited” by Toby_Ord 32:53

30d ago32:53

32:53

I'm often asked about how the existential risk landscape has changed in the years since I wrote The Precipice. Earlier this year, I gave a talk on exactly that, and I want to share it here. Here's a video of the talk and a full transcript. In the years since I wrote The Precipice, the question I’m asked most is how the risks have changed. It's now …

1
“Most smart and skilled people are outside of the EA/rationalist community: an analysis” by titotal 28:22

1M ago28:22

28:22

This is a link post. Introduction: The (highly interrelated) effective altruist and Rationalist communities are very small on a global scale. Therefore, in general, most intelligence, skill and expertise is outside of the community, not within it. I don’t think many people will disagree with this statement. But sometimes it's worth reminding people…

1
“Reliable Sources: The Story of David Gerard” by TracingWoodgrains 1:30:21

1M ago1:30:21

1:30:21

This is a linkpost for https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wikipedia-admin, posted in full here given its relevance to this community. Gerard has been one of the longest-standing malicious critics of the rationalist and EA communities and has done remarkable amounts of work to shape their public images behind the scenes. Note: …

1
“We’ve renamed the Giving What We Can Pledge” by Alana HF, Giving What We Can 8:00

1M ago8:00

8:00

This is a link post. The Giving What We Can Pledge is now the 🔸10% Pledge! We cover the why (along with our near-term plans and how you can help!) below. TL;DR: The name change will help us grow awareness of the pledge by reducing brand confusion and facilitating partnerships. We see it as an important part of reaching our goal of 10,000 pledgers b…

1
“80,000 hours should remove OpenAI from the Job Board (and similar EA orgs should do similarly)” by Raemon 12:45

1M ago12:45

12:45

I haven't shared this post with other relevant parties – my experience has been that private discussion of this sort of thing is more paralyzing than helpful. I might change my mind in the resulting discussion, but, I prefer that discussion to be public. I think 80,000 hours should remove OpenAI from its job board, and similar EA job placement serv…

1
“AMA: Beast Philanthropy’s Darren Margolias” by Beast Philanthropy, GiveDirectly 1:15

1M ago1:15

1:15

From Darren Margolias: I'm the Executive Director of Beast Philanthropy, the charity founded by the world's most popular YouTuber MrBeast. We recently collaborated with GiveDirectly on the video below. You can read background the project from our LinkedIn here and here (plus GiveDirectly's blog) On Thursday, July 18th I'll be recording a video AMA …

1
“Do What You Can (A Poem)” by ElliotTep 6:12

2M ago6:12

6:12

Audio is here if you prefer. Hope you like it. I got something to offer, all I ask is your time. And forgiveness for the form: a cheesy rhyme. You’re skeptical? Makes sense. But I know your type's vice. You strike me as a purveyor, of do-gooder advice. And it's pretty damn good, I don't mean to boast, This advice always fits. Well…sort of. Almost! …

1
“Center for Effective Aid Policy has shut down” by MathiasKB🔸 17:23

2M ago17:23

17:23

May 2024 marked the last month of the Center for Effective Aid Policy. This post serves as the public post-mortem. I have strived for it to be interesting to the average forum reader, who may not know much about the cause area. For professionals in development, we have a few internal private write ups which we may be more interesting, such as an ov…

1
“How can we get the world to talk about factory farming?” by LewisBollard 13:37

2M ago13:37

13:37

This is a link post. 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. Silence favors the status quo, which doesn’t favor animals It's easy to ignore factory farming. Inflation sparks public d…

1
“Animal Welfare Fund: Payout recommendations from May 2022 to March 2024” by Linch, kierangreig, KarolinaSarek, Zoë Sigle, Neil_Dullaghan 21:41

2M ago21:41

21:41

This payout report covers the Animal Welfare Fund's grantmaking from May 1 2022 to March 31st 2024 (23 months). It follows the previous March-April 2022 payout report. Since the previous report was written, the Animal Welfare Fund made a conscious decision to deprioritize public reports so that fund managers can have more time and capacity to work …

1
“Detecting Genetically Engineered Viruses With Metagenomic Sequencing” by Jeff Kaufman 14:15

2M ago14:15

14:15

This is a link post. This represents work from several people at the NAO. Thanks especially to Dan Rice for implementing the duplicate junction detection, and to @Will Bradshaw and @mike_mclaren for editorial feedback. Summary If someone were to intentionally cause a stealth pandemic today, one of the ways they might do it is by modifying an existi…

1
“Announcing The Moral Circle: Who Matters, What Matters, and Why” by jeffsebo 1:46

2M ago1:46

1:46

Hi all, just a short post to let you know that my next book, The Moral Circle: Who Matters, What Matters, and Why, is now available for preorder! This is the publisher's description: "Today, human exceptionalism is the norm. Despite occasional nods to animal welfare, we focus on humanity, often neglecting the welfare of a vast number of beings. In …

1
“Distancing EA from rationality is foolish” by Jan_Kulveit 4:29

2M ago4:29

4:29

Recently, I've noticed a growing tendency within EA to dissociate from Rationality. Good Ventures have stopped funding efforts connected with the rationality community and rationality, and there are increasing calls for EAs to distance themselves. This trend concerns me, and I believe it's good to make a distinction when considering this split. We …

1
“Ten minutes to speak up for ~4.5 million caged chickens” by Ben Stevenson 5:41

2M ago5:41

5:41

(You can read this post as a Google Doc. You might find this easier to share with animal-sympathetic non-EAs. Also: I work at Rethink Priorities, but I'm writing in a personal capacity.) A few weeks ago, I shared some suggested responses for a Defra consultation on welfare labelling. I was really pleased to hear that many EAs and animal rights advo…

1
“Kaya Guides Pilot Results” by RachelAbbott 32:50

2M ago32:50

32:50

Summary. Who We Are: Kaya Guides runs a self-help course on WhatsApp to reduce depression at scale in low and middle-income countries. We help young adults with moderate to severe depression. Kaya currently operates in India. We are the world's first nonprofit implementer of Step-by-Step, the World Health Organization's digital guided self-help pro…

1
“Are our Top Charities saving the same lives each year?” by GiveWell 51:14

2M ago51:14

51:14

This is a link post. Author: Adam Salisbury, Senior Research Associate In a nutshell We’ve had a longstanding concern that some of our top charity programs, including insecticide-treated nets, seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC), and vitamin A supplementation (VAS), may have less impact than we've estimated due to “repetitive saving.” These prog…

1
“Why so many ‘racists’ at Manifest?” by Austin 10:50

2M ago10:50

10:50

Manifest 2024 is a festival that we organized last weekend in Berkeley. By most accounts, it was a great success. On our feedback form, the average response to “would you recommend to a friend” was a 9.0/10. Reviewers said nice things like “one of the best weekends of my life” and “dinners and meetings and conversations with people building local c…

1
“Help Fund Insect Welfare Science” by Bob Fischer, Daniela R. Waldhorn, abrahamrowe 4:00

2M ago4:00

4:00

The Arthropoda Foundation Tens of trillions of insects are used or killed by humans across dozens of industries. Despite being the most numerous animal species reared by animal industries, we know next to nothing about what's good or bad for these animals. And right now, funding for this work is scarce. Traditional science funders won’t pay for it;…

1
“Maybe let the non-EA world train you” by ElliotT 13:56

2M ago13:56

13:56

This post is for EAs at the start of their careers who are considering which organisations to apply to, and their next steps in general. Conclusion up front: It can be really hard to get that first job out of university. If you don’t get your top picks, your less exciting backup options can still be great for having a highly impactful career. If th…

1
“Maybe Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust is powerless” by Zach Stein-Perlman 5:15

2M ago5:15

5:15

Crossposted from AI Lab Watch. Subscribe on Substack. Introduction. Anthropic has an unconventional governance mechanism: an independent "Long-Term Benefit Trust" elects some of its board. Anthropic sometimes emphasizes that the Trust is an experiment, but mostly points to it to argue that Anthropic will be able to promote safety and benefit-sharin…

1
“Summary of Situational Awareness - The Decade Ahead” by OscarD🔸 37:17

2M ago37:17

37:17

Original by Leopold Aschenbrenner, this summary is not commissioned or endorsed by him. Short Summary Extrapolating existing trends in compute, spending, algorithmic progress, and energy needs implies AGI (remote jobs being completely automatable) by ~2027. AGI will greatly accelerate AI research itself, leading to vastly superhuman intelligences b…

1
“I doubled the world record cycling without hands for AMF” by Vincent van der Holst 8:40

2M ago8:40

8:40

A couple weeks ago I announced I was going to try and break the world record cycling without hands for AMF. That post also explains why I wanted to break that record. Last Friday we broke that record and raised nearly €10.000 for AMF. Here's what happened on friday. You can still donate here. What was the old record? Canadian Robert John Murray rod…

1
“Announcing a $6,000,000 endowment for NYU Mind, Ethics, and Policy” by Sofia_Fogel 1:34

3M ago1:34

1:34

The NYU Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program will soon become the NYU Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy (CMEP), our future secured by a generous $6,000,000 endowment. The CMEP Endowment Fund was established in May 2024 with a $5,000,000 gift from The Navigation Fund and a $1,000,000 gift from Polaris Ventures. We now welcome contributions from other …

1
In Discussion - Talking MTV with Mark Goodman 50:27

2M ago50:27

50:27

Season 2, Episode 7: In Discussion - Talking MTV with Mark Goodman I WANT MY OBU-FM! Wait, that's not it... In this episode, we are joined by the legendary Mark Goodman, one of the original MTV VJs, who stops by to discuss the heyday of the 1980s cultural revolution that he was at the forefront of. Hear stories about Live Aid, John Lennon's assassi…

1
“I bet Greg Colbourn 10 k€ that AI will not kill us all by the end of 2027” by Vasco Grilo 5:57

3M ago5:57

5:57

Agreement 78 % of my donations so far have gone to the Long-Term Future Fund[1] (LTFF), which mainly supports AI safety interventions. However, I have become increasingly sceptical about the value of existential risk mitigation, and currently think the best interventions are in the area of animal welfare[2]. As a result, I realised it made sense fo…

1
In Review - OK Computer by Radiohead 1:14:42

3M ago1:14:42

1:14:42

Season 2, Episode 6: In Review - OK Computer by Radiohead (Recorded on October 24, 2023) This week, join Sam and Luke for an in-depth discussion about Radiohead's seminal 1997 release, OK Computer. What is techno-angst? Is there a true definition for "Gucci little piggy"? What connection does Radiohead have with Harry Potter? Hear the answers to th…

1
507: Unlocking Business Succession: The Power of ESOPs with Keith Butcher 24:48

3M ago24:48

24:48

In an interview with Jason Hartman, Keith Butcher, founder of Butcher Joseph, discusses business succession and Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). With many business owners approaching retirement, ESOPs offer a tax-efficient way to transition ownership to employees. This model enhances employee retention and loyalty, providing long-term retire…

1
“Review of Past Grants: The $100.000 Grant for a Video Game?” by Nicolae 4:29

3M ago4:29

4:29

Since 2017, EA Funds has been providing grants across four distinct cause areas. While there are payout reports available, there is a lack of reports detailing the outcomes of these grants, so I delved out of curiosity into the Grants Database to review some of the proposals that received funding and evaluate their outcomes. Some of the findings we…

1
“A Scar Worth Bearing: My Improbable Story of Kidney Donation” by Elizabeth Klugh 4:48

3M ago4:48

4:48

TL;DR: I donated my kidney and you can too. If that's too scary, consider blood donation, the bone marrow registry, post-mortem organ donation, or other living donations (birth tissue, liver donation). Kidney donation sucks. It's scary, painful, disruptive, scarring. My friends and family urged me not to; words were exchanged, tears were shed. My r…

1
“Introducing Ansh: A Charity Entrepreneurship Incubated Charity” by Supriya 21:45

3M ago21:45

21:45

Executive Summary Ansh, a 1-year-old Charity Entrepreneurship incubated charity, has been delivering an evidence-based, scientifically proven intervention called Kangaroo Care to low birth weight and premature babies in 2 government hospitals in India since January 2024. Ansh estimates that their programs are saving, on average, 4 lives a month per…

1
“Against a Happiness Ceiling: Replicating Killingsworth & Kahneman (2022)” by charlieh943 11:24

3M ago11:24

11:24

Epistemic Status: somewhat confident: I may have made coding mistakes. R code is here if you feel like checking. Introduction: In their 2022 article, Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Kahneman looked to reconcile the results from two of their papers. Kahneman (2010) had reported that above a certain income level ($75,000 USD), extra income had no as…

1
“89%of cage-free egg commitments with deadlines of 2023 or earlier have been fulfilled” by ASuchy 1:07

3M ago1:07

1:07

This is a link post. The report concludes that the cage-free fulfillment rate is maintaining its momentum at 89%. The producer, retailer, and manufacturer industries are some of the most cage-free forward sectors when it comes to fulfillment. Some major companies across sectors that fulfilled their commitments in 2023 (or years ahead of schedule) i…

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