This session features the CEO of the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA), Zach Robinson. Zach talks about the principles that he considers core to EA, explains why CEA under his leadership will continue to promote them above and beyond any single or set of cause area(s), and answers questions from the audience.Zach joined as CEA's CEO in February 2…

This session is a brief overview of how to get the most out of EA Global, and provides some guidance and tips for first-time attendees. Zershaaneh is an AI strategy researcher at Convergence Analysis. She became active in EA after a career shift in 2023. Before this, she worked at a for-profit company where she researched and consulted on market dy…

Hear updates from charities incubated by Ambitious Impact (AIM) working on topics including fundraising for animal welfare work, tobacco policy and maternal health. Learn about the innovative ways to contribute and low-hanging fruit in global health and development and animal welfare.Klau Chmielowska is the co-founder and co-executive director of L…

Greg Sadler, the CEO of Good Ancestors Policy, discusses his approach to policy advocacy in Australia, gives an overview of the major projects GAP has completed and their impact, as well as insight into the work going on behind the scenes. Finally, Greg talks about what's planned for the next 12 months and how you can get involved, including by usi…

This panel brings together three leading researchers to discuss their work on welfare and moral patienthood in non-human minds. The panel focuses on two especially challenging cases: invertebrates and digital minds. Jeff Sebo (NYU) begins with a discussion of ethical and methodological considerations related to extending moral considerability to in…

Taking a giving pledge could be a high impact way to help others—but there are some important considerations to think through before making a commitment. This session is a balanced exploration about why and why not to pledge, and the relevant factors that might influence your decision. In this talk you'll hear from people who haven't pledged, as we…

Associate Director of External Relations Carlita Bevege gives us an inside look at Evidence Action's flagship programs, Deworm the World and Dispensers for Safe Water, and take us through the Accelerator, their engine for new program development. She provides insight into how Evidence Action evaluates the research behind promising new interventions…

Professional groups and EA navigating uncertainty together with open-mindedness and humilityEllie Christian and Clare HarrisEllie Christian is a Newcastle-based medical doctor. She is a masters of public health student at the University of Sydney. She is the Australia coordinator for High Impact Medicine.Clare Harris is a junior medical doctor work…

A fire side chat with Marcus Daniell (professional tennis player and Olympic medallist) about founding High Impact Athletes, an organisation helping athletes give effectively.Marcus is the Founder and Executive Director of High Impact Athletes and has pledged 10% of his earnings to effective organisations for life. Marcus is a two-time Olympian and…

Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED) is a nonprofit organization with two primary objectives:1) to identify, pilot, and prepare resilient food alternatives, in the event that a catastrophe damages conventional food supplies2) to help governments and communities implement these solutions during a global food shockAs devastating as catast…

Hear why it’s a mistake not to prioritise giving as part of effective altruism and how effective giving is the key to unlocking the impact that effective altruism seeks to create. You’ll also learn practical ways we can all help increase funding to effective charities and projects.Luke Freeman manages Giving What We Can, a global community dedicate…

The danger of nuclear weapons is growing: what can we do to address this existential risk?Marianne HansonBuilding on her keynote remarks, Marianne Hanson, co-founder of the Nobel Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), elaborates on the escalating dangers posed by nuclear weapons and outlines steps that can be taken …

Climate 200 helps communities strike at the root of the problem when it comes to action on climate change, and opportunities to get involved in the community independents movement.Alexandria Rantino is the Chief Operating Officer at Climate 200, a crowdfunded organisation that supports the election campaigns of independents committed to science bas…

Chetan Kharbanda - Starting a Charity Entrepreneurship charity on-ground. This talk is aimed at sharing key learnings from the journey of going from incubation to launching real-world operations. It outlines how the CE program equipped the charity with tools and funding and the execution required to navigate complex systems and lots of uncertainty.…

Ryan is Co-Director of the ML Alignment Theory Scholars Program, a Board Member and Co-Founder of the London Initiative for Safe AI, and a Manifund Regrantor. Previously, he completed a PhD in Physics at the University of Queensland and ran UQ’s Effective Altruism student group for ~3 years. Ryan’s ethics are largely preference utilitarian and cosm…

Hon Dr. Andrew Leigh is the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Assistant Minister for Employment in the Albanese ministry. Leigh holds a PhD from PhD in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School. Dr Bidda Jones AM leads the Australian Alliance for Animals' strategy for animal welfare and evidence-based research. A zoologist …

Jenna Ong is the co-creator of Insights for Impact, a Youtube channel which works on communicating research insights for positive impact in the form of documentary-style, entertaining and explanatory videos. She was also the co-founder of Effective Altruism Canberra.Wellbeing science has seen rapid development in the last few decades thanks to new …

The richest countries in the world are about one hundred times wealthier per person than the poorest countries. How did such immense differences arise, and why do they continue to exist? This talk summarises various proposed solutions to this paradox of economic development, including theories emphasising culture, geography, dependency, and institu…

Victoria Baranov is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Melbourne. In her research, Victoria couples RCTs and longitudinal data in her research that looks into how psychological factors may perpetuate poverty traps. Her team conducted an RCT in rural Pakistan, providing psychotherapy to depressed mothers in the treatment group,…

Climate change is one of the biggest problems we have to face. This talk discusses some of the more effective and neglected methods of addressing climate change, and unpacks what Australia can do to make a difference in climate on a global scale.Jack Rafferty is the Manager of Climate Giving for Giving Green Australia. Prior to joining Giving Green…

This talk introduces the audience to the philosophical and scientific study of animal consciousness. It explains why understanding animal consciousness is inseparable to the project of animal welfare, and why the current ‘valence-based’ and ‘preference-based’ approach to animal welfare are inadequate. It ends by urging effective altruists concerned…

Chelsea and Krystal give a talk on pursuing EA-aligned policy careers in Australia. They go through what's important to consider in your fit for policy work, what EA-aligned policy work looks like day-to-day and across different types of organisations, the current landscape of EA policy organisations, and different routes to impact. Chelsea Liang i…

Cellular Agriculture has the potential to create a more ethical, accessible and sustainable food system. However, this potential won't be realised unless the sector can overcome a number of significant and pressing challenges, such as accessing regulatory approval, scaling manufacture and gaining social acceptance. Cellular Agriculture Australia fo…

Alternative proteins hold the potential to move humanity beyond animal agriculture. If successful, this would have substantial benefits, in animal suffering, climate change, public health, food security and more. Yet after the initial wave of excitement in recent plant-based products such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, it’s clear there are si…

We all agree that suffering matters, but how much does it matter compared to other issues we could devote resources to? In this talk, Jonathan Leighton will discuss the relationship between happiness and suffering, including how it is understood by many rationalists and members of the EA community, and argue for an alternative ethical framework tha…

In this session, Loic presents the concept of emerging innovations in international development (a.k.a Best Bets) and goes over the 14 that IPA has identified in a recent flagship report.As Chief Research & Policy Officer for Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), Loic's work is about championing research and evidence that is connected with real-wor…

Simon Goldstein is a research fellow at the Center for AI Safety, and an associate professor of philosophy at Australian Catholic University. His research focuses on AI safety and AI wellbeing. He is especially interested in new types of AI systems that enrich LLMs with agential scaffolding, to create AI systems that have the semblance of a folk ps…

Monitoring and evaluation 101: How to do it practically and purposefully for your projectSophie GulliverAs EA organisations, we are always aiming to do the most good we can with the resources we have. We know that a key part of doing this is to monitor and evaluate the impact of our work, but monitoring and evaluation can appear complex, daunting, …

This talk explores the different biorisks, and compares them across different axes. It then suggests different theories of change within different areas of biorisk, and points to some of the complexities and nuances of work within the biosecurity field. Finally, it explores some common areas of biosecurity work within EA, and suggests other promisi…

A large-scale nuclear exchange would kill billions and with geopolitical instability the risks are rising to cold war levels. Amidst this, a new arms race to gain a strategic advantage through the integration of advanced deep learning into nuclear systems is underway. Beatrice Fihn and Alice Saltini explore the heightened risks of nuclear war, the …

Want to know why aid orgs aren't bigger fans of GiveWell and GiveDirectly type interventions? Having run the Department for International Development (DFID) ($20b/yr budget), Rory shares what the priorities of aid orgs like and what he would like them to be. Rory speaks to how we connect the pipes between EA ideas/evidence and bureaucrats.Rory Stew…

Exploring the power of synergy in animal advocacy, this talk delves into how investigations, legal actions, legislative efforts, and corporate outreach can be intertwined for maximal impact on farmed animal welfare. Join Mahi as he uncovers optimal ways to combine these approaches.Mahi became an angry vegan and ineffective altruist in 2005. He's ma…

In this talk, Mary shares an overview of recent work by the DeepMind Frontier Safety team. Mary discusses 1) Evaluating frontier models for dangerous capabilities, and 2) GDM's Frontier Safety Framework.Mary is a research scientist on the Safety & Alignment team at Google DeepMind, where she works on dangerous capability evaluations and responsible…

Poverty is a scaled problem and requires solutions at scale. As programs scale, however, complexities arise which may not have been considered in the original pilot evaluation. In this talk, Neela focuses on one of those scaling complexities: policy take up and program implementation. What can we systematically understand about these factors? Neela…

In this session, Cecil and Roberto will discuss the importance of including the Global South in global AI governance and regulation efforts, recognizing that these regions must actively participate in shaping AI protocols to manage risks effectively.Cecil Abungu is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, and a Research Affiliate at the Centre…

The talk discusses importance, tractability and neglectedness from a market shaping economics perspective, including why socially valuable innovations may be inadequately incentivized by commercial markets. Siddhartha discusses the application of pull mechanisms which reward outputs and outcomes, such as Advance Market Commitments, to pressing glob…

This session features testimony from Ms. Tanaka Toshiko, Mr. Ogawa Tadayoshi, and other representatives from the Peace Boat's Hibakusha Project. Ms. Tanaka Mr. Ogawa are survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—this session will recount the devastating impacts of nuclear warfare through first-hand accounts, illustrating the importance of…

Join the organizers for a brief welcome and a group photo of attendees, followed by a short talk from Ben West.Ben is the Interim Managing Director of the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) and he is responsible for overseeing CEA’s work during the transition to new permanent leadership. He will speak on the current state of the EA movement and po…

In this session, Ryan Ritterson will use examples of his and others’ work at Gryphon to tell stories about how to effectively influence public policy. Based on Gryphon’s data-driven approach, he’ll provide key lessons learned and takeaways for others interested in influencing policy.Along the way, he’ll also talk about two recent Gryphon efforts, i…

This talk examines whether advanced AIs that perform well in training will be doing so in order to gain power later — a behavior Joe Carlsmith calls "scheming" (also often called "deceptive alignment"). This talk gives an overview of his recent report on the topic, available on arXiv here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.08379.Joe Carlsmith is a senior …

Should you be able to order smallpox DNA in the mail? Biosecurity professionals have argued for almost 20 years that synthesis companies should screen orders so that pathogen and toxin sequences are only sent to people with a real scientific use for them. Now, it seems like fears of AI-engineered pandemics may spur governments to make screening man…

Media coverage of catastrophic risk is going mainstream; our panel of media professionals discuss the ways it's going right vs going wrong, and what actions they are taking to focus the conversation on well-reasoned risk models and effective interventions.On the panel will be Kelsey Piper of Vox Future Perfect, Shakeel Hashim of the AI Safety Commu…

Hayley Clatterbuck will summarize key findings from Rethink Priorities' ""Causes and uncertainty: Rethinking value in expectation"" (CURVE) project, which evaluated the cost-effectiveness of existential risk mitigation projects under both standard expected utility maximization and risk aversion. Persistence of effect and future growth trajectory ar…

The five years since Toby Ord wrote The Precipice have seen dramatic changes to the landscape of existential risk. Ord will explore the biggest changes to the biggest risks, showing how new developments have upended key assumptions and pushed some of these risks into new phases. And we’ll see how the world has woken up to the very idea of existenti…

If an AI system learned a deceptive strategy, could we detect it and remove it using current state-of-the-art safety training techniques? That's the question that Evan and his coauthors at Anthropic sought to answer in their work on ""Sleeper Agents: Training Deceptive LLMs that Persist Through Safety Training"", which Evan will be discussing. Evan…

The final session of the conference will include some closing words, followed by a talk and fireside chat with Dan Zimmer.Dan Zimmer completed his Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Cornell University. His research focuses on the implications that anthropogenic existential risk (x-risk) poses for some of the foundational categories of Weste…

Pandemic security aims to safeguard the future of civilisation from exponentially spreading biological threats. In this talk, Kevin will outline two distinct scenarios–"Wildfire" and "Stealth"–by which pandemic-causing pathogens could cause societal collapse. He will then explain the ‘Delay, Detect, Defend’ plan to prevent such pandemics, including…

Content warning: This presentation contains images some may find distressing.In this talk Cynthia Schuck, Research Director of the Welfare Footprint Project, describes their approach to quantifying animal suffering, and how it can be used to measure the impact of interventions and inform policies. She also addresses major gaps in welfare research a…

This will be a panel discussion on nuclear policy, deterrence, inadvertent escalation, entanglement, emerging technologies, and related topics.James Acton holds the Jessica T. Mathews Chair and is co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A physicist by training, Acton is currently writing a book o…