EA Forum Digest #239

Big questions, bold priorities, and a few shrimp.

Hello!

Personal news: after 7 years building the EA Forum, I’m moving on. Thanks to all of you who’ve read & participated on the Forum.

On a different note, the deadline for EAG London applications is approaching. Apply by Sunday, May 18th.

— JP (for the Forum team)

We recommend:

1. Prioritizing Work (Jeff Kaufman 🔸, 1 min)

2. Interpretability Will Not Reliably Find Deceptive AI (Neel Nanda, 8 min)

3. EA as a Tree of Questions (OGTutzauer🔸, 5 min)

4. Community Polls for the Community (Will Aldred, 1 min)

   • And: Poll: Advance Notice of Critical Posts (Jason, 2 min)

5. EA North 2025 retrospective (matthes, 4 min)

   • And also recommendations on cost effectiveness (8 min)

6. AI Governance to Avoid Extinction: The Strategic Landscape and Actionable Research Questions (peterbarnett, Aaron_Scher, 10 min, link-post)

7. The case against defaulting to critique in early-stage EA work (calebp, quick take)

8. AIs Are Expert-Level at Many Virology Skills (multiple authors, 1 min)

9. The crucible — how I think about the situation with AI (Owen Cotton-Barratt, 10 min, link-post)

10. Why I am Still Skeptical about AGI by 2030 (James Fodor, 7 min)

Announcements:

• Updates from organisations

  • Shrimp Welfare Project’s 2030 Vision & Absorbency Plans (Aaron Boddy🔸, 21 min)

    • Creating Market Incentives or, Shrimp Stunning Credits (Aaron Boddy🔸, 10 min)

  • EA Funds' Grantmaking Pause runs 1 June - 31 July, apply by 9 May (Nicole S, calebp, 1 min)

    • And KarolinaSarek🔸 on what the CEA merger means for the Animal Welfare Fund (2 min)

• Job listings

  • Apply to help run EAGxIndia 2025! (Agru, Anubhuti Jain, Dion🔸)

• Other opportunities to take action

  • Call for funding for Observatorio de Riesgos Catastróficos Globales (multiple authors, 2 min)

  • Call for funding for Arkose (Arkose, 2 min)

  • Update: EAIF is now more funding constrained (Jamie_Harris, hbesceli, 3 min)

  • Attend SPAR's virtual demo day! (career fair + talks) (Agustín Covarrubias 🔸, Helena Tran, 3 min)

  • EA Brazil announcing the Effective Article Prize (AE Brasil / EA Brazil, Leo Arruda, Juana Maria Huisa 🔸, Ramiro, 1 min)

  • Build a walkable campus with fellow EAs (tyleralterman, 1 min)

Classic Forum post:

• On "fringe" ideas (Kelsey Piper, 6 min)