EA Forum Digest #291

Global development takes the spotlight this week

Hello!

It’s In Development Highlight week on the EA Forum! The authors and Editor in Chief from the new global development magazine are on the Forum all week, ready to answer your questions. Start by reading their articles:

• Exporters Without Borders: Why You Should Start a Company Instead of Working in Aid (danielyu, 15 min)

• Money for nothing: the roles of evidence in GiveDirectly’s journey to $1 billion delivered (GiveDirectly, 19 min)

• Jakarta’s Remarkable Urban Transit Transformation (Nithin Coca, 10 min)

• Where’s My Ministry For Emigration? (Charles Kenny, 11 min)

… and then ask them anything in the discussion thread.

BONUS: Svetha Janumpalli, CEO and Founder of New Incentives (a charity which provides cash transfers to promote vaccinations) is hosting an Ask Me Anything. You can add your questions here, and she’ll answer on May 20th.

— Toby (for the Forum team)

We recommend:

1. The tables have turned on AI sceptics (Stefan_Schubert, 4 min)

2. Reflections on Anthropic and EA (abrahamrowe, 7 min)

3. 10 big projects for reducing bio x-risk (cwbakerlee, 9 min)

4. Save Our Pigs! (LewisBollard, 6 min)

5. Digital minds governance: early scoping from expert interviews (Lucius Caviola, Austin Smith, 8 min)

6. The Saturation View: some responses (William_MacAskill, 9 min)

7. The AIs seem like EAs — a quick look at two prompts (trammell, 5 min)

8. We don’t know why Malawi is poor — and what that means for AI-and-growth forecasts (Deena Mousa, 1 min, link-post)

9. Alpha-Gal is Bad, Especially for Farmed Animals (Jonathan Bostock, 4 min)

10. The EA case for an EA Group House + how to start one (its easy!) (Jen baik, 5 min)

Announcements:

• Updates from organisations

  • EA Organisation Updates thread: May 2026 (Dane Valerie, 1 min)

  • New EA Forum LLM-use policy (Toby Tremlett🔹, Francis, 4 min)

  • Effective Altruism Australia is launching a new podcast - designed for a broad audience (GraceAdams🔸, 2 min)

  • Cambridge has a biosecurity hub and here’s what six months of fieldbuilding full-time has done (Grace B, 3 min)

• Job listings

  • Chief of Staff at Active Site (Active Site, 1 min)

  • Grantmakers and senior generalists (Global Catastrophic Risks teams) at Coefficient Giving (Coefficient Giving, 3 min)

  • Multiple positions at 80,000 Hours (80000_Hours, Arden Koehler, 6 min)

• Other opportunities to take action

  • Applications Open for Impact Accelerator Program (High Impact Professionals, multiple authors, 4 min)

Classic Forum post:

• Reducing long-term risks from malevolent actors (David_Althaus, Tobias_Baumann, 45 min)