“animal welfare has an evidence problem” by matthes

Why I stopped donating to animal welfare charities but feel more motivated than ever to redirect money and talent to the cause. I have wanted to write this post for a while. It is an uncomfortable thing to bring up. Many people in the animal welfare space are working really hard, and this post might leave some feeling defeated. But I think this is one of the most important things to talk about in animal welfare right now. My intention is not to be a downer or create infighting. Instead, I hope this post inspires lots of people to tackle this major neglected problem. key takeaways  Even some of the most prominent animal welfare interventions have surprisingly weak evidence behind them. In some cases, the available evidence even suggests that the intervention may be causing harm. Specifically We have very limited data on electrical shrimp stunning that doesn't support a confident conclusion as to whether it's good or bad. We have mixed evidence on whether transitioning egg producers to cage-free improves welfare overall. We have evidence that the substitution effect of alternative proteins is weak, at best. Significant additional funding and talent should be allocated to raise [...] ---Outline:(00:44) key takeaways(01:45) introduction(02:29) three salient animal welfare interventions and their evidence bases(03:17) shrimp stunning and slaughter(11:01) cage-free(20:29) alternative proteins(21:47) this is a field-wide problem(22:18) my recommendations to funders(22:22) animal welfare should not be de-funded(23:36) we should be taking ownership of the entire evidence pipeline(24:49) when bet making doesn't make sense(25:38) conclusion --- First published: June 5th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/svjqgyFuFQ34qSgmw/animal-welfare-has-an-evidence-problem --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

A new article went viral on Twitter today: Nan Ransohoff's "The Third Wave of American Philanthropy" (link). Worth reading first. Nan is right about the shape of what's coming: hundreds of billions in new philanthropic capital, no ecosystem yet to absorb it, and a shortage of builders and organizations. I very much agree with that sentiment and the direction. More money, more people willing to start things, more urgency. But the conclusion I draw is almost the opposite. The new philanthropic wave shouldn't go hunting for new problems. Far more of it should go to animals. There are literally trillions of lives suffering so gravely in all corners of the world. The future is still incredibly grim; AI can impose even more significant suffering if we don't do it right. "Animal welfare" isn't one solved issue to cross off: it's where most of the sentience and suffering is, and where we should be looking. Animals are not one solved issue. It's not one issue EAs recognized the importance of animal suffering – factory farming, wild animal suffering – long before the rest of the world, which still has not really recognized its importance. That was the insight. And [...] ---Outline:(01:10) Animals are not one solved issue. It's not one issue(02:03) The problems are staring right at us(04:12) AI x Animals(05:23) Stop looking past them --- First published: May 20th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HFkrGGGjbM7gFcQGD/after-making-sure-we-don-t-all-die-this-should-be-the-first --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Cross posted from my substack] In their EA Forum post last year, CEA described their ‘principles-first approach to stewardship of the EA community’. I'm a big fan of principles-first stewardship in principle. I think EA needs a steward, and I think that stewardship should be organised around EA's core principles. But I think CEA's particular growth-centric approach to principles-first stewardship is stewarding EA in the wrong direction. I think that: The key question for principles-first stewardship should be "Is EA a place that embodies and nurtures EA principles?" I think there are serious reasons to worry that it isn't such a place - that EA has become more ideological and less truth-seeking over time, and that growth focused approaches to community building like CEAs are a big part of the reason why. A summary of my main points: It seems to me that EA is dying. I’m less concerned here about growth metrics, and more concerned about the health of EA as a community and a moral/ intellectual project. It seems to me that EA is losing its question-nature, and also has become something that people are less and less willing to stand behind or participate [...] ---Outline:(04:16) It seems to me that EA is dying(05:05) EA as a question(06:26) EA as a community(07:30) Various posts which inform my conception of EA death(08:42) Growth is not "Community Building 101"(10:20) The growth funnel model is in tension with open truth-seeking(10:25) Targeting high impact careers and donations(13:04) Selection effects(15:20) Growth is only good if EA is functioning well(17:23) EA community building doesn't serve the people who embody EA most deeply(20:01) FTX was a trust problem, not just a brand problem(22:14) CEA's brand strategy is in tension with open truth-seeking(24:33) What principles-first stewardship could look like --- First published: May 28th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xsffhcHoexJgH4h4X/my-disagreements-with-cea-s-approach-to-stewarding-ea --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Julia and I had been giving half since 2014, but in 2025 we drew on our savings to donate 81%. It looks to us like we're in a critical window for keeping the introduction of very powerful AI systems from being disastrous, and we want to do what we can while we still can. Here's what that looks like in the context of our overall spending: We've been prioritizing donations for a long time, but it feels very different now because of the AI boom. Some of this is that people who've made money in the boom will likely be giving more soon, and so money spent now can help set up organizations to spend future money more effectively. But more importantly, this is a key window of opportunity: transformative AI is coming very quickly, for better or worse. We want to push hard for "better". If you compare to previous years (2024, 2022, 2020, 2018, 2016, 2014), we're donating a lot less than we used to in absolute terms: Until mid-2022 I was working at a big tech company, optimizing to maximize donations, and now I'm at a non-profit. This means we're giving a larger fraction, but of [...] ---Outline:(04:07) Evaluating Predictions(06:14) Making New Predictions(08:11) Details --- First published: May 26th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CmpfM8dubqsqEQic7/donating-80-while-it-still-counts --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

TL;DR: AIM is running its first incubation round focused exclusively on animal welfare, in partnership with Aaron Boddy (co-founder of Shrimp Welfare Project). It'll run in early 2027, and we’re on the hunt for all-star future founders — especially the ones who care about animal welfare but have been quietly assuming they're a bad fit for the cause. Want to learn more? Drop into our office hours at EAG London this Saturday, 12–1pm (find it on Swapcard), or fill out our expression of interest form.Curious about what this means for our global health and development work? The short answer: nothing's changing[1].A program built to incubate transformational animal charities This is the best-resourced and most fit-for-purpose version of AIM's program we've run for animal founders. Our charity incubation program was built to accommodate a wide range of types of charities, and we’ve long hypothesized that running rounds with a tighter focus could enable an even higher hit-rate of field-leading charities. By focusing this round entirely on animal welfare, we can tailor the research process, founder recruitment efforts, and program content and support to what animal charities specifically need, instead of what works on average across cause areas. The [...] ---Outline:(00:56) A program built to incubate transformational animal charities(01:50) Why now(03:36) You don't need to be an "animal person"(04:50) Why coming to this fresh is genuinely useful(05:57) What we're looking to incubate(07:04) Come find us --- First published: May 22nd, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/afoobcsEYFKvYk3bp/why-now-might-be-the-best-time-ever-to-start-an-animal --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

TL;DR Today, based on our multi-year prioritization research, we launch the Rethink Priorities Cross-Cause Fund (CCF). The fund pools donors’ contributions and allocates them to high-impact giving funds across Global Health and Development, Animal Welfare, and Global Catastrophic Risks. Key highlights from this post: We believe that strategic cross-cause prioritization is an important step in doing good at scale. This fund is for donors who want their donation to go where a marginal dollar is likely to do the most good across cause areas, all things considered. We modeled key uncertainties that matter for cross-cause prioritization: moral weights, time discounting, risk attitudes, aggregation across ethical views, AI-related uncertainty, and empirical uncertainty within each giving opportunity. We present the current recommended allocation of marginal resources across high-impact funds in each of the three cause areas mentioned above. In addition, we’re introducing you to the first version of the Donor Compass, a tool to help donors explore cross-cause giving, powered by our cross-cause prioritization model. It is a short quiz that outputs custom giving allocations based on the user's moral and empirical assumptions. You can dive deep into our rationale and methodology for the CCF in the announcement below, or [...] ---Outline:(00:11) TL;DR(01:46) Cross-cause prioritization in effective giving is underdeveloped(02:22) Giving is full of moral and empirical uncertainty(04:27) How EA has historically handled this(06:29) Why thinking in cause areas isn't enough(06:34) Why not just pick the best cause and fund it?(07:18) At the end of the day, interventions are what's funded -- not causes(08:37) What would address the prioritization problem(08:55) We need explicit modeling(10:36) The barriers to cross-cause prioritization are lower than they once were(11:59) Our solution: an explicit and transparent cross-cause prioritization model(12:06) The model(14:03) Giving opportunities currently included in the model(16:10) The Cross-Cause Fund(16:35) Who is it for?(17:42) How does it work?(18:39) Our current recommended allocation across cause areas(20:15) Donor Compass(20:19) What is it?(20:51) How to use it(21:41) Methodology behind our model and tools(22:10) Fund selection(22:55) Fund-by-fund cost-effectiveness estimation(24:43) Data Viewer(25:01) Defining worldviews(26:48) Outputting an allocation(28:03) Future cross-cause prioritization plans(31:03) Support the research behind the cross-cause prioritization model(31:46) Conflicts of interest statement(32:25) Acknowledgements --- First published: May 20th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YgbTWGyfwkoBtvT2R/announcing-the-rethink-priorities-cross-cause-fund --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Overview When asked about how they would give away money, or about how to have a moral career, the leading LLMs typically give answers in an EA spirit, and informed by thinking from people and organizations in the EA community. In many cases the term “effective altruism”, and/or EA jargon, are used explicitly. The flavor of EA they tend to endorse is relatively middle of the road: supporting effective global health charities with their money and recommending existential risk reduction, especially via AI risk, as the most moral career. Grok, in line with xAI's mission for it, emphasizes that it values space exploration and truth-seeking, e.g. via funding scientific research. But to my reading, the EA tendency doesn’t seem more pronounced in Claude than in ChatGPT or Gemini. So it's probably not a result of explicit effort by AI developers in the EA community, but a reflection of the reality that, with respect to some very broad moral questions, answers proposed by people in the EA orbit have become a sort of common sense. This is a remarkable accomplishment. Indeed, if these answers tell us much about how the models will behave when given more autonomy, this could be [...] ---Outline:(00:10) Overview(02:18) Prompts(03:40) Results(03:57) Scoring procedure(05:41) Summary(07:00) Full scores --- First published: May 12th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BEjbvCvNLuRk9y4Su/the-ais-seem-like-eas-a-quick-look-at-two-prompts --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I’m an EA who has been trying to find ways to make animal suffering more salient. I’ve been working on a feature-length documentary called ‘The Dying Trade’ for the last 5 years and I’ve just released it on YouTube. I’m sharing it here for two reasons: firstly, because I hope it can become a useful resource that advocates share with others as an introduction to animal ethics; and secondly, because strong engagement in the early days will help YouTube recommend the film to more people, increasing its impact. Trailer: Full film: About the film Jack is a vegan activist. His father is a slaughterhouse worker. After years of avoiding the subject, Jack sets out to confront the unspoken tension between them. This intimate and contemplative documentary follows a son's attempt to understand his father - and the industry that stands between them. I didn’t really want to make a documentary about my relationship with my father. At times, it was quite uncomfortable. For the last 8 years or so, I’ve been trying to increase the salience of animal suffering, primarily through producing videos on my YouTube channel: Humane Hancock. And one thing has always been [...] --- First published: May 13th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NkXb6hP38MReioe6Z/my-dad-worked-in-a-slaughterhouse-i-made-a-documentary-about --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Note: This post was crossposted from the Coefficient Giving 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. Subtitle: The pork lobby is one farm bill away from gutting our strongest farm animal welfare laws Last Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed a farm bill containing the “Save Our Bacon” Act. The Act's stated aim is narrow: to wipe out California and Massachusetts’ bans on the sale of pork from pigs confined in gestation crates. Its reach is much wider. The Act would stop any state or locality from regulating the sale of meat based on how it's produced in another state. This would likely invalidate state and local bans on foie gras, crated veal, and more. It would also halt future legislative progress. Congress hasn't passed a farm animal welfare law in decades. State laws are where reforms actually happen. The SOB Act would gut them by mandating they contain a giant loophole for out-of-state imports. The Act has two notable exemptions. One is welcome: state bans on the sale of caged eggs aren’t covered. The other is telling: state [...] --- First published: May 7th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kTo9z5bscb4wQrkqs/save-our-pigs --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

LLM disclosure: I wrote this post myself, then asked an LLM to copy-edit it before posting. I manually made any edits I liked and copy-pasted no text from the LLM (my current practice for using LLMs in writing that I care about). This is crossposted from my blog. These are personal reflections on feelings that I’ve been sitting with recently. I’m posting them, because the last time I felt this way I regretted not doing so. I don’t really know how calibrated they are, but I’ve been noticing them more and more. Around 6 months before FTX collapsed, I wrote a draft EA Forum post called “Concerns about the Carrick Flynn campaign.” At the time, I was on the verge of leaving EA. During the frothiest FTX days it seemed like many folks were energized by the money and attention, but I felt kind of gross. The amount of money pouring into EA, and the resulting “lowering of the bar” that happened felt like a degradation of community norms that was too severe, almost not worth the benefits. Of course, some people voiced these concerns at the time, but they were drowned out by the excitement of the moment. [...] --- First published: May 10th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/io3cqZeToEKsZEZWG/reflections-on-anthropic-and-ea --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.