Week 1: The opportunity of effective
altruism
Week 1: The Opportunity of Effective Altruism
Welcome to the In-Depth EA Program! This week, we’ll start by exploring some examples that
we think deserve study regarding how you can have an extraordinarily positive impact on
the world.
Discussion questions for this week
1. What were the most inspiring stories that you read about, and why? What themes seem
worth highlighting?
2. What types of successes seem most difficult to quantify or hardest to predict ahead of
time?
3. Both No Lean Season and Alvea shut down despite initial promise. What distinguishes a
"good failure" that advances the field from one that merely wastes resources?
Resources
1. Core EA mindset (3 minutes)
2. Core EA principles (3 minutes)
3. Musings on teaching agency (5 minutes)
4. Hits based giving (15 minutes)
5. Evidence Action – We’re Shutting Down No Lean Season (10 minutes)
6. Alvea’s Story, Wins, and Challenges (15 minutes)
7. Podcast for the week: We will highlight an episode of the 80,000 Hours podcast each
week. You can listen to the podcast or read the highlights. Andy Weber on rendering
bioweapons obsolete and ending the new nuclear arms race. (~2 hours)
Spend 30 minutes exploring the following three resources:
1. Future Perfect 50
2. Effective nonprofits
3. What I’m celebrating from EA and adjacent work in 2024
4. Ten wins for farmed animals in 2024
Week 2: Epistemics
Week 2: Epistemics
How can we determine which interventions actually work? How should we update our beliefs
when faced with conflicting evidence? This week, we explore the tools and frameworks that help
us see the world more clearly—a prerequisite for making high-impact decisions.
While epistemics might seem abstract, it's fundamentally practical: better reasoning leads to
better outcomes. We'll examine how to form and update beliefs, evaluate evidence across
different domains, distinguish between impressions and all things considered beliefs, and
navigate uncertainty while still taking action. These skills will serve as building blocks for every
decision you make about where to direct your resources and efforts.
Discussion questions for this week
1. When have you significantly changed your mind about something important? What
evidence or reasoning process led to that change, and what barriers did you have to
overcome?
2. How should we navigate situations where the evidence is mixed or incomplete? What
principles help you decide when to act despite uncertainty?
3. How should we evaluate scientific claims differently across domains (e.g., global health
RCTs versus AI risk assessments)? What constitutes sufficient evidence in areas where
controlled experiments are difficult?
Resources
1. Reasoning transparency (30 minutes)
2. Aaron’s epistemic stories (15 minutes)
3. Samotsvety Nuclear Risk Forecasts — March 2022 (10 mins)
4. Scott Alexander, Beware the Man of One Study (15 minutes)
5. Michael Aird on ‘independent impressions’ vs. ‘all-things-considered beliefs’ (5 minutes)
6. Sequence thinking versus cluster thinking (45 minutes)
7. Podcast for the week: Accurately predicting the future is central to absolutely
everything. Phil Tetlock has spent 40 years studying how to do it better. (2 hours)
Week 3: AI Safety
Week 3: AI Safety and Security
Artificial intelligence has the potential to dramatically improve our future while also posing
existential risks. This week, we'll explore the technical landscape of AI development, key safety
challenges, governance approaches, and career paths in greater depth. Whether you plan to
work directly in this field or not, understanding the rapid development of AI capabilities and the
complex challenge of ensuring these systems remain beneficial is crucial for anyone making
impact-oriented decisions in the coming decades.
Discussion questions for this week
1. Based on the readings, how would you assess the current capabilities and limitations of
frontier AI systems? What developments would significantly change your views on
timelines or risks?
2. What economic, social, and competitive incentives are driving rapid AI development?
How do these incentives shape which capabilities are prioritized?
3. Amodei's "Machines of Loving Grace" presents a vision of beneficial AI. How compelling
do you find this vision? What assumptions underlie it, and where might they be
challenged?
4. Some compare modern AI development to evolution - capabilities emerge through
optimization processes rather than being explicitly designed. How useful is this analogy?
What does it suggest about our ability to predict or control the trajectory of AI capabilities
as systems become more complex?
Resources
1. How does AI learn? (10 minutes)
2. Large Language Models explained briefly (10 minutes)
3. Teaching AI to reason: this year’s most important story (10 minutes)
4. Why are people building AI systems? (5 minutes)
5. The cost of caution (5 minutes)
6. Machines of Loving Grace (35 minutes)
a. Read to the end of “Economic development”
7. Podcast for the week: Allan Dafoe on why technology is unstoppable & how to shape
AI development anyway (~3 hours)
Explore either AI governance or AI safety careers: (45 minutes)
1. Governances
a. 80k career profile (35 minutes)
b. 9 Pieces on AI Policy that Set the Tone in 2024 (10 minutes)
2. Technical AI Safety Research:
a. 80k career profile (35 minutes)
b. What is AI alignment? (10 minutes)
Background: The basic case for AI risk
8. 80k problem profile (75 minutes)
9. Why AGI could be here by 2030: the case for and against (20 minutes)
10.Could AI wipe out humanity? (10 minutes)
11.Deadly by default (30 minutes)
Week 4: Animal Welfare
Week 4: Animal Welfare
Billions of non-human animals suffer in ways that could be prevented or mitigated through
human intervention. This week, we'll deepen our understanding of animal welfare as a cause
area and explore complex questions about moral consideration and intervention effectiveness.
Discussion questions for this week
1. What methodologies for assessing animal welfare do you find most compelling? How
should we compare welfare across different species?
2. How might technological developments (including AI) change our relationship with
animals and animal welfare issues? Which developments seem most important to track
or influence?
3. Which approaches to improving animal welfare seem most promising in your view:
corporate campaigns, technological innovation, policy change, or others?
Resources
1. Factory farming - 80,000 hours problem profile (45 minutes)
2. Introduction to the moral weight sequence (10 minutes)
3. The welfare range table (10 minutes)
4. Welfare range estimates (20 minutes)
5. Podcast for the week: Meghan Barrett on challenging our assumptions about insects
(~4 hours)
On strategies for addressing the problem
Spend 20 minutes reading about different strategies for improving animal welfare. We
recommend starting with one of the following resources:
1. Corporate campaigns: 2024 Cage-Free Fulfillment Report
2. Technological progress: Save the male chicks
3. Government advocacy: Start here: EU Advocacy
Week 5: Global Health
Week 5: Global Health
Despite tremendous progress in recent decades, billions of people still live in extreme poverty,
facing preventable diseases, malnutrition, and limited opportunities.
This week, we'll examine both established and emerging approaches to global health and
development. We'll analyze GiveWell's methodology for identifying high-impact interventions,
explore alternative strategies like scientific research and economic growth, and consider recent
developments that are reshaping the landscape. By examining the evidence, scalability, and
systemic implications of different approaches, you'll develop a more nuanced understanding of
how to effectively improve the lives of the world's poorest people.
Discussion questions for this week
1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of GiveWell’s methodology?
2. How might recent developments in global politics (like USAID funding changes) and
technology (like AI or new vaccines) change our approach to global health and
development?
3. Analyze the In-Line Chlorination program in detail - what makes it promising, what
challenges might it face, and how does it compare to other water quality interventions?
Resources
GiveWell:
GiveWell has a central role in the EA global health and development space, and their rigorous
methodology for identifying high-impact giving opportunities has influenced billions in charitable
donations.
● Impact of GiveWell's top charities (GiveWell, 2016-2017) (post - 5 mins)
● Our Top Charities (GiveWell) (page - 5 mins)
● How We Produce Impact Estimates (GiveWell, 2021-2023) (post - 10 mins)
● Evidence Action — Scale-Up of In-Line Chlorination in India (20 minutes)
Recent developments in global health:
1. Africa needs malaria vaccines (10 minutes)
2. Lead Exposure Action Fund (Explore site for 10 minutes)
3. What USAID does, and why Trump and Musk want to get rid of it
Explore other approaches to improving global health:
1. Investing in science and technology research (5 minutes)
2. Promoting economic growth (10 minutes)
Podcast for the week:
Alexander Berger on improving global health and wellbeing in clear and direct ways
Background reading
1. Global economic inequality (Max Roser / Our World In Data, 2022) (15 minutes)
2. Global Health - The global distribution of the disease burden (Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and
Max Roser / Our World In Data) (15 minutes)
Week 6: Biosecurity
Week 6: Biosecurity
For Week 6, we'll explore biosecurity, examining how biological threats could impact global
health and potentially cause catastrophic harm. You’ll learn about pandemic prevention,
detection, and response strategies, and the history of accidents at labs.
Discussion questions for this week
● Which strategy (prevention, early detection, response preparedness) seems most
promising for reducing catastrophic biological risks, and why?
● How might AI and synthetic biology advances interact to increase or decrease
biosecurity risks?
● What critical gaps in biosecurity infrastructure remain unaddressed after COVID-19?
● When considering natural, accidental, or deliberate pandemic risks, which deserves the
most attention and resources and why?
Resources
● Info hazard guidance for biosecurity discussions [BlueDot - Shared] (10 minutes)
● Pandemic prevention as fire-fighting (30 minutes)
● The Biological Weapons Convention: Challenges and Opportunities (15 minutes)
● Detection: The Scientist: How an Early Warning Radar Could Prevent Future Pandemics
● STAT: Op-ed on indoor air quality measures (10 minutes)
● A Framework for Technical Progress on Biosecurity (10 minutes)
● Podcast for the week: Alison Young on how top labs have jeopardized public health
with repeated biosafety failures (~2 hours)
Exercise: Envisaging a pandemic-proof world
We recommend you spend ~20 minutes on this exercise.
Imagine the year is 2050 and the world is much more pandemic-proof than it is today. What
kinds of technologies, policies and organisations exist, and how might we get there?
Things you might want to consider:
● What could a day in your life look like?
○ What technologies might you interact with that prevent you catching or
transmitting pathogens?
● What could we copy from emergency preparedness and response in other settings (fire,
war, cyber etc.)?
● Are there analogous technologies, policies or organisations in those areas that we could
build in the biosecurity space?
● Which existing technologies would make the world significantly more pandemic-proof if
produced and distributed globally?
● How might we scale up production and incentivise equitable global distribution of these
technologies?
Consider grouping your ideas into outbreak prevention, detection and response (note these
categories aren’t always clear-cut!).
We encourage you to use your existing expertise, as well as taking inspiration from the
‘Pandemic Prevention as Fire-Fighting’ article or other research. This is only a starting point and
we don’t expect comprehensive answers – use this as a brainstorming exercise to think of a
broad range of ideas. We’ll dig deeper into some of these interventions later in the course.
Background reading
● 80,000 hours biosecurity problem profile (25 minutes)
● Biorisk research, strategy, and policy (20 minutes)
● Bakerlee biosecurity reading list [public]
● Bluedot Pandemics Course
● 80,000 hours anonymous expert review series
○ Part 1: Misconceptions
○ Part 2: Fighting pandemics
○ Part 3: How can we manage infohazards in biosecurity?
○ Part 4: AI and biorisk
Week 7: Nuclear Security
Week 7: Nuclear Security
Nuclear weapons represent one of humanity's most powerful and persistent existential threats.
Despite reduced public attention since the Cold War, thousands of nuclear warheads remain
deployed around the world, with the potential to cause unprecedented devastation. This week,
we'll examine the current nuclear landscape, analyze key risk scenarios, explore the technical
and political challenges of nuclear security, and consider promising approaches for reducing
nuclear dangers. Whether through direct work, policy influence, or supporting existing initiatives,
understanding nuclear risks is crucial for anyone concerned with safeguarding humanity's
long-term future.
Discussion questions for this week
1. How has your assessment of nuclear risk changed after engaging with this week's
materials? What specific facts or arguments most influenced your thinking?
2. The readings highlight various nuclear risk scenarios (accidental launch, escalation
during conventional conflict, terrorist acquisition, etc.). Which do you find most
concerning and why? What factors make certain scenarios more likely or consequential
than others?
3. How should we think about the probability and severity of nuclear winter scenarios?
What are the key uncertainties, and how might an improved understanding of these
effects influence nuclear policy?
Resources
1. 80,000 hours problem profile (30 minutes)
2. Nuclear weapons safety and security career review (30 minutes)
3. Luisa Rodriguez, Which nuclear wars should worry us most? (10 minutes)
Podcast for the week (listen or read the show notes):
We’ve included two episodes this week, as the recommended readings are a bit lighter.
1. Daniel Ellsberg on the creation of nuclear doomsday machines, the institutional insanity
that maintains them, and a practical plan for dismantling them (~3 hours)
2. Joan Rohlfing on how to avoid catastrophic nuclear blunders (~2 hours)
Week 8: Next steps
Week 8: Next steps
Congratulations on reaching Week 8 of the In-Depth EA Program. Throughout this program,
you've explored complex global problems and examined various approaches to addressing
them. As we conclude our time together, this final week focuses on reflection, integration, and
concrete next steps.
The purpose of this week is threefold: First, we'll discuss building and participating in the
effective altruism community, understanding its ecosystem of organizations, events, and
resources. Second, we'll reflect on your personal cause prioritization—what problems you now
consider most pressing and why. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we'll focus on turning
knowledge into action by developing concrete, personalized plans for how you can contribute to
solving these problems.
Discussion questions for this week
1. How has your understanding of which global problems are most pressing evolved
throughout this program? What key insights or arguments have most influenced your
thinking?
2. How do you plan to continue learning and refining your views? What specific areas do
you want to explore further, and what approaches will you take to deepen your
understanding?
Resources
1. Grit, humility, and courage: Three ingredients for building EA’s enduring impact (20
minutes)
1. Attend an EA Global or EAGx conference! There a several excellent reasons to attend -
read more here and here.
2. Start giving more, or more effectively, or make plans for how you could do so in future.
For example, you could:
a. Take the Try Giving pledge or the Giving What We Can pledge
b. Do some research into EA Funds and/or the charity recommendations of
evaluators like GiveWell and Animal Charity Evaluators
c. Set up monthly donations to a charity you think is high-impact
3. Apply for 80,000 hours career advising
4. Attend a meet-up of your local EA group
Exercise: 60 minutes
At the beginning of the course, you set some intentions regarding questions that you’d like to
look into during the course, and we shared the following resources on cause prioritisation,
career planning, and donation decisions to help you structure your thinking.
1. For figuring out your cause prioritization, we recommend using this template:
[In-Depth EA Program] Worksheet for choosing the most pressing problem .
2. For donation decisions: Giving What We Can Giving Guides.
3. For career planning: 80,000 Hours career planning template.
We’ve kept the readings for this week short to give you more time to do research and writing
about your specific uncertainties. You’ll be encouraged to talk about updates you’ve made and
any next steps you have planned during the session.
Background reading
Explore why some other people are doing what they’re doing (roughly prioritised)
1. Holden Karnofsky, Three Key Issues I’ve Changed My Mind About (10 minutes)
2. Buck Shlegeris, My personal cruxes for working on AI safety (50 minutes)
3. Michael Aird, My personal cruxes for focusing on existential risks / longtermism /
anything other than just video games (3 minutes)
4. Brian Tomasik, Summary of My Beliefs and Values on Big Questions (15 minutes)
5. Pablo Stafforini, My beliefs (10 minutes)