Hi there,
Welcome to the monthly EA Chicago newsletter 👋
Check this space for upcoming events and a debrief of the best EA Chicago content from across the web.
Be sure to stay in touch during the month via our Eventbrite page and Slack workspace.
EACHI July Event Schedule
July Social Event: Park Social on Sunday, July 9th from 2-5pm (event details coming soon)
July Speaker Event: Samantha Kassirer on Psychology, Effective Altruism, and Global Priorities Research on Thursday, July 27th from 6-8pm (event details coming soon)
Attend An Event
Meetup - Americas/Oceania: Community Documentary Night
The purpose of these events are to give people the opportunity to engage in meaningful discussions on a wide range of topics with people from various backgrounds. There is a free Special Virtual Documentary Night on Sunday, July 2nd. The event is from 7 pm to 9 pm Eastern Standard Time, and attendees don’t have to stay the entire time. It is very flexible so people can come late or leave early if needed.
We are meeting to talk about the documentary, Eating Our Way To Extinction. This is a cinematic feature documentary, taking audiences on a journey around the world and addressing the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. This powerful documentary sends a simple but impactful message by uncovering hard truths and addressing the most pressing issue of our generation – ecological collapse. Here is a link to where you can watch the film for free.
PLEASE WATCH THE FILM ON YOUR OWN PRIOR TO THE EVENT!
The way this works is that everyone watches the film on their own BEFORE the event, then we meet on zoom to discuss. They break everyone out into randomized small groups of around 4 or 5 people, give them a discussion prompt, and give them about 20 minutes or so to discuss in their randomized groups. They will do multiple rounds of small group discussion with different groups and different prompts. This gives everyone an opportunity to meet new people and hear a variety of voices and perspectives throughout the night. Finally, they will end by choosing what everyone wants to watch next month. This is a Voting Night where they brainstorm and decide as a group what they all will watch the following month, so please come with recommendations. If you need any ideas, you can search through the Flyers Page on our website. The flyers are all hyperlinked so that all you have to do is click the movie poster to watch the film.
The zoom info will be available once you RSVP on the Eventbrite page. Register here if you are interested in attending: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-documentary-night-tickets-650434997587. They have a wide range of people in attendance ranging in ages from 18 all the way up to 90s.
Speaker Series - Americas/Oceania: 2023 US Emerging Tech Policy & Security Speaker Series
Upcoming summer webinar series on emerging technology & national security policy careers!
The Horizon Institute for Public Service, in collaboration with partners at the Scowcroft Center and SeedAI, is running a webinar series on US emerging technology policy careers to help individuals decide if they should pursue careers in this field. The series will focus primarily on policy opportunities related to AI and biosecurity and run from late June to early August.
Sessions will not be recorded and individuals must sign up to receive event access — you can express interest in attending here.
Currently scheduled sessions include:
1. Q&A with Jason Matheny, CEO of the RAND Corporation
2. Q&A with Nikki Teran, Institute for Progress Fellow, on biosecurity challenges and policy careers to address them
3. Q&A with Helen Toner‚ Director of Strategy and Foundational Research Grants at CSET, on AI challenges and policy careers to address them
4. What’s it like working in the executive branch?
5. What’s it like working in a think tank?
6. What’s it like working in Congress?
7. Choosing graduate schools for policy careers (master’s, PhD, JD)
8. Transitioning from law to policy
9. Transitioning from science and tech to policy
10. Advancing in policy from underrepresented backgrounds
11. Horizon Fellowship info session
News & Updates
Fellowships & Jobs
Announcing CE’s new Research Training Program - apply by 17 July (KarolinaSarek, Leonie Falk, ErikHausen, CE)
Announcing the AIPolicyIdeas.com Database (abiolvera, 3 min, link-post)
£50k for bold/novel/weird ideas to accelerate mental health research (Barry Grimes, 4 min, link-post)
Cause areas
Animal welfare
· Lab-grown meat has been approved for sale in the US, and two companies will be able to sell cell-cultured chicken to consumers.
· Faunalytics has released a new study in partnership with Sentient Media: Animal Agriculture Is The Missing Piece In Climate Change Media Coverage. This report analysed recent climate articles from top U.S. media outlets to determine how often the media makes the connection between animal agriculture and climate change when reporting on climate issues, and how reporting on animal agriculture in relation to climate change misses the mark.
·
Global health and development
· Very sadly, GiveDirectly discovered that some of their Democratic Republic of Congo staff conspired with others outside the organization to steal an estimated $900,000 USD, meaning that overall, ~1.1% of money delivered by GiveDirectly last year was lost to fraud. In GiveDirectly’s response and apology to donors and recipients, they share that upon discovering the fraud, they immediately paused operations. Unfortunately, the risk of fraud in their work is not new, and while it is always disappointing news, we think GiveDirectly has done a commendable job in transparently reporting on the incident and their reaction to it. In addition to reading GiveDirectly’s response, donors could learn more about the topic by reading Vox’s article on the topic and why they believe “openness about fraud — and a plan to fix it — is key to more effective philanthropy”.
· A large study examining the effects of cash transfer programs on population-level mortality rates was published in the journal Nature recently and showed that Cash transfer programs had the following observed effects: Deaths among women fell by 20% (which was largely driven by decreases in pregnancy-related deaths) and deaths among children younger than 5 fell by 8%.
· Svetha Janumpalli, Founder and CEO of New Incentives, spoke at EAG London. She gave a behind-the-scenes look at nearly a decade of piloting, testing, learning, and pivoting and gave a glimpse into the nuts and bolts of how and why the organization maintains 121 program monitoring indicators. Watch her talk or read a quick overview here.
· Malaria Consortium's Chief Executive, James Tibenderana, joined Alicia Weng and Grace Hultquist from GiveWell's research team and Olivia Larsen from GiveWell's outreach team to discuss GiveWell's research on malaria prevention. You can access the video recording, audio recording, and written transcript here.
· Family Empowerment Media (FEM) recently completed a nine-month family planning campaign in Kano, Nigeria, reaching an audience base of 5.6 million over 2600 times; Rethink Priorities recently evaluated FEM. They estimate FEM’s cost-effectiveness in the north of Nigeria may be as high as 60x that of cash transfers.
· In 2019, the END Fund partnered with Virgin Unite and Sir Richard Branson to eliminate parasitic worm infections in four countries. Last year alone, they helped distribute more than 150 million deworming treatments to nearly 50 million people. Watch as Sir Richard explains why this form of collaborative, hands-on philanthropy is integral to disrupting these parasites' hold on families, communities, and economies, here!
· One for the World, an organization encourages that encourages people to pledge 1% of income to GiveWell's Top Charities, is looking to open new university and corporate chapters in the next few months! Read on if you're interested in starting a chapter or know someone who might be.
· Member Akhil Bansal recently published a report on antimicrobial resistance as a potential high-impact cause worth exploring.
Long-term future
· Leading figures in AI recently signed a statement on AI risk that states: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
· Giving What We Can recently published a blog post on what you can do if you’re concerned about the risks of developing AI.
EA community & strategy
· Decision-making and decentralization in EA (William_MacAskill, 29 min) — see also a shortform update
· Growth and engagement in EA groups: 2022 Groups Census results (BrianTan, 22 min)
(Please contact the organizers if you have something you’d like featured here next month!)
We look forward to seeing you in person or online!
