Effective Altruism and Existential Risk

Most people want to have a positive impact on the world. Unfortunately, it’s often really hard to make an actual difference.

A growing number of people are taking part in what is known as “effective altruism,” which they define as the search for the best ways to help the common good, and the attempt to put them into practice.

People in this community do things like:

• Distribute bednets to prevent deaths from malaria

• Speed up vaccine development to improve pandemic responses

• Try to identify key risks (“existential risks”) that humanity might face in the next century, and find ways to reduce those risks

• Develop animal product substitutes and look for ways to reduce farmed animal suffering

This class would go over: 

1. What “effective altruism” even means, and why people felt the need to start something new (lots of altruistic projects are not effective).

2. Some frameworks for evaluating impact and identifying important problems to work on.

3. Risks to the future of humanity and why people might focus on them. Examples include:

   • Engineered pandemics (biological weapons, laboratory leaks, etc.)

   • Nuclear war

   • Transformative artificial intelligence