Effective altruism conquered the world — and may yet end it
How effective altruism conquered the world (and might yet end it)
Effective altruism began from one simple premise: that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad. The Economist traces how the movement grew into the 21st century's most important social force, and why its adherents now fear they may be hastening an ending — one in which humanity's cosmic endowment, every star and galaxy plausibly exploitable, falls to an indifferent, superior intelligence.
The starting-point for effective altruism was a simple assumption, that "suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad."
- wodow
I was surprised by the weakness of this article, regardless the potential absurdities of parts of EA.
Why does The Economist consider this the most important issue this week, in a world of complex problems, to splash its first leader on (and more than one page long too)?
- PoignardAzur
> There is an elusive quality to effective altruism. The movement is tiny, with an informal membership probably in the tens of thousands, many of whom claim to be only “EA adjacent”.
Oof, that one hit close to home.
- abhis3798
Likely a better read
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/the-reluctant-...
- smitty1e
If this is "conquered the world", one wonders what The Economist thinks defeat would resemble.
- mohamedkoubaa
There was modest farmland in Iraq managed by a trust for about 400 years that paid for the wedding dresses for all women in the nearby town. The colonial administrators found this ineffective and dismantled the trust fund and privatized the land.
There is something to be said about how we sometimes fail to account for the effectiveness of ineffective altruism.
- fwlr
What’s that thing pg said about a submarine? Somebody’s got a dossier of all the weirdest things about effective altruism they can find (not that it’s in short supply), and they’re out there convincing reporters who need to run articles about AI that this is the ideology of the AI guys, and wouldn’t your readers like to know all the lurid details?
While it’s probably something prosaic as “Anthropic pays the most lip service to EA, this makes them look bad” or “Our employees are leaning EA and it’s causing problems, things would be easier if they were too embarrassed to admit they were EA”, I do wonder - the board member who instigated the firing of Sam Altman from OpenAI does happen to be a long-time effective altruist…
- giacomoforte
I do not think you can call it a social movement because it does not have any significant mass of people behind it and by its nature, never will.
- williamcotton
Will MacAskill responds to our cover story on effective altruism
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/10/04/will-maca...