When I started my PhD in philosophy, I was planning a career focused on esoteric questions about logic and language. At the same time, I was working with a global development charity and feeling tension between my career plans and my values. Now I work as a Senior Research Fellow at Forethought, helping to prepare for a world with very advanced artificial intelligence.
From my mid-teens, I was ethically minded in various ways. I volunteered with a scout troop for kids with disabilities, and worked in a care home. But by age 22, I was facing real tension: I had a lot of pent-up moral energy – and guilt – I didn't really know where to direct it.
That changed in early 2009 when I met Toby Ord. He told me about an idea he'd been working on called
Giving What We Can, an organization that encourages people to donate a small portion of their income. We launched the organization together at the end of that year, sewing the seeds of what would later become the effective altruism movement.
"For a lot of my life I was very motivated by guilt. That can be very energizing, but it can also be very draining. One thing I've managed to cultivate over the last ten years is a deeper, more positive attitude — a sense of gratitude that I am able to use my time to try and make the world better."
The central idea of Giving What We Can was that we in rich countries have an immense ability to help people in poor countries. But it wasn't just about giving more; it was about giving more effectively. We found that even among enormously beneficial projects, the difference between one and another could be the difference between benefiting one person or benefiting a hundred times as many people by the same amount.
Over time, our ideas broadened beyond charity. We started thinking about effective career choices, which grew into the organization
80,000 Hours. We also started thinking about which global problems were most urgent to address. Over time, we noticed that some people were interested in all three topics — donations, career, and cause prioritization — and they wanted to use evidence and reason to do as much good as possible. That wider movement became known as effective altruism.
"Even when you work with very smart and talented and driven people who share a commitment to doing the most good possible, it can be unclear what to do. This is tough, slow work. But I love having a community with whom I can do that work."
My advice to anyone wanting to do good: you're not alone in wondering how! I would say there are two key pathways: one is through donations, and organizations like GiveWell can help ensure your charitable giving has the biggest impact; the second is your career choice. With over 80,000 hours of working time in the average lifetime, your career is plausibly the biggest decision you can make from the perspective of doing the most good for the world. Getting involved with the effective altruism community by attending
conferences or joining your
local group can be enormously helpful in finding your path.
