effective altruist

English

Noun

effective altruist (plural effective altruists)

1. (ethics, philosophy) A proponent of effective altruism ("a philosophy and social movement that advocates the use of evidence and reasoning to determine the most effective ways to benefit others").
   • 2020 September 23, Zachary Pincus-Roth, “The Rise of the Rational Do-Gooders”, in The Washington Post‎^[1]:

     At the very least, effective altruists believe that our existing animal charity is misplaced: The vast majority of it goes to shelters, yet according to the EA organization Animal Charity Evaluators, in 2019, for every one animal euthanized in a shelter in the United States, approximately 6,428 farmed land animals were slaughtered for meat.

   • 2022 November 17, Annie Lowrey, “Effective Altruism Committed the Sin It Was Supposed to Correct”, in The Atlantic‎^[2]:

     It has also become an influential subculture in the Bay Area, where devotees commonly refer to themselves as effective altruists in the same way they might describe themselves as leftists or psychonauts.

   • 2022 December 9, Jennifer Szalai, “Effective Altruism Warned of Risks. Did It Also Incentivize Them?”, in The New York Times‎^[3]:

     Effective altruists talk about both “neartermism” and “longtermism.” […] The movement itself is still a big tent; there are effective altruists who remain dedicated to targeted interventions with proven results, including vaccination campaigns (and, of course, antimalarial bed nets).

   • 2023 March 31, Cade Metz, “The ChatGPT King Isn’t Worried, but He Knows You Might Be”, in The New York Times‎^[4], →ISSN:

     Mr. Altman believes that effective altruists have played an important role in the rise of artificial intelligence, alerting the industry to the dangers. He also believes they exaggerate these dangers.