Rethink Priorities

AI Policy and Strategy: In 2024, Rethink Priorities' (RP's) AI work was conducted by the Institute for AI Policy and Strategy (IAPS). A brief overview of IAPS' four main workstreams and 2024 accomplishments follows: (1) Compute policy work aims to explore novel interventions and strategic considerations for managing access to massive AI compute resources. In 2024, IAPS work on this area included publishing a landmark paper with the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) focused on using on-chip governance mechanisms to manage national security risks from AI and advanced computing, working on a forthcoming (published in 2025) report on location verification for advanced AI chips, and publishing a report analyzing the potential impact of high-end consumer GPUs on the efficacy of US export controls on AI chips. The work has received significant interest from US policymakers. (2) Frontier Security work aims to identify concrete interventions to address AI-related threats to national defense and security and protect innovation. Accomplishments in 2024 include publications analyzing advanced AI companies' RSPs (responsible scaling plans) and providing recommendations, a systematic analysis of regulatory precedents from all federal agencies, an early warning system for dual-use capabilities which lays out info-sharing paths between AI companies, government, and critical defenders, publications examining safety R&D efforts by advanced AI labs and the role the UK government can play in leading AI assurance, multiple RFI responses on key topics regarding AI, and upcoming reports (published in 2025) on differential access for cybersecurity capabilities, and on promising directions in AI reliability R&D. (3) International Strategy work aims to study trends in international coordination and competition around advanced AI. In 2024, published research included advice on topics for AI Track IIs that minimize risks of leaking sensitive information, an analysis of the first wave of AI safety institutes and key questions for the international network of these institutes, as well as analysis of China including counterparts to AI safety institutes and a comparison of US and China's approaches to governing advanced AI. (4) IAPS programs department ran an AI policy fellowship with 13 fellows, who now hold relevant positions in advanced AI labs, US and UK government, and think tanks.

Animal Welfare: Rethink Priorities' (RP's) Animal Welfare (AW) Department aims to be a leading hub of research and innovation to accelerate the end of factory farming and reduce the suffering of other animals. Through work spanning independent research, consulting services, and applied projects, the team supports advocacy organizations, philanthropic foundations, and other actors to drive evidence-based and reason-driven change for animals. Some notable accomplishments from the Animal Welfare department during 2024 include: A series of case studies demonstrating innovative initiatives that are shifting consumption towards plant-based alternatives in replacing animal-based products; a cost-effectiveness analysis of various interventions (viz., institutional meat reduction work in US and Western Europe, farmed fish stunning in Europe); estimating the production costs and future capacity of the insect farming sector; creating strategic roadmaps for multiple areas of animal advocacy (viz., farmed shrimp, wild animals); and hosting the Animal Advocacy Strategy Forum to provide an annual space for leaders of animal advocacy organizations to strengthen the movement.

Global Health and Development: Rethink Priorities' (RP's) Global Health and Development (GHD) Department conducts high quality research on important global health, international development, and climate issues and uses its research to influence relevant stakeholders, such that they move resources towards more cost-effective interventions to ultimately increase wellbeing in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs). GHD completed around 20 reports in 2024 on topics such as infectious disease, climate change, and health systems in the developing world. GHD also expanded its consulting services work, advising major foundations on cost-effective giving strategies. It also hosted a second annual global health and development strategy forum, bringing together around 20 different stakeholders working in related areas.

Worldview Investigations - Rethink Priorities' (RP's) Worldview Investigations Team (WIT) exists to improve resource allocation by focusing on tractable, high-impact questions that bear on philanthropic priorities. WIT builds on RP's work as a multi-cause, stakeholder-driven research organization and aims to take action-relevant philosophical, methodological, and strategic problems and turn them into manageable, modelable problems. In 2024, we published a sequence of reports ('Charitable Resource Allocation Frameworks and Tools Sequence') introducing two interactive tools that can be used to inform philanthropic funding: a Portfolio tool for optimising allocations of resources across a portfolio of different causes and a Parliament tool that helps actors navigate normative uncertainty using a 'moral parliament' approach. WIT also developed and published three research agendas, outlining key research questions needing to be addressed in this space, concerning general philanthropic resource allocation, prioritizing animal welfare across different species and digital welfare in the case of advanced digital systems. We also began work related to our digital welfare research agenda, releasing a report outlining 'Charitable Resource Allocation Frameworks and Tools Sequence.' We also presented our work at several academic conferences, including DePauw University ("Risky Giving: Navigating Uncertainty When Trying to Do Good"), University of Guelph ("The Moral Weight Project"), Stanford ("Welfare Comparisons and Moral Weights"), and University of Colorado Boulder ("Getting Animals into BCA").

Surveys and Data Analysis: Rethink Priorities' (RP's) Surveys and Data Analysis Department supported work in a variety of high priority causes in 2024 through conducting surveys, polling, other forms of psychological and behavioral experiments and focus groups, and data analysis. This included running a series of surveys to examine the changing use of LLMs, and their potential influence on automation, in the general public and key industries and occupations, as well as conducting in-depth interviews with a smaller number of advanced users of LLMs. We also ran and published the results of a further wave of our regular Pulse survey, a nationally representative survey of the US population, assessing attitudes towards charitable donation, different cause areas, and their awareness of and attitudes towards effective altruism, as well as artificial intelligence. We also collaborated with academics to produce an academic publication, under review at Technological Forecasting & Social Change, concerning public and expert attitudes towards societal risks from AI. We also independently published a report on the attitudes of the British public regarding extinction risk. We also published several reports related to the effective altruism philanthropic community, concerning the time prioritisation in the community, optimal framings for communicating about the community, personality psychology in the community and community health. We also completed various private surveys and data analyses to inform the work of high impact organizations, for example, concerning attitudes towards baitfish welfare policies, black soldier fly larvae farming and changes in the number of EAs across different global locations.