Benjamin Todd

He actually thinks risks from artificial intelligence might be more urgent overall, but as a doctor, he's relatively best placed to work on health-related issues.

For all these reasons, if you share the aims of the effective altruism community, it can be a powerful community to join.

But we'd be remiss if we didn't mention some of the downsides here too.

Effective altruism is still an unusual idea, and that means it attracts some unusual people.

Even if you agree with its values, you might find you don't gel with the people who have joined in practice.

Some find being part of the effective altruism community stressful.

Because of the focus on driving up positive impact, it can feel totalizing to people.

Others don't like how tight-knit it is, or other aspects of the culture.

Try out getting involved, ideally with more than one group, and then reduce your involvement if it's not supportive, while keeping a foot in some other communities to make this easier.

Effective altruism has also faced its fair share of controversy, especially since the collapse of FTX, which has many questioning the community's organizations, culture, and even underlying ethos.

You can see some of the most common critiques of effective altruism over its history on its Wikipedia page and on the FAQ at effectivealtruism.org.

All that said, if you liked this guide, then you'll probably share AIMS with lots of people in the community and get a lot out of it.

We certainly have.

If you want to try getting involved, check out the resources in Appendix 7.

Other communities you may want to consider joining.

There are many other great communities that can help you have more impact or be more successful.

What matters is that you find people you can learn from and work with.

We know less about these communities, but we've got a few ideas about where to start.

First, we generally recommend getting involved in some communities especially focused on the global problems you're most interested in.

For instance, if you want to work on reducing the existential risks posed by the development of AI, you could consider getting involved with the AI alignment community.