Learning about effective altruism helped me grapple with big questions about what it means to help others. I’ve found more clarity and a sense of community by engaging with EA. Now I'm a PhD student at the University of Cambridge researching labor law and artificial intelligence. I’m also a research affiliate at the Institute for Law and AI and the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, and a coordinator of the ILINA program focused on AI safety in the Global South and Africa.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to pursue the corporate jobs people typically do after studying law. They didn't seem impactful or helpful enough to me, and I was curious about what it meant to be an impactful person.
At some point, I started reading news articles about the EA movement, and found that I admired the lives of people practicing EA principles. Will MacAskill's writing had a big impact on me, as did the work of Cullen O'Keefe. The idea that we should use evidence and reason to make decisions has always appealed to me. I really resonated with the view that every human being matters equally, wherever they are in the world.
"There's nothing that says we can't care about someone who's millions of miles away the same way we care about someone who's very close to us."
EA has significantly shaped where I direct my giving and what I work on. I'd say maybe 60-70% of my focus on artificial intelligence is influenced by effective altruism. Plus, EA has influenced my general approach to doing good and widened my moral circle.
"We can be more than we often make ourselves out to be, especially morally speaking. We can do more, we can be more."
Effective altruism is quite different from the ways of thinking I grew up with in Nairobi, so living by these principles can get a bit lonely. But EA is the most convincing moral framework I’ve come across. I've met some really great, genuinely kind, and hardworking people in the community. I’m consistently inspired by what they care about, what they're doing, and how they're doing it.
To me, effective altruism means looking beyond yourself, using reason and evidence, and finding a lovely community. To anyone new to effective altruism, I recommend actively exploring its ideas. Read the old stuff, read the new stuff, and try to attend an event. For those who are from non-Western backgrounds, there can be a worry that EA is a Western way of thinking. It's understandable to have doubts, but don't let that stop you from exploring it for yourself.
