A

Altruism: The principle or practice of concern for the welfare of others.

AI Safety: The field of study focused on ensuring that artificial intelligence systems are designed and deployed in ways that are safe and beneficial to humanity.

Applied Ethics: The practical application of moral considerations to specific issues or fields.

B

Biosecurity: Procedures intended to protect humans or animals against disease or harmful biological agents.

Bayesian Reasoning: A method of statistical inference in which Bayes' theorem is used to update the probability for a hypothesis as more evidence or information becomes available.

C

Cause Prioritization: The process of comparing different charitable causes to determine which ones should be given the most resources.

Counterfactual Impact: The difference between what happens as a result of an action and what would have happened otherwise.

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: A form of economic analysis that compares the relative costs and outcomes (effects) of different courses of action.

D

Developing World: Also known as the Global South, refers to low and middle-income countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Dustspecks vs. Torture: A thought experiment in ethics comparing the aggregate discomfort of a vast number of people experiencing a minor inconvenience to the intense suffering of one individual.

E

Effective Altruism (EA): A philosophical and social movement that advocates using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis.

Existential Risk: The risk of an event that could cause human extinction or permanently and drastically curtail humanity's potential.

Expected Value: The anticipated value of an action, calculated by multiplying the value of each possible outcome by its probability of occurrence and then summing these products.

F

Funding Overhang: A situation where there is more money available for effective interventions than there are interventions or organizations that can effectively use it.

Fermi Estimate: A rough calculation made with little or no actual data, used to make order-of-magnitude estimates.

G

Global Catastrophic Risk: A hypothetical future event that could damage human well-being on a global scale.

Global Priorities Research: Research that attempts to determine how we can do the most good with our limited resources.

H

Hedonic Treadmill: The tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.

Humane Animal Farming: Efforts to improve the welfare of animals raised for food production.

I

Impact Evaluation: The process of assessing the changes that can be attributed to a particular intervention or project.

Institutional Decision-Making: The study of how large organizations make decisions, with the aim of improving those processes to lead to better outcomes.

L

Longtermism: The view that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time.

Logarithmic Scaling: A way of displaying numerical data over a very wide range of values in a compact way.

M

Metacharities: Organizations that support or evaluate other charities, rather than carrying out direct work themselves.

Moral Uncertainty: The idea that we should take into account the possibility that our moral views may be mistaken when making decisions.

N

Neglectedness: In the context of cause prioritization, the extent to which a cause area is overlooked by others, potentially making additional work in that area more valuable.

Neartermism: The view that we should focus primarily on improving the lives of currently existing individuals and near-future generations.

O

Opportunity Cost: The loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.

Optimization: The process of making something as effective or functional as possible.

P

Philanthropic Diversification: The strategy of spreading charitable donations across multiple causes to reduce risk and potentially increase overall impact.

Proximate Cause: The event which directly results in an effect, as opposed to an ultimate or root cause.

Q

Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY): A measure of the state of health of a person or group in which the benefits, in terms of length of life, are adjusted to reflect the quality of life.

R

Rationality: The quality of being based on or in accordance with reason or logic.

Robust Decision Making: An approach to decision making that seeks to identify decisions that perform well across a wide range of potential futures.

S

Scope Insensitivity: The tendency for people to undervalue the importance of saving larger numbers of lives or resources.

System Change: Efforts to address social or environmental issues by fundamentally altering the underlying structures or mechanisms that cause those issues.

T

Tractability: In the context of cause prioritization, the extent to which additional resources or effort devoted to a cause are likely to make progress.

Theory of Change: A comprehensive description and illustration of how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context.

U

Utility: In economics and ethics, a measure of the happiness or satisfaction gained from a good or service.

Utilitarianism: The doctrine that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of a majority.

V

Value Alignment: The challenge of designing AI systems whose goals and behaviors align with human values.

Veil of Ignorance: A method of determining the morality of issues by assuming that parties involved are unaware of their particular talents, abilities, tastes, social status, and cultural identity.

W

Wild Animal Suffering: The suffering experienced by animals in nature, often due to disease, starvation, or predation.

Wicked Problem: A problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize.

X

X-risk: Short for existential risk, referring to risks that threaten the existence of humanity.

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