Community

Joining a community can be a great way to increase your impact — and a rewarding one, too.

It can enable you to make hundreds of connections in one go and coordinate with others to achieve more than you could individually. Plus, many people find being part of a community motivating and meaningful.

There are many great communities focused on doing good, but we’re especially excited about two we consider ourselves part of:¹

• The AI safety community: people from a range of backgrounds — both technical and non-technical — working on risks from advanced AI, which we think are the biggest issues facing humanity right now.
• The effective altruism (EA) community, which we helped to found in 2011: a global network of people using evidence and reason to do good. Many members are working on problems we think are really pressing — including, but not limited to, AI risks.

This page explains how to get involved.

Meet people working on the world’s most pressing problems

Attend conferences

Our top advice is to attend an Effective Altruism Global conference, where you’ll meet people working on a range of pressing world problems — including the risks from AI, biosecurity, ending factory farming, and more.

These events include:

• EAG(x) series and EA summits: locally organised conferences which have taken place across the world — including Santiago, Warsaw, Jaipur, Manila, Abuja, Sydney, Toronto, as well as virtually. They’re especially useful for newcomers to effective altruism.
• EAG series: global conferences targeted at people who are already familiar with effective altruism. They happen two or three times a year, usually in London and San Francisco, and travel grants are available.

Apply to these events

If you want to work on AI risks, also check out these conferences:

• NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR: the world’s leading AI conferences, taking place yearly in different cities around the world. Many attendees are working to tackle AI risks, and there are often workshops on AI safety.
• IASEAI: annual conferences in Paris, the first of which took place ahead of the 2025 AI Action Summit. It also has workshops you can apply for.
• The ILIAD Conference: a technical conference on AI alignment taking place in Berkeley, California.
• The Technical AI Safety Conference (TAIS): a series of technical workshops taking place in Tokyo.

Join a local group

There are hundreds of EA groups in cities and universities around the world, and a growing number of AI safety groups. If you’re a student, we especially recommend getting involved in a university group.

To find groups near you, check out the AISafety.com community page or the effective altruism directory.

Visit a hub

There are some cities with lots of people interested in these ideas — along with regular meetups, co-working spaces, and informal gatherings where you can meet them.

Travelling to a hub isn’t practical for everyone. But if you’re excited by the idea and have the flexibility, it can be a great way to build relationships in the AI safety or EA community.

The main hubs are:

• The San Francisco Bay Area in California
• London, Oxford, and Cambridge in the UK
• Washington, DC (especially for US policy)
• Boston and Cambridge in Massachusetts (especially for biorisk)
• Plus New York, Sydney, Melbourne, Berlin, and many other major cities

Tip: Get the most out of your visit by planning it around a conference or local meetup!

Take part in a structured virtual programme

An online programme or course can help you build knowledge while connecting with others who are motivated to work on the same issues.

We’d especially recommend:

• BlueDot Impact courses: these multi-week programmes are the best ones we know of for getting up to speed with key concepts in AI safety and governance. The guided discussion format allows you to talk through your ideas with people who have similar interests.
  • Find courses and apply.
• EA Virtual Programs: guided group discussions on the core ideas behind effective altruism — including the importance of tackling AI risks — which take place over several weeks. There are programmes targeting different levels of familiarity with the concepts.
  • Find courses and apply.

Build an online presence

Our top picks here are:

• Joining the Effective Altruism Forum: a place for thoughtful discussion of the ideas behind effective altruism and the high-impact work that people are doing.
• Joining the AI Alignment Slack: brings together thousands of people who are interested in tackling AI risks. A place for discussion, sharing resources, and posting about events and opportunities.

You can also build an online presence on social media platforms. Our advisors sometimes recommend being active on X/Twitter — it’s surprisingly effective for getting noticed and staying plugged in, especially if you’re interested in the AI policy space.

Tips for meeting people online:

You’ll need to take some initiative to make yourself visible to an online community. Try writing a helpful blog post, leaving thoughtful comments on someone else’s tweet, or starting a discussion in a Slack channel.

It’s also common to build your network by cold emailing people whose work you find interesting. This can feel daunting, and people won’t always reply — but as long as you’re respectful, there’s not much downside to reaching out! You can find example email scripts on our website.

Hear more about what’s happening

To stay up to date, you can:

Subscribe to our newsletter to have opportunities to get involved sent to your inbox and get updates on our research.

• Or subscribe to the EA Newsletter.
• If you’re interested in working on AI risks, you can also check out the resources on AISafety.com.

Explore other communities

There are many other great communities that can help you boost your impact. Depending on your priorities and worldview, one of these might be a better fit.

We discuss some other communities you might want to join and how to find the right community for you in our full article on the value of joining a community.

Tip: It’s often worth exploring several different communities to find out which environments suit you the best. Having connections across multiple communities also helps you maintain perspective and avoid echo chamber effects.

Of course, you don’t have to join a community to have a big impact — so if none of the options seem like a good fit for you, that’s OK.

What’s next?

If you’re not sure what to do next, you can apply to speak with one of our advisors.

They can help you:

• Connect with people working on pressing world problems
• Get personalised advice on your next career steps

Apply to speak with an advisor