Kelsey Piper is an American journalist, currently a Staff Writer for Future Perfect.

Background

Piper studied symbolic systems at Stanford University. During her studies, she joined Giving What We Can and founded Stanford Effective Altruism.^[1] After graduation, Piper worked as lead of the writing team at Triplebyte, a recruiting and technical screening platform for tech companies.

Journalism career

Piper joined Vox in September 2018.^[2] As of May 2022, she has published over 290 articles on an extensive range of topics related to effective altruism, including animal product alternatives,^[3][4] cash transfers,^[5] climate change,^[6] COVID-19 pandemic,^[7][8] cultured meat,^[9] deworming,^[10] the Doomsday Clock,^[11][12] electoral reform,^[13][14] farmed animal welfare,^[15] forecasting,^[16][17] foreign aid,^[18][19] global catastrophic biological risk,^[20][21] global catastrophic risk,^[22][23] the hinge of history hypothesis,^[24] human extinction,^[25] information hazards,^[26] malaria,^[27][28] nuclear winter,^[29][30] pandemic preparedness, ^[31]prediction markets,^[32] space colonization,^[33] the timing of philanthropy,^[34][35] universal basic income,^[36][37] and the vulnerable world hypothesis,^[38] among many others.^[39]

Piper's article outlining the case for taking artificial intelligence as an existential risk seriously has been praised by many as a rigorous yet accessible introduction to the topic.^[40]

In early February 2020, when less than a dozen COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in the United States and many media outlets and health authorities were dismissive of the risks posed by SARS-CoV-2, Piper wrote about the possibility that it might become a global pandemic and emphasized the importance of an early response.^[7][41]