Worst credible information about a charity that I would expect based on the following description (pulled from Google’s generative AI summary: may or may not be accurate, but seemed like the best balance to me of engaging with some information quickly):
Nonlinear is an organization that funds and researches AI safety interventions. They also offer an incubation program that provides seed funding and mentorship. The Nonlinear Library is a podcast that uses text-to-speech software to convert the best writing from the rationalist and EA communities into audio.
The Nonlinear Fund is an organization that aims to research, fund, and seed AI safety interventions. Their incubation program provides seed funding and mentorship. The seed funding is for a year’s salary, but you can also use it for other things, such as hiring other people.
The Nonlinear Library is a podcast that uses text-to-speech software to convert the best writing from the rationalist and EA communities into audio. You can listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
I am not describing a charity with ideal management practices, but envisioning one with 25 employees, active for 5 years, and which has poor but not shockingly or offensively bad governance by the standards of EA orgs. Someplace where I wouldn’t be worried if a friend worked there, but I would sympathetically listen to their complaints and consider them not the best use of my marginal dollar.
Credible accusations of sexual harassment by at least one current or former employee
One or more incidents of notable financial mismanagement
Promised use of donor funds that did not materialize into a finished project (less than 10% of one year’s annual budget in scope)
Credible evidence of evading employment or tax law in some way that, when framed by a hostile observer, looks “pretty bad”: I do not expect sweatshops, but encouraging employees to violate the terms of visas or preferentially hiring donors in a way that can be made to sound scary.
Multiple stories of funding going to friends and personal contacts rather than “objectively better” candidates who did not have personal contacts.
Credible evidence that a moderately important claim they fundraised on continued to be propagated after it stopped being true or the evidence for it was much weaker than previously thought.
Maybe I am excessively cynical about what bad things happen at small charities, but this feels like a reasonable list to me. There may be other events of similar badness.
To check, I am reading you as saying that you used Google’s AI to generate that description of Nonlinear, and then you wrote down what you expected, assuming that it had 25 employees and was active for 5 years.
It does seem that the org is much smaller than you expected. Nonetheless I’d be interested to read about how surprised you are by the content of the post after stating your anticipations.
Correct: I’m vaguely aware of Kat Woods posting on FB, but haven’t investigated Nonlinear in any depth before: having an explicit definition of “what information I’m working with” seemed useful.
Yes, Nonlinear is smaller than expected.
I outlined a bad org with problems, even after adjusting for a hostile reporter and a vengeful ex-employee. I think that the evidence is somewhat weaker than what I expect, not counting that I trust you personally, and the allegations are stronger/worse. Overall, it was a negative update about Nonlinear.
I don’t think that this is a good state of affairs. I think that the points I raise range from “this should be completely unacceptable” (4, 6) to “if this is the worst credible information that can be shared, the org is probably doing very well (3, 5)”. This is not a description of an org that I would support! But if a friend told me they were doing good work there and they felt the problems were blown out of proportion or context by a hostile critic and a vengeful ex-employee with an axe to grind, I would take them seriously and not say “you have to leave immediately. I can cover two months salary for you while you find another job, but I believe that strongly that you should not work here.”
As always, context is important: “the head of the org is a serial harasser with no effective checks” and “we fired someone when their subordinate came forward with a sexual harassment allegation that, after a one-week investigation, we validated and found credible: the victim is happily employed by us today” are very different states of affairs. If someone is sharing the worst credible information, then the difference between “we were slow to update on X” and “they knew X was false from the report by A, but didn’t change their marketing materials for another six months” can be hard to distinguish.
Running an org is complicated and hard, and I think many people underestimate how much negative spin a third party with access to full information can include. I am deliberately not modelling “Ben Pace, who I have known for almost a decade” and instead framing “hostile journalist looking for clicks”, which I think is the appropriate frame of reference.
Worst credible information about a charity that I would expect based on the following description (pulled from Google’s generative AI summary: may or may not be accurate, but seemed like the best balance to me of engaging with some information quickly):
I am not describing a charity with ideal management practices, but envisioning one with 25 employees, active for 5 years, and which has poor but not shockingly or offensively bad governance by the standards of EA orgs. Someplace where I wouldn’t be worried if a friend worked there, but I would sympathetically listen to their complaints and consider them not the best use of my marginal dollar.
Credible accusations of sexual harassment by at least one current or former employee
One or more incidents of notable financial mismanagement
Promised use of donor funds that did not materialize into a finished project (less than 10% of one year’s annual budget in scope)
Credible evidence of evading employment or tax law in some way that, when framed by a hostile observer, looks “pretty bad”: I do not expect sweatshops, but encouraging employees to violate the terms of visas or preferentially hiring donors in a way that can be made to sound scary.
Multiple stories of funding going to friends and personal contacts rather than “objectively better” candidates who did not have personal contacts.
Credible evidence that a moderately important claim they fundraised on continued to be propagated after it stopped being true or the evidence for it was much weaker than previously thought.
Maybe I am excessively cynical about what bad things happen at small charities, but this feels like a reasonable list to me. There may be other events of similar badness.
To check, I am reading you as saying that you used Google’s AI to generate that description of Nonlinear, and then you wrote down what you expected, assuming that it had 25 employees and was active for 5 years.
It does seem that the org is much smaller than you expected. Nonetheless I’d be interested to read about how surprised you are by the content of the post after stating your anticipations.
Correct: I’m vaguely aware of Kat Woods posting on FB, but haven’t investigated Nonlinear in any depth before: having an explicit definition of “what information I’m working with” seemed useful.
Yes, Nonlinear is smaller than expected.
I outlined a bad org with problems, even after adjusting for a hostile reporter and a vengeful ex-employee. I think that the evidence is somewhat weaker than what I expect, not counting that I trust you personally, and the allegations are stronger/worse. Overall, it was a negative update about Nonlinear.
Sure though there is a question of whether such behavior should have punishment in this community.
I don’t think that this is a good state of affairs. I think that the points I raise range from “this should be completely unacceptable” (4, 6) to “if this is the worst credible information that can be shared, the org is probably doing very well (3, 5)”. This is not a description of an org that I would support! But if a friend told me they were doing good work there and they felt the problems were blown out of proportion or context by a hostile critic and a vengeful ex-employee with an axe to grind, I would take them seriously and not say “you have to leave immediately. I can cover two months salary for you while you find another job, but I believe that strongly that you should not work here.”
As always, context is important: “the head of the org is a serial harasser with no effective checks” and “we fired someone when their subordinate came forward with a sexual harassment allegation that, after a one-week investigation, we validated and found credible: the victim is happily employed by us today” are very different states of affairs. If someone is sharing the worst credible information, then the difference between “we were slow to update on X” and “they knew X was false from the report by A, but didn’t change their marketing materials for another six months” can be hard to distinguish.
Running an org is complicated and hard, and I think many people underestimate how much negative spin a third party with access to full information can include. I am deliberately not modelling “Ben Pace, who I have known for almost a decade” and instead framing “hostile journalist looking for clicks”, which I think is the appropriate frame of reference.