EdoArad🔸 comments on My impact assessment of Giving What We Can

[EdoArad🔸]

Interesting work, thanks! Some questions and comments:

1

Finally, I obtained the realistic and optimistic values of the pledge by adding the minimum and maximum of the above to the pessimistic value.

I didn’t really understand this part (and the computation in the table is in hidden sheets). What do you refer to in “the above” and the “pessimistic value”?

2

In the computation of the pessimistic multipliers, you multiply several “pessimistic” values. This makes the overall result likely even more pessimistic than warranted. Similarly for optimistic.

3

Many of the links are broken. (incorrect parsing of #s, say)

[Vasco Grilo🔸]

Hi Edo,

Thanks for the questions and comments!

I didn’t really understand this part (and the computation in the table is in hidden sheets). What do you refer to in “the above” and the “pessimistic value”?

Sorry, it was confusing. I have now updated the sentence to:

Finally, I obtained the realistic and optimistic values of the pledge by adding the donations caused by GWWC assuming no further donations (the pessimistic value of the pledge) to the minimum and maximum of the above (future donations caused by GWWC assuming constant or exponential extrapolation).

2 is a great point! Added:

• I obtained the pessimistic/​optimistic non-marginal cost-effectiveness multiplying the pessimistic/​optimistic GWWC multiplier by the 5th/​95th percentile marginal cost-effectiveness of longtermism and catastrophic risk prevention. So my pessimistic/​optimistic non-marginal cost-effectiveness is more pessimistic/​optimistic than my pessimistic/​optimistic GWWC multiplier. Thanks to Edo for commenting on this.

The last point means I may be overestimating the uncertainty around GWWC’s cost-effectiveness. On the other hand, I have neglected the uncertainty of other factors, such as the reporting and counterfactuality coefficients, and the fraction of donations going to creating a better future.

Thanks for noting that:

Many of the links are broken. (incorrect parsing of On the Universal Distribution

I think I have now fixed them all.

[EdoArad🔸]

Thanks, much clearer :)

(In case anyone is confused about the mysterious link in Vasco’s comment, it’s because writing “#” expands into a suggested post:

)