From my viewpoint, to the extent the systemic change criticism of EA is correct, EA should internalize this criticism, and should effectively change socioeconomic systems better than leftists ever expected from us, and perhaps better than leftist political movements themselves (lots of them don’t appear to be active or at least effective in actually changing “the system” they themselves criticize EA for neglecting). If that’s the case, I think what we’ve been doing is mostly lip service, or bending the activities we currently support out of shape to look like the systemic change leftists criticize us for not engaging in enough. It’s plausible something like EA donations to Givewell-recommended charities like GiveDirectly or the AMF taken to their logical conclusion leads to the best systemic change we could reliably seek to enact. Yet I don’t think we’ve done our diligence to check that is in fact the case, or there is a kind of effective systemic socio-political/socio-economic change we should participate in.
While EA is quickly moving toward policy work, a comprehensive and legible slate of what the global EA efforts in this regard are doesn’t exist. I could tell you most of what’s going on in EA on the fronts of global poverty alleviation; mental health; animal welfare; AI alignment, and other x-risks. I’m not confident I could map out even a minority of the policy work going on in EA if someone asked me.
To the extent the systemic change criticism of EA is incorrect, as EA enters the policy arena more and more, we will once again come in friction with leftist (and other political movements), unlike EA has since its inception. The difference this time is we would be asserting the systemic change we’re pursuing is more effective (and/or in other ways better) than the systemic change other movements are engaging in. And if that’s the case, I think EA needs to engage the communities of our critics just as critically as they have engaged us. This is something I’ve begun working on myself.
I also don’t know of any single place where most EA policy work is gathered together for easy reference, and I’d be grateful to anyone who compiled such a resource.
To the extent the systemic change criticism of EA is correct, EA should internalize this criticism, and should effectively change socioeconomic systems better than leftists ever expected from us.
I maintain that I don’t think the criticism is “correct” in any meaningful sense. Past EA efforts to examine possibilities for systemic change generally concluded that doing so wasn’t worthwhile given the limited resources at our disposal (one notable exception is Open Phil, which has more available resources than any other organization in EA).
I’m in favor of more work on figuring out policy strategy from an effectiveness perspective, but I don’t know that “EA” is responsible for that work—it has to be done by individuals, and helped along by organizations who provide incentives to those individuals, but there are reasonable incentives in place already (at least for some areas of policy). Are there specific actors within EA who ought to be doing more, but aren’t?
(I often see arguments like “EA should do X”, but rarely “org Y should do X” or “individuals in group Z should do X”, even though arguments of the latter types seem more useful.)
Yet I don’t think we’ve done our diligence to check that is in fact the case, or there is a kind of effective systemic socio-political/socio-economic change we should participate in.
What would this due diligence look like? Is there a certain thing you wish someone had created that no one has? Have people created the kinds of things you want, but in a low-quality fashion?
I’m in favor of more work on figuring out policy strategy from an effectiveness perspective, but I don’t know that “EA” is responsible for that work
I agree. It’s my habit for the sake of argument in casual and generic discussions in EA to treat “EA” as a unitary blob of resources. I agree if we’re seriously trying to getpoliy specific, it doesn’t make sense to talk about EA as a whole unit, but the individual actions of particular actors in and around the EA ecosystem.
Are there specific actors within EA who ought to be doing more, but aren’t?
I haven’t thought about this enough to name specific organizations. There appear to be blocs within EA who support policy reform in particular areas, which may or may not be shared with the Open Philanthropy Project. However, unlike Open Phil, the most a bloc of supporters for a particular kind of policy reform in EA appear to organize themselves into is an informal association that is all talk, no action. When I think of EA-connected policy work, the following comes to mind:
Open Phil, through their grants.
The NGOs Open Phil grants to, which usually either predate EA, or are largely independent of the community aside from their relationship with Open Phil.
A number of academic/research policy institutes focused on global coordination, AI alignment, and other x-risks, launched in tandem with some of the world’s leading research universities, such as UC Berkeley, Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge.
In other words, these are all orgs that probably would have gotten off the ground, and could achieve their goals, without the support of EA, except for Open Phil as an EA-aligned org. And by “Open Phil”, it’s more like just Good Ventures and a handful of program officers. So if we subtract their efforts from the rest of the policy work the EA community can take credit for, there isn’t much left.
Collectively combined, the rest of the EA community is several thousand people with a decade of experience through dozens of independently launched NGOs/NPOs and tens of millions of dollars at their disposal who, for all we talk about public policy, haven’t done much about it. I believe some EA associations in Europe have done some policy consulting, yet, for example, in the United States, the most significant policy work that I’m aware has ever been tried in EA independent of Open Phil was EA Policy Analytics, which didn’t go very far.
What would this due diligence look like? Is there a certain thing you wish someone had created that no one has? Have people created the kinds of things you want, but in a low-quality fashion?
I’d like to see more comprehensive responses to individual critiques of EA in history, and also to the body of criticism of EA in general. I think the series of more informal blog posts different EAs have written as responses to such critiques over the years have been okay, but they haven’t really moved the dial. My impression EA, and our leftist critics, have reached a stand-still/impasse, but this is unnecessary. A systematic review of leftist criticism of EA is something I’m working on myself, though it isn’t at the top of my priority list to finish it in the near future.
From my viewpoint, to the extent the systemic change criticism of EA is correct, EA should internalize this criticism, and should effectively change socioeconomic systems better than leftists ever expected from us, and perhaps better than leftist political movements themselves (lots of them don’t appear to be active or at least effective in actually changing “the system” they themselves criticize EA for neglecting). If that’s the case, I think what we’ve been doing is mostly lip service, or bending the activities we currently support out of shape to look like the systemic change leftists criticize us for not engaging in enough. It’s plausible something like EA donations to Givewell-recommended charities like GiveDirectly or the AMF taken to their logical conclusion leads to the best systemic change we could reliably seek to enact. Yet I don’t think we’ve done our diligence to check that is in fact the case, or there is a kind of effective systemic socio-political/socio-economic change we should participate in.
While EA is quickly moving toward policy work, a comprehensive and legible slate of what the global EA efforts in this regard are doesn’t exist. I could tell you most of what’s going on in EA on the fronts of global poverty alleviation; mental health; animal welfare; AI alignment, and other x-risks. I’m not confident I could map out even a minority of the policy work going on in EA if someone asked me.
To the extent the systemic change criticism of EA is incorrect, as EA enters the policy arena more and more, we will once again come in friction with leftist (and other political movements), unlike EA has since its inception. The difference this time is we would be asserting the systemic change we’re pursuing is more effective (and/or in other ways better) than the systemic change other movements are engaging in. And if that’s the case, I think EA needs to engage the communities of our critics just as critically as they have engaged us. This is something I’ve begun working on myself.
I also don’t know of any single place where most EA policy work is gathered together for easy reference, and I’d be grateful to anyone who compiled such a resource.
I maintain that I don’t think the criticism is “correct” in any meaningful sense. Past EA efforts to examine possibilities for systemic change generally concluded that doing so wasn’t worthwhile given the limited resources at our disposal (one notable exception is Open Phil, which has more available resources than any other organization in EA).
I’m in favor of more work on figuring out policy strategy from an effectiveness perspective, but I don’t know that “EA” is responsible for that work—it has to be done by individuals, and helped along by organizations who provide incentives to those individuals, but there are reasonable incentives in place already (at least for some areas of policy). Are there specific actors within EA who ought to be doing more, but aren’t?
(I often see arguments like “EA should do X”, but rarely “org Y should do X” or “individuals in group Z should do X”, even though arguments of the latter types seem more useful.)
What would this due diligence look like? Is there a certain thing you wish someone had created that no one has? Have people created the kinds of things you want, but in a low-quality fashion?
Also, I expect GiveWell’s upcoming policy change work (and ongoing work by orgs like J-PAL that have GiveWell funding) to generate a lot of systematic change per dollar spent. Have you looked at J-PAL’s Innovation in Government Initiative at all?
I agree. It’s my habit for the sake of argument in casual and generic discussions in EA to treat “EA” as a unitary blob of resources. I agree if we’re seriously trying to getpoliy specific, it doesn’t make sense to talk about EA as a whole unit, but the individual actions of particular actors in and around the EA ecosystem.
I haven’t thought about this enough to name specific organizations. There appear to be blocs within EA who support policy reform in particular areas, which may or may not be shared with the Open Philanthropy Project. However, unlike Open Phil, the most a bloc of supporters for a particular kind of policy reform in EA appear to organize themselves into is an informal association that is all talk, no action. When I think of EA-connected policy work, the following comes to mind:
Open Phil, through their grants.
The NGOs Open Phil grants to, which usually either predate EA, or are largely independent of the community aside from their relationship with Open Phil.
A number of academic/research policy institutes focused on global coordination, AI alignment, and other x-risks, launched in tandem with some of the world’s leading research universities, such as UC Berkeley, Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge.
In other words, these are all orgs that probably would have gotten off the ground, and could achieve their goals, without the support of EA, except for Open Phil as an EA-aligned org. And by “Open Phil”, it’s more like just Good Ventures and a handful of program officers. So if we subtract their efforts from the rest of the policy work the EA community can take credit for, there isn’t much left.
Collectively combined, the rest of the EA community is several thousand people with a decade of experience through dozens of independently launched NGOs/NPOs and tens of millions of dollars at their disposal who, for all we talk about public policy, haven’t done much about it. I believe some EA associations in Europe have done some policy consulting, yet, for example, in the United States, the most significant policy work that I’m aware has ever been tried in EA independent of Open Phil was EA Policy Analytics, which didn’t go very far.
I’d like to see more comprehensive responses to individual critiques of EA in history, and also to the body of criticism of EA in general. I think the series of more informal blog posts different EAs have written as responses to such critiques over the years have been okay, but they haven’t really moved the dial. My impression EA, and our leftist critics, have reached a stand-still/impasse, but this is unnecessary. A systematic review of leftist criticism of EA is something I’m working on myself, though it isn’t at the top of my priority list to finish it in the near future.
I haven’t. I’ll check them out. I wasn’t aware of these developments, so thanks for bringing them to my attention.