I do think there’s hope for some quantitative estimates even in the speculative cases; for example Open Phil has mentioned that they are investigating the “value of the last dollar” to serve as a benchmark against which to compare current spending (though to my knowledge they haven’t said how they’re investigating it).
Ajeya explains it in her 80k interview and the result is:
“this estimate is roughly $200 trillion per world saved, in expectation. So, it’s actually like billions of dollars for some small fraction of the world saved, and dividing that out gets you to $200 trillion per world saved. This is quite good in the scheme of things, because it’s like less than two years’ worth of gross world product. It’s like everyone in the world working together on this one problem for like 18 months, to save the world.”
Ajeya explains it in her 80k interview and the result is:
“this estimate is roughly $200 trillion per world saved, in expectation. So, it’s actually like billions of dollars for some small fraction of the world saved, and dividing that out gets you to $200 trillion per world saved. This is quite good in the scheme of things, because it’s like less than two years’ worth of gross world product. It’s like everyone in the world working together on this one problem for like 18 months, to save the world.”