I haven’t looked into specific nuclear orgs so am pretty uncertain about this, but suspect there are probably good funding opportunities in this space.
To speculate on why no funders have stepped into the breach, though:
Macarthur could have good reason to change their priorities. Nuclear work may just be super intractable. Maybe we can still make much more progress on other issues.
Macarthur has funded 88 other organizations in nuclear issues in addition to NTI. EAs are aware of NTI because orgs like Open Phil have supported their bio work previously, but it would be good to look at the other orgs that Macarthur funded too to see who else is out there. With 89 orgs to choose from, it’s plausible that NTI is not the best funding opp at the margin. But working out which funding opportunities would be most valuable at the margin is a lot fo work.
Macarthur represents about 45% of total funding in the space. That’s a lot, but I’d expect the remaining 55% to be shifted around a bit and hopefully cover the most marginally-valuable opportunities
To respond to some of your specific points:
I’m unsure how relevant the “EA has a lot of money right now” point is. There’s lots of stuff to fund, and saving can still be good because (1) we may learn a lot more about good stuff to fund in the coming years and decades and (2) the fields we’re pretty sure are good to fund are still growing, and it might be worth saving our money so we can grant more to those fields in the future.
There’s a war going on now, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing NTI can do to reduce nuclear risk right now. The question is whether we think total risk from nukes in the medium-to-long term has increased. Or these issues might become more tractable to work on as they’re more salient now. This might make funding the work of NTI and similar orgs more attractive. But it’s complicated.
Not sure I understand the point about “hiding it”—are you asking if there are plans to fund this stuff that funders just aren’t discussing yet?
Again, I’m on the whole sympathetic to your view. I’m not sure how many EAs should be thinking about and funding nuclear/conflict issues, but the answer, IMO, is not 0. But I do also think there are good reasons not to rush into the space, and it’s not obviously wrong that no one has stepped up to fund NTI.
I haven’t looked into specific nuclear orgs so am pretty uncertain about this, but suspect there are probably good funding opportunities in this space.
To speculate on why no funders have stepped into the breach, though:
Macarthur could have good reason to change their priorities. Nuclear work may just be super intractable. Maybe we can still make much more progress on other issues.
Macarthur has funded 88 other organizations in nuclear issues in addition to NTI. EAs are aware of NTI because orgs like Open Phil have supported their bio work previously, but it would be good to look at the other orgs that Macarthur funded too to see who else is out there. With 89 orgs to choose from, it’s plausible that NTI is not the best funding opp at the margin. But working out which funding opportunities would be most valuable at the margin is a lot fo work.
Macarthur represents about 45% of total funding in the space. That’s a lot, but I’d expect the remaining 55% to be shifted around a bit and hopefully cover the most marginally-valuable opportunities
To respond to some of your specific points:
I’m unsure how relevant the “EA has a lot of money right now” point is. There’s lots of stuff to fund, and saving can still be good because (1) we may learn a lot more about good stuff to fund in the coming years and decades and (2) the fields we’re pretty sure are good to fund are still growing, and it might be worth saving our money so we can grant more to those fields in the future.
There’s a war going on now, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing NTI can do to reduce nuclear risk right now. The question is whether we think total risk from nukes in the medium-to-long term has increased. Or these issues might become more tractable to work on as they’re more salient now. This might make funding the work of NTI and similar orgs more attractive. But it’s complicated.
Not sure I understand the point about “hiding it”—are you asking if there are plans to fund this stuff that funders just aren’t discussing yet?
Again, I’m on the whole sympathetic to your view. I’m not sure how many EAs should be thinking about and funding nuclear/conflict issues, but the answer, IMO, is not 0. But I do also think there are good reasons not to rush into the space, and it’s not obviously wrong that no one has stepped up to fund NTI.