We’ve discussed this internally, but I want to register that I continue to think that while there are considerable costs and risks to organizations for giving feedback, there are also considerable benefits to individuals for precise, actionable feedback as well, and the case has not been adequately made that the revealed preferences of orgs is anywhere close to altruistically optimal.
In particular, I also have not seeing much evidence that the legal risks are actually considerable in EV terms compared to either the org time costs of giving feedback or the individual practical benefits of receiving feedback.
Hiya—EA lawyer here. While the US legal system is generally a mess and you can find examples of people suing for all sorts of stuff, I think the risk of giving honest feedback (especially when presented with ordinary sensitivity to people you believe to be average-or-better-intentioned) is minimal. I’d be very surprised if it contributed significantly to the bottom-line evaluation here, and would be interested to speak to any lawyer who disagreed about their reasons for doing so.
Yeah we can discuss this a bit more, in particular if it looks like we studied it and it’s actually too time-consuming/risky or if it’s too expensive or time-consuming to do the legal research to figure out whether it’s too risky, I’m happy to continue to abide by the current policy! Just want to make sure the policy is evidence-based or at least based on evidence that being evidence-based is too hard!
Insurance seems like a fairly poor tool here, since there’s a significant moral hazard effect (insurance makes people less careful about taking steps to minimize exposure), which could lead to dynamics where the price goes really high and then only the people who are most likely to attract lawsuits still take the insurance …
Actually if there were a market in this I’d expect the insurers as condition of cover to demand legible steps to reduce exposure … like not giving feedback to unsuccessful applicants.
The moral hazard effect might be reduced if insurance is approved for one proposed hiring methodology, rather than without conditions.
I’m also not thinking of it as a general market, but rather as an intervention that a deep-pocketed organization (realistically OpenPhil) could offer smaller (and thus perhaps more risk-averse) organizations.
The standard two arguments for the asymmetric risks of offering insurance are adverse selection and moral hazard. Note that these claims risk being a fully-general argument, as this will all else equal be a good argument against all insurance (and indeed is taught that way in econ textbooks), but insurance companies can just increase rates to adjust for this.
I’m sure this is also covered in the literature, but having an organization with deep pockets cover the insurance also makes your org a juicier target for lawsuits than usual, in addition to the standard arguments.
Hmm, insurance is only a good solution if the expected costs are low relative to the benefits but the variance is high and you don’t want to be exposed to that risk. Insurance is not a good solution if the expected costs are sufficiently high.
Though that said, one issue is that orgs are insufficiently capable of individually assessing risks, so if a centralized body can estimate the relevant risks and price them accordingly, orgs can decide for themselves whether it’s worth it.
We’ve discussed this internally, but I want to register that I continue to think that while there are considerable costs and risks to organizations for giving feedback, there are also considerable benefits to individuals for precise, actionable feedback as well, and the case has not been adequately made that the revealed preferences of orgs is anywhere close to altruistically optimal.
In particular, I also have not seeing much evidence that the legal risks are actually considerable in EV terms compared to either the org time costs of giving feedback or the individual practical benefits of receiving feedback.
(all views my view, of course)
Hiya—EA lawyer here. While the US legal system is generally a mess and you can find examples of people suing for all sorts of stuff, I think the risk of giving honest feedback (especially when presented with ordinary sensitivity to people you believe to be average-or-better-intentioned) is minimal. I’d be very surprised if it contributed significantly to the bottom-line evaluation here, and would be interested to speak to any lawyer who disagreed about their reasons for doing so.
Yeah we can look into changing our policy
Really appreciate this!
Yeah we can discuss this a bit more, in particular if it looks like we studied it and it’s actually too time-consuming/risky or if it’s too expensive or time-consuming to do the legal research to figure out whether it’s too risky, I’m happy to continue to abide by the current policy! Just want to make sure the policy is evidence-based or at least based on evidence that being evidence-based is too hard!
Note that there is a mechanistic way of solving this by offering insurance in the case of being sued for discrimination.
Insurance seems like a fairly poor tool here, since there’s a significant moral hazard effect (insurance makes people less careful about taking steps to minimize exposure), which could lead to dynamics where the price goes really high and then only the people who are most likely to attract lawsuits still take the insurance …
Actually if there were a market in this I’d expect the insurers as condition of cover to demand legible steps to reduce exposure … like not giving feedback to unsuccessful applicants.
The moral hazard effect might be reduced if insurance is approved for one proposed hiring methodology, rather than without conditions.
I’m also not thinking of it as a general market, but rather as an intervention that a deep-pocketed organization (realistically OpenPhil) could offer smaller (and thus perhaps more risk-averse) organizations.
The standard two arguments for the asymmetric risks of offering insurance are adverse selection and moral hazard. Note that these claims risk being a fully-general argument, as this will all else equal be a good argument against all insurance (and indeed is taught that way in econ textbooks), but insurance companies can just increase rates to adjust for this.
I’m sure this is also covered in the literature, but having an organization with deep pockets cover the insurance also makes your org a juicier target for lawsuits than usual, in addition to the standard arguments.
Hmm, insurance is only a good solution if the expected costs are low relative to the benefits but the variance is high and you don’t want to be exposed to that risk. Insurance is not a good solution if the expected costs are sufficiently high.
Though that said, one issue is that orgs are insufficiently capable of individually assessing risks, so if a centralized body can estimate the relevant risks and price them accordingly, orgs can decide for themselves whether it’s worth it.