How would this be effective, rather than creating additional work on granmakers and increasing the entry barriers for grantees. Seems to many similar schemes for other kinds of risk end up as meaningless box-ticking enterprises which would lead to less effectiveness and possibly reputational harm to EA.
This is my prior when I hear a new audit proposed, though I hope it won’t apply in your case.
I agree that there is a risk that this leads to additional burden without meaningful impact.
Seeing the numbers of certifications currently deployed that are used public-facing for marketing as well as to reduce supply-chain risks (see for example this certifier) I would see the chance that longtermist causes like biosecurity risks will be incorporated into existing standards or launched as new standards within the next 10 years at 70%.
If we can preempt this with building one or more standards based on actual expected impact instead of just using it to tick boxes. If this bet works out then we might make a counterfactual impact however I would also like to see the organisation shut down after doing research if it doesn’t see a path to a certification having impact.
How would this be effective, rather than creating additional work on granmakers and increasing the entry barriers for grantees. Seems to many similar schemes for other kinds of risk end up as meaningless box-ticking enterprises which would lead to less effectiveness and possibly reputational harm to EA.
This is my prior when I hear a new audit proposed, though I hope it won’t apply in your case.
I agree that there is a risk that this leads to additional burden without meaningful impact.
Seeing the numbers of certifications currently deployed that are used public-facing for marketing as well as to reduce supply-chain risks (see for example this certifier) I would see the chance that longtermist causes like biosecurity risks will be incorporated into existing standards or launched as new standards within the next 10 years at 70%.
If we can preempt this with building one or more standards based on actual expected impact instead of just using it to tick boxes. If this bet works out then we might make a counterfactual impact however I would also like to see the organisation shut down after doing research if it doesn’t see a path to a certification having impact.