This work was meant to be built on. Hopefully there will be more similar work going forward (by both us and others), so much of the purpose here is to lay some foundation and help dip our toes into this sort of evaluation. (It can be controversial or harmful, so we’re going slowly). As such, ideas for improvement are most welcome!
I’ve read the larger review. I’d note that there were few groups that really surprised me. If you go through the list of grantees, and think about what you know of each candidate, I’d bet you can get a roughly similar sense. (This is true for those who read LW/EA Forum frequently). One of the main purposes of this sort of work is to either find or try and fail to find big surprises. From my perspective, I think that groups/individuals who had previously provided value (different from seeming prestigious, to be clear), went on to provide more value, and those that hadn’t didn’t do as well.
This work wasn’t done with the particular intention of helping to decide between EA Funds. We have been doing some other investigation here, somewhat accidentally (I’ve been assisting a donor lottery winner to decide). It’s a good thing to keep in mind going forward.
It would be great to later have measures of total impact for longtermism. We don’t have strong measures now, but would love to help develop these (or further encourage others to).
Some quick thoughts:
This work was meant to be built on. Hopefully there will be more similar work going forward (by both us and others), so much of the purpose here is to lay some foundation and help dip our toes into this sort of evaluation. (It can be controversial or harmful, so we’re going slowly). As such, ideas for improvement are most welcome!
I’ve read the larger review. I’d note that there were few groups that really surprised me. If you go through the list of grantees, and think about what you know of each candidate, I’d bet you can get a roughly similar sense. (This is true for those who read LW/EA Forum frequently). One of the main purposes of this sort of work is to either find or try and fail to find big surprises. From my perspective, I think that groups/individuals who had previously provided value (different from seeming prestigious, to be clear), went on to provide more value, and those that hadn’t didn’t do as well.
This work wasn’t done with the particular intention of helping to decide between EA Funds. We have been doing some other investigation here, somewhat accidentally (I’ve been assisting a donor lottery winner to decide). It’s a good thing to keep in mind going forward.
It would be great to later have measures of total impact for longtermism. We don’t have strong measures now, but would love to help develop these (or further encourage others to).