I suspect that funders in general, but especially altruists, and double-especially effective altruists, should be investing in prizes more on the margin. Briefly, some arguments in favor:
It is much easier to evaluate interventions after the fact. In fact, that is what most EA donors are already doing, but in a way that forces an intervention to be very similar to something else that has already happened if it wants to be funded.
The incentives created by prize funding tend to be much better.
Standard mechanisms can overcome many of the costs of prizes (esp. the inability of prospective grantees / prize-recipients to fund their projects if they don’t win a prize), and the development of such institutions would be a huge public good.
The evaluation process for prizes tends to substantially reinforce EA values, as compared to the more typical grant-making process.
There are a number of ways in which an economically sound EA prize would differ from usual philanthropic prizes (which are typically engineered with the PR impact in mind, rather than as a sustainable funding source). I hope to write a post about this eventually (both w.r.t. the economic arguments, and particularly promising opportunities at the moment). But I’m always interested in thoughts.
I’d be very interested in seeing a post from you on this. I don’t think it is obvious that:
double especially effective altruists should be investing in prizes more on the margin
as it might be that the ideal investment in them at this stage is still zero, even if that would change later. The counterfactuals with prizes are actually quite hard to evaluate—you could easily have no effect if the work was going to be done anyway (I think this bites harder here than in more typical granting). I’d love to see a well considered article on prizes, taking concerns like this into account.
I suspect that funders in general, but especially altruists, and double-especially effective altruists, should be investing in prizes more on the margin. Briefly, some arguments in favor:
It is much easier to evaluate interventions after the fact. In fact, that is what most EA donors are already doing, but in a way that forces an intervention to be very similar to something else that has already happened if it wants to be funded.
The incentives created by prize funding tend to be much better.
Standard mechanisms can overcome many of the costs of prizes (esp. the inability of prospective grantees / prize-recipients to fund their projects if they don’t win a prize), and the development of such institutions would be a huge public good.
The evaluation process for prizes tends to substantially reinforce EA values, as compared to the more typical grant-making process.
There are a number of ways in which an economically sound EA prize would differ from usual philanthropic prizes (which are typically engineered with the PR impact in mind, rather than as a sustainable funding source). I hope to write a post about this eventually (both w.r.t. the economic arguments, and particularly promising opportunities at the moment). But I’m always interested in thoughts.
I’d be very interested in seeing a post from you on this. I don’t think it is obvious that:
as it might be that the ideal investment in them at this stage is still zero, even if that would change later. The counterfactuals with prizes are actually quite hard to evaluate—you could easily have no effect if the work was going to be done anyway (I think this bites harder here than in more typical granting). I’d love to see a well considered article on prizes, taking concerns like this into account.
I’ve been thinking along similar lines. I at least think this ought to be investigated further.