I generally agree, but I think that we are nowhere near being able to say, “The risk of future climate catastrophe was previously 29.5 percent, but thanks to my organization’s work, that risk has been reduced to 29.4 percent, thus justifying the money spent.” The whole idea of making grants on such a slender basis of unprovable speculation is radically different from the traditional EA approach of demanding multiple RCTs. Might be a great idea, but still a totally different thing. Shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath.
There are probably good proxies for climate effects though: i.e. reductions in more measurable stuff, so I think the situation is no that analogous to AI. And some global health and development stuff involves things where the outcome we actually care about is hard to measure: i.e. Deworming and it’s possible positive effects on later earnings, and presumably well-being. We know deworming gets rid of worms, but the literature on the benefits of this is famously contentious.
I generally agree, but I think that we are nowhere near being able to say, “The risk of future climate catastrophe was previously 29.5 percent, but thanks to my organization’s work, that risk has been reduced to 29.4 percent, thus justifying the money spent.” The whole idea of making grants on such a slender basis of unprovable speculation is radically different from the traditional EA approach of demanding multiple RCTs. Might be a great idea, but still a totally different thing. Shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath.
There are probably good proxies for climate effects though: i.e. reductions in more measurable stuff, so I think the situation is no that analogous to AI. And some global health and development stuff involves things where the outcome we actually care about is hard to measure: i.e. Deworming and it’s possible positive effects on later earnings, and presumably well-being. We know deworming gets rid of worms, but the literature on the benefits of this is famously contentious.