Thanks for the comment, Neel! I would say increasing the impact of donations is also the best strategy to maximise impact for (random) people working in the area they consider most cost-effective:
@Benjamin_Toddthinks “it’s defensible to say that the best of all interventions in an area are about 10 times more effective than [as effective as] the mean, and perhaps as much as 100 times”.
Donating 10 % more to an organisation 10 to 100 times as cost-effective as one one could join is 10 (= 0.1*10/0.1) to 100 (= 0.1*100/0.1) times as impactful as working there if the alternative hire would be 10 % less impactful.
Your maths needs a term for the conversion between money and labour for the company. I think your current equation assumes 1 to 1 which seems patently false
Thanks, Neel. I am assuming the marginal cost-effectiveness of spending on capital and labour is the same. Organisations should move money from the least to the most cost-effective activities until the marginal cost-effectiveness of all activities is equalised. I understand organisations do not manage their resources perfectly. However, for one to argue against my assumption, one would need specific arguments about why, for example, AI safety organisations are under or overspending on compute, or are under or overpaying their employees.
Thanks for the comment, Neel! I would say increasing the impact of donations is also the best strategy to maximise impact for (random) people working in the area they consider most cost-effective:
@Benjamin_Todd thinks “it’s defensible to say that the best of all interventions in an area are about 10 times more effective than [as effective as] the mean, and perhaps as much as 100 times”.
Donating 10 % more to an organisation 10 to 100 times as cost-effective as one one could join is 10 (= 0.1*10/0.1) to 100 (= 0.1*100/0.1) times as impactful as working there if the alternative hire would be 10 % less impactful.
Your maths needs a term for the conversion between money and labour for the company. I think your current equation assumes 1 to 1 which seems patently false
Thanks, Neel. I am assuming the marginal cost-effectiveness of spending on capital and labour is the same. Organisations should move money from the least to the most cost-effective activities until the marginal cost-effectiveness of all activities is equalised. I understand organisations do not manage their resources perfectly. However, for one to argue against my assumption, one would need specific arguments about why, for example, AI safety organisations are under or overspending on compute, or are under or overpaying their employees.