I think there’s three implicit assumptions here that I might disagree with:
Undergrad degrees are important determinants of what someone’s background is, in the context of EA work (as opposed to e.g. what they spent their day-to-day thinking about or who they talk to)
EA grantmakers with policy backgrounds are more rosy about policy people and interventions to improve the long-term future than EA grantmakers with CS backgrounds.
Being more rosy than the existing LTFF members about policy interventions is in fact good for improving the long-term future.
Re: 2, I don’t think we have strong reasons to think this is true. Anecdotally, I have more of a forecasting background than other LTFF fund managers, and I think I am not more optimistic about forecasting grants than the rest of LTFF.
There’s a version of your comment that I do agree with, which is that all else equal it’s great for fund managers to have a diversity of contacts and experiences, especially in areas of projects that we good applicants in. To that end, I’m a bit worried that none of current fund managers have done much object-level work in AI alignment, or to a lesser extent technical biosecurity*.
*In recent months I ended up being the primary investigator for most bio grants. I don’t feel experienced enough to be very happy about my judgements, but I think I know enough high-level context and have enough contacts that it’s mostly been going okay. This problem is ameliorated somewhat by having only so many biosecurity applications in the first place. Please consider pinging me, Asya, or Caleb if you have feedback on any of the grants I investigated.
I basically agree with this. On 1, undergrad degrees aren’t a great proxy but particularly the people listed on the LTFF site are all career engineers. On 2, your description sounds like the correct general case, but in a case where non-policy people are questioning the effectiveness of any policy work on the grounds that policy is ineffective, I would expect people who’d worked on it to usually have a brighter view given that they’ve chosen to work on it. 3 is of course up for debate and the main question.)
(I work for the LTFF)
I think there’s three implicit assumptions here that I might disagree with:
Undergrad degrees are important determinants of what someone’s background is, in the context of EA work (as opposed to e.g. what they spent their day-to-day thinking about or who they talk to)
EA grantmakers with policy backgrounds are more rosy about policy people and interventions to improve the long-term future than EA grantmakers with CS backgrounds.
Being more rosy than the existing LTFF members about policy interventions is in fact good for improving the long-term future.
Re: 2, I don’t think we have strong reasons to think this is true. Anecdotally, I have more of a forecasting background than other LTFF fund managers, and I think I am not more optimistic about forecasting grants than the rest of LTFF.
There’s a version of your comment that I do agree with, which is that all else equal it’s great for fund managers to have a diversity of contacts and experiences, especially in areas of projects that we good applicants in. To that end, I’m a bit worried that none of current fund managers have done much object-level work in AI alignment, or to a lesser extent technical biosecurity*.
*In recent months I ended up being the primary investigator for most bio grants. I don’t feel experienced enough to be very happy about my judgements, but I think I know enough high-level context and have enough contacts that it’s mostly been going okay. This problem is ameliorated somewhat by having only so many biosecurity applications in the first place. Please consider pinging me, Asya, or Caleb if you have feedback on any of the grants I investigated.
I basically agree with this. On 1, undergrad degrees aren’t a great proxy but particularly the people listed on the LTFF site are all career engineers. On 2, your description sounds like the correct general case, but in a case where non-policy people are questioning the effectiveness of any policy work on the grounds that policy is ineffective, I would expect people who’d worked on it to usually have a brighter view given that they’ve chosen to work on it. 3 is of course up for debate and the main question.)