All four current fund managers at LTFF have degrees in computer science, and none have experience in policy. Similarly, neither of OpenPhil’s two staff members on AI Governance have experience working in government or policy organizations. These grantmakers do incredible work, but this seems like a real blind spot. If there are ways that policy can improve the long-term future, I would expect that grantmakers with policy expertise would be best positioned find them.
EDIT: See below for the new LTFF grantmaker with exactly this kind of experience :)
That’s really cool! Seems like exactly the kind of person you’d want for policy grantmaking, with previous experience in federal agencies, think tanks, and campaigns. Thanks for sharing.
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.)
All four current fund managers at LTFF have degrees in computer science, and none have experience in policy. Similarly, neither of OpenPhil’s two staff members on AI Governance have experience working in government or policy organizations. These grantmakers do incredible work, but this seems like a real blind spot. If there are ways that policy can improve the long-term future, I would expect that grantmakers with policy expertise would be best positioned find them.
EDIT: See below for the new LTFF grantmaker with exactly this kind of experience :)
This is not up to date, sorry! I think it should be updated in the next few days.
Ah, no worries. Are there any new grantmakers with policy backgrounds?
Rebecca Kagan is currently working as a fund manager for us (sorry for the not-up-to-date webpage).
That’s really cool! Seems like exactly the kind of person you’d want for policy grantmaking, with previous experience in federal agencies, think tanks, and campaigns. Thanks for sharing.
Yep great news!
Is Rebecca still a fund manager, or is the LTFF page out of sync?
(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.)