Are we now in the vulture-feeding business?
Maybe this will sound impolite, but are we now in the vulture-feeding business?
Nan Ransohoff’s “The Third Wave of American Philanthropy” is the article I’ve seen shared most widely across influential EA profiles. In it, we read that astronomical figures — $37B to $100B in new philanthropic funding — may soon be on their way, almost all of it (very fortunately) to be deployed according to EA principles.
Of course, this would be know eventually. We also probably need to start thinking now on how to spend all of this money well and this certanly includes attracting talented people. But is it really a good idea to announce so publicly that we’ll soon have many billions of dollars available? Are we attracting the right kind of people to the community by doing that? It immediately reminded me of the article The Vultures Are Circling by CitizenTen. I quote:
“But here’s the thing. The message is out. There’s easy money to be had. And the vultures are coming. On many internet circles, there’s been a worrying tone. ‘You should apply for [insert EA grant] — all I had to do was pretend to care about x, and I got $$!’ Or, ‘I’m not even an EA, but I can pretend, as getting a 10k grant is a good instrumental goal towards [insert-poor-life-goals-here].’ Or, ‘Did you hear that a 16-year-old got x amount of money? That’s ridiculous! I thought EAs were supposed to be effective!’ Or, ‘All you have to do is mouth the words community building and you get thrown bags of money.’”
Perhaps this warning was quickly forgotten in the wake of the FTX meltdown. I still think it matters. Please, let’s try to make only new mistakes.
Thanks for writing this! I’m trying to think through this as I’m writing it. Here are a bunch of not-too-well-formed ideas:
There might be “a lot more funding” available soon (note: this is still TBC. I believe a lot of caution is warranted on that question)
This might result in a significant “lowering of the funding bar” from funders.
In this case, it will attract many more people to:
work for EA and/or AI safety projects
launch new initiatives.
As a community-builder, I tend to have a bias for people with deep engagement with EA principles. But I think many projects can be good with leaders who have not initially spent much time thinking about EA.
I’m not sure I’ve heard much criticism in mainstream discourse about how easily EA funding was granted during the pre-FTX funding. It’s not surprising, given the fact that most people don’t think much about it.
It would probably be much more discussed in some specific spheres: philanthropy in general, TPOT, non-EA spheres.
Most of all, I think funders (and all of us) should consider the impact this situational change could bring to EA’s culture, epistemics, and appropriate trust levels in what might become (again) less of a community and more of a “network”.
At this stage, I think I broadly
would avoid talking about “vultures” as this seems insulting to both 1) vultures and 2) people who are rationally looking for funding opportunities
share your state of alarm about what this will do to EA’s culture
still believe this could be immensely good
believe that the increase in funding will take some time and that we should invest a lot in grantmaking to maintain decent standards of scrutiny (as well as coordination mechanisms).
I see many good points in the comments of the original The Vultures Are Circling by CitizenTen that you refer to. Most of mine were somehow expressed there already^^