We modeled key uncertainties that matter for cross-cause prioritization: moral weights, time discounting, risk attitudes, aggregation across ethical views, AI-related uncertainty, and empirical uncertainty within each giving opportunity.
Have you considered making recommendations for people who do not have definitive views about the topics above? For example, question 1 of the Donor Compass asks about how much animal welfare whould factor into funding decisions, as illustrated below. I understand each option is represented by a set of point estimates describing welfare comparisons across species, but I do not undorse any particular set. I can see reasonable best guesses ranging from āOnly humans matter [in practice]ā to āAnimals matter, but somewhat less than humansā. So I think the priority should be decreasing uncertainty instead of acting based on a given set of best guesses.
Itās an interesting one Vasco. I prefer the current questions to uncertainty questions which I think are more intuitive for most people. I think itās important to lean towards questions which are easier to understand, rather than the ābest theoreticalā questions to help differenciate. Not everyone thinks as deeply as you about these things, and I like the accessibility of the current questions.
Hi Nick. I agree it is important that the questions are easy to answer. However, I would say there are simple ways of letting users express their uncertainty. For the question about how much animal welfare should factor into funding decisions, there could be an option saying something like āI am very uncertain about which of the 4 views above I should pickā, or users could be allowed to give weights to each of the 4 views (instead of giving a weight of 1 to a single view). Then these answers could be used to define distributions for the probability of sentience, and welfare range conditional on sentience. Wider distributions would tend to result in a higher expected value of perfect information.
I like the idea of a 5th option āI donāt knowā, but adding weights adds too much complexity for a public question stream I think. For the moral parliament or something deeper like that makes more sense to me
Thanks for the question! Weāve designed the Donor Compass to be more streamlined, but we certainly appreciate and share your moral uncertainty. Our recommendations for the Cross-Cause Fund take into consideration 14 distinct worldviews, which take into account a wide range of animal moral weights (among other variables). You can investigate the assumptions for each here, along with the credences placed on each. If the range of views you place credence on significantly differ, however, you can use the Advanced Mode of the Cross-Cause fund to tailor it to your specific needs. (The definitions of each term can be found in this spreadsheet)
Thanks for the links, Laura. To clarify, I meant to ask whether you have considered making recommendations that specifically target decreasing the key uncertainties that matter for cross-cause prioritisation. For example, decreasing uncertainty about welfare comparisons across species by supporting work like RPās moral weight project.
I think I see now, thanks for the clarification. We donāt currently include funds/āinterventions that specifically work on research (to reduce key uncertainties or otherwise). We do think this kind of work is important, and we aim to include more topics (which could include āmetaā work and research) in future iterations of the model.
Thanks for your work on this.
Have you considered making recommendations for people who do not have definitive views about the topics above? For example, question 1 of the Donor Compass asks about how much animal welfare whould factor into funding decisions, as illustrated below. I understand each option is represented by a set of point estimates describing welfare comparisons across species, but I do not undorse any particular set. I can see reasonable best guesses ranging from āOnly humans matter [in practice]ā to āAnimals matter, but somewhat less than humansā. So I think the priority should be decreasing uncertainty instead of acting based on a given set of best guesses.
Itās an interesting one Vasco. I prefer the current questions to uncertainty questions which I think are more intuitive for most people. I think itās important to lean towards questions which are easier to understand, rather than the ābest theoreticalā questions to help differenciate. Not everyone thinks as deeply as you about these things, and I like the accessibility of the current questions.
Hi Nick. I agree it is important that the questions are easy to answer. However, I would say there are simple ways of letting users express their uncertainty. For the question about how much animal welfare should factor into funding decisions, there could be an option saying something like āI am very uncertain about which of the 4 views above I should pickā, or users could be allowed to give weights to each of the 4 views (instead of giving a weight of 1 to a single view). Then these answers could be used to define distributions for the probability of sentience, and welfare range conditional on sentience. Wider distributions would tend to result in a higher expected value of perfect information.
I like the idea of a 5th option āI donāt knowā, but adding weights adds too much complexity for a public question stream I think. For the moral parliament or something deeper like that makes more sense to me
Hi Vasco,
Thanks for the question! Weāve designed the Donor Compass to be more streamlined, but we certainly appreciate and share your moral uncertainty. Our recommendations for the Cross-Cause Fund take into consideration 14 distinct worldviews, which take into account a wide range of animal moral weights (among other variables). You can investigate the assumptions for each here, along with the credences placed on each. If the range of views you place credence on significantly differ, however, you can use the Advanced Mode of the Cross-Cause fund to tailor it to your specific needs. (The definitions of each term can be found in this spreadsheet)
Thanks for the links, Laura. To clarify, I meant to ask whether you have considered making recommendations that specifically target decreasing the key uncertainties that matter for cross-cause prioritisation. For example, decreasing uncertainty about welfare comparisons across species by supporting work like RPās moral weight project.
I think I see now, thanks for the clarification. We donāt currently include funds/āinterventions that specifically work on research (to reduce key uncertainties or otherwise). We do think this kind of work is important, and we aim to include more topics (which could include āmetaā work and research) in future iterations of the model.
Good to know.