I don’t see as much focus on general economic growth and scientific and technological progress.
(Though even then, Open Philanthropy has allocated $100m+ to scientific research, which would make it a significant fraction of the portfolio. They’ve also funded several areas of US policy research aimed at growth.)
However, the reason for less emphasis on economic growth is because the community members who are not focused on global health, are mostly focused on longtermism, and have argued it’s not the top priority from that perspective. I’m going to try to give a (rather direct) summary of why, and would be interested in your response.
Those focused on longtermism have argued that influencing the trajectory of civilization is far higher value than speeding up progress (e.g. one example of that argument here.)
Indeed, if you’re concerned about existential risk from technology, it becomes unclear if faster progress in the short-term is even positive at all – though my guess is that it is.
In addition, longtermists have also argued that long-term trajectory-shaping efforts – which include reducing existential risk but are not limited to that – tend to be far more neglected than efforts to speed-up economic growth.
This is partly because I think there are stronger theoretical reasons to expect them to be market failures, but also from empirical observation: e.g. the field of AI safety and reducing catastrophic biorisks both receive well under $100m of funding per year, and issues around existential risk receive little attention in policy. In contrast, the world spends $1 trillion plus per year on R&D, and boosting economic growth is perhaps the main priority of governments worldwide.
I’d argue that the expected value of marginal work on an issue is proportional to its importance and neglectedness, and so these factors would suggest work on trajectory changes could be several orders of magnitude more effective.
I agree Progress Studies itself is far more neglected than general work to boost economic growth, I expect that work on Progress Studies is very high-impact by ordinary standards, and I’d be happy if a some more EAs worked on it, but I’d still expect marginal resources towards research in topics like existential risk or longtermist global priorities research to be far more effective per dollar / per person.
I’ve never seen a proponent of boosting economic growth or Progress Studies clearly give their response to these points (though I have several of my own ideas). We tried discussing it with Tyler Cowen, but my impression of that interview was that he basically conceded that existential risk is the greater priority, defending economic growth mainly because it’s something the average person is better able / more likely to contribute to.
So my question would be: why should a longtermist EA work on boosting economic growth?
Not a direct response to your question, but I do think progress studies is very complementary to longtermism. In particular, it seems to me that longtermists are often much more interested in big ethical ideas rather than big empirical ideas. Yet, if anything, the latter are more important.
So I expect that most of the high-level research in progress studies (e.g. about the industrial revolution, or about principles for institutional reform) will be useful in informing longtermist’s empirical ideas about the future.
This will be less true for research into specific interventions.
What a great question Benjamin! “Why should a longtermist EA work on boosting economic growth? ” Is something I have been thinking about myself (my username gives it away...).
One quick comment on this “I agree Progress Studies itself is far more neglected than general work to boost economic growth”
This spurs a question for me. How is Progress Studies different from people working on Economic Growth?
Followup: I did write that essay some ~5 months ago, but I got some feedback on it that made me think I needed to rethink it more carefully, and then other deadlines took over and I lost momentum.
Hi Jason,
I think your blog and work is great, and I’m keen to see what comes out of Progress Studies.
I wanted to ask a question, and also to comment on your response to another question, that I think this has been incorrect after about 2017:
More figures here.
The following is more accurate:
(Though even then, Open Philanthropy has allocated $100m+ to scientific research, which would make it a significant fraction of the portfolio. They’ve also funded several areas of US policy research aimed at growth.)
However, the reason for less emphasis on economic growth is because the community members who are not focused on global health, are mostly focused on longtermism, and have argued it’s not the top priority from that perspective. I’m going to try to give a (rather direct) summary of why, and would be interested in your response.
Those focused on longtermism have argued that influencing the trajectory of civilization is far higher value than speeding up progress (e.g. one example of that argument here.)
Indeed, if you’re concerned about existential risk from technology, it becomes unclear if faster progress in the short-term is even positive at all – though my guess is that it is.
In addition, longtermists have also argued that long-term trajectory-shaping efforts – which include reducing existential risk but are not limited to that – tend to be far more neglected than efforts to speed-up economic growth.
This is partly because I think there are stronger theoretical reasons to expect them to be market failures, but also from empirical observation: e.g. the field of AI safety and reducing catastrophic biorisks both receive well under $100m of funding per year, and issues around existential risk receive little attention in policy. In contrast, the world spends $1 trillion plus per year on R&D, and boosting economic growth is perhaps the main priority of governments worldwide.
I’d argue that the expected value of marginal work on an issue is proportional to its importance and neglectedness, and so these factors would suggest work on trajectory changes could be several orders of magnitude more effective.
I agree Progress Studies itself is far more neglected than general work to boost economic growth, I expect that work on Progress Studies is very high-impact by ordinary standards, and I’d be happy if a some more EAs worked on it, but I’d still expect marginal resources towards research in topics like existential risk or longtermist global priorities research to be far more effective per dollar / per person.
I’ve never seen a proponent of boosting economic growth or Progress Studies clearly give their response to these points (though I have several of my own ideas). We tried discussing it with Tyler Cowen, but my impression of that interview was that he basically conceded that existential risk is the greater priority, defending economic growth mainly because it’s something the average person is better able / more likely to contribute to.
So my question would be: why should a longtermist EA work on boosting economic growth?
Not a direct response to your question, but I do think progress studies is very complementary to longtermism. In particular, it seems to me that longtermists are often much more interested in big ethical ideas rather than big empirical ideas. Yet, if anything, the latter are more important.
So I expect that most of the high-level research in progress studies (e.g. about the industrial revolution, or about principles for institutional reform) will be useful in informing longtermist’s empirical ideas about the future.
This will be less true for research into specific interventions.
What a great question Benjamin! “Why should a longtermist EA work on boosting economic growth? ” Is something I have been thinking about myself (my username gives it away...).
One quick comment on this “I agree Progress Studies itself is far more neglected than general work to boost economic growth”
This spurs a question for me. How is Progress Studies different from people working on Economic Growth?
One quick addition is that I see Progress Studies as innovation into how to do innovation, so it’s a double market failure :)
I will answer this, but there’s a lot to read here, so I will come back to it later—thanks!
I haven’t forgotten this, but my response has turned into an entire essay. I think I’ll do it as a separate post, and link it here. Thanks!
Followup: I did write that essay some ~5 months ago, but I got some feedback on it that made me think I needed to rethink it more carefully, and then other deadlines took over and I lost momentum.
I was recently nudged on this again, and I’ve written up some questions here that would help me get to clarity on this issue: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hkKJF5qkJABRhGEgF/help-me-find-the-crux-between-ea-xr-and-progress-studies