In principle, if there’s unmet demand for these things, then it’s a great idea to set up such funds. Overall this infrastructure seems plausibly helpful.
But I’m confused about why, if this is a good idea, Open Phil hasn’t already funded it. I wouldn’t make such a claim about any possible fund set up in this way—that way leads to playing the Defectbot strategy in the iterated prisoner’s dilemma. But in this particular case, I’d expect Open Phil to have much more reason than outside donors do to trust Elie’s, Lewis’s, and Nick’s judgment and value-alignment. Though per Kerry’s “minimum viable product” comment below, perhaps this info asymmetry argument will be less true in the future.
I suspect that Open Phil is actually making a mistake by not empowering individuals more to make unaccountable discretionary decisions, so this is seems good to try in its current form anyhow. I weakly expect it to outperform just giving the money to Open Phil or the GiveWell top charities. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.
In principle, if there’s unmet demand for these things, then it’s a great idea to set up such funds. Overall this infrastructure seems plausibly helpful.
But I’m confused about why, if this is a good idea, Open Phil hasn’t already funded it. I wouldn’t make such a claim about any possible fund set up in this way—that way leads to playing the Defectbot strategy in the iterated prisoner’s dilemma. But in this particular case, I’d expect Open Phil to have much more reason than outside donors do to trust Elie’s, Lewis’s, and Nick’s judgment and value-alignment. Though per Kerry’s “minimum viable product” comment below, perhaps this info asymmetry argument will be less true in the future.
I suspect that Open Phil is actually making a mistake by not empowering individuals more to make unaccountable discretionary decisions, so this is seems good to try in its current form anyhow. I weakly expect it to outperform just giving the money to Open Phil or the GiveWell top charities. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.