Here’s a story you could tell about academia. Academia, is in some sense supposed to be about generating knowledge. But it ends up being ineffective at doing this because of something something incentives. Eg.
Academic jobs are highly competitive
In order to get an academic job, it’s more important to have done things like original research than things like replications.
Things like replications are undersupplied, and the replication crisis happens.
What are the incentives within EA? How does this affect how well EA ends up ‘doing the most good?’. I don’t have a full theory here, though I also suspect that there are ways in which incentives in EA can push against doing the most good. Professional EA group funding is one example:
Professional EA group organisers are often in a bit of a precarious position. Their job depends on their ability to get funding from organisations like CEA or EAIF.
One of the main ways that EA group organisers are assessed is on the basis of things like how well they produce highly engaged EAs, or career plan changes or other such things (I think this is broadly true, though I don’t have a great insight into how CEA assesses groups).
Professional EA group organisers are incentivised to produce these kinds of things. Some potential problems here: It’s hard to assess what counts as a good eg. career, which pushes in the direction of non-standard career options being discounted, often it may make sense for someone to focus on building career capital over working at an EA organisation, but these kinds of things are less obviously/ legibly impactful…
It’s hard to assess what counts as a good eg. career, which pushes in the direction of non-standard career options being discounted, often it may make sense for someone to focus on building career capital over working at an EA organisation, but these kinds of things are less obviously/ legibly impactful…
I agree with the general gist, but my impression is that organisations that focus on career changes and grantmakers have high epistemic humility. When looking at meta organisations focussing on career change, most seem not to break down the changes into types in their quantitative analysis. This leads to a greater focus on case studies where different aspects like prior achievements and unusual career paths can be explained. I assume there is some signalling going on between grantmakers and group organisers where a low-fidelity version might point to standard options, whereas thoughtful grantmakers showcasing a wider variety of pathways as potentially impactful can make a difference.
Incentives within EA
Here’s a story you could tell about academia. Academia, is in some sense supposed to be about generating knowledge. But it ends up being ineffective at doing this because of something something incentives. Eg.
Academic jobs are highly competitive
In order to get an academic job, it’s more important to have done things like original research than things like replications.
Things like replications are undersupplied, and the replication crisis happens.
What are the incentives within EA? How does this affect how well EA ends up ‘doing the most good?’. I don’t have a full theory here, though I also suspect that there are ways in which incentives in EA can push against doing the most good. Professional EA group funding is one example:
Professional EA group organisers are often in a bit of a precarious position. Their job depends on their ability to get funding from organisations like CEA or EAIF.
One of the main ways that EA group organisers are assessed is on the basis of things like how well they produce highly engaged EAs, or career plan changes or other such things (I think this is broadly true, though I don’t have a great insight into how CEA assesses groups).
Professional EA group organisers are incentivised to produce these kinds of things. Some potential problems here: It’s hard to assess what counts as a good eg. career, which pushes in the direction of non-standard career options being discounted, often it may make sense for someone to focus on building career capital over working at an EA organisation, but these kinds of things are less obviously/ legibly impactful…
I agree with the general gist, but my impression is that organisations that focus on career changes and grantmakers have high epistemic humility. When looking at meta organisations focussing on career change, most seem not to break down the changes into types in their quantitative analysis. This leads to a greater focus on case studies where different aspects like prior achievements and unusual career paths can be explained. I assume there is some signalling going on between grantmakers and group organisers where a low-fidelity version might point to standard options, whereas thoughtful grantmakers showcasing a wider variety of pathways as potentially impactful can make a difference.