Does FHI or the RSP have a relatively explicit, shared theory of change? Do different people have different theories of change, but these are still relatively explicit and communicated between people? Is it less explicit than that?
Whichever is the case, could you say a bit about why you think that’s the case?
In starting RSP, I had an implicit theory of change in my head
There are quite a few facets of this (mechanisms for value produced, a continuum of hypotheses, etc.)
One important facet (particularly for early-RSP) was a sense of “pretty sure there’s significant value available via something in this vicinity, let’s try it and see if we can hone in”
I explicitly share and communicate parts of this model to the extent that it’s accessible for me to do so
This involved some conversations with people before RSP started, and some presenting thoughts to the research scholars as the programme started, and periodically returning to it
As RSP has developed and other people have become major stakeholders, they’ve developed their own implicit theories of change
We make some space to discuss these / exchange models
As RSP matures, it will make more sense to pin down a theory of change and have it explicit and shared
The facet of “let’s work out what here is good” will naturally diminish, and we’ll work out which other facets are best to lean on
Some general thoughts:
Advantages of having an explicit theory of change:
Makes it easier to sync up about direction/priorities/reasons for doing things
Makes it easier for people to engage critically, or otherwise to notice mistakes and course-correct
Disadvantages of having an explicit theory of change:
Easy to have the case where your best expression of something is dumber than your real internal sense of it
In this case it may be preferable to be guided by the internal sense rather than the explicit version
(this is at least some distant relative of Goodhart’s law)
To the extent that you’re going to be guided by your internal sense rather than an explicit version, sharing something as an explicit theory of change can be misleading
In general I think it’s good to encourage lots of explicit discussion about theories of change
Ideally without committing to reaching an “answer”, but having that as a goal may be helpful for prompting the discussion
I think that I find the disadvantages quite emotionally resonant, which may pull me to err too far in the direction of not being explicit. I have appreciated some cases where people have pushed me towards “let’s have a discussion where we’re pretty explicit about best guesses”.
FHI I think has an explicit theory of change even less than RSP does; my guess it that Nick Bostrom is also averse to incurring the costs of these disadvantages (and maybe more strongly so than me), but that’s speculation.
I’ve quoted the part from “Some general thoughts:” to the second-last paragraph in a new comment on my earlier question post Do research organisations make theory of change diagrams? Should they? (I flagged that you weren’t talking about ToC diagrams in particular.) Hope that’s ok.
A related question: which fraction of your and RSP’s impact do you expect to come from direct and from community/field-building?
E.g.
When working on a paper, do you think value consists of field-building or from a small personal chance of, say, coming up with a crucial consideration?
Will most value of RSP will come from direct work done by scholars or by scholars [and program] indirectly influencing other people/organizations? [I would count consulting policy-makers as direct work.]
Oh, even better! In your What Does (and Doesn’t) AI Mean for Effective Altruism? slide four speaks about different timelines: immediate (~5 years), this generation (~15), next-generation (~40), distant (~100). Which timelines are you optimizing RSP for?
When working on a paper, do you think value consists of field-building or from a small personal chance of, say, coming up with a crucial consideration?
This question doesn’t quite feel right to me. I think that when working on a paper I normally have an idea of what insights I want it to convey. The value might be in field-building, or the direct value of disseminating that insight (not counting its spillover to field-building).
Work that might find crucial insights feels like it happens before the paper-writing stage. I try to spend some time in that mode.
Yeah, on a reflection framing of “working on a paper” is not quite right. So let me be more specific,
Prospecting for Gold’s impact comes from promoting a certain established way of thinking [≈ econ 101 and ITN] within the EA community and, unclear, if intended or not, also providing local communities with an excellent discussion topic.
The expected value of cost-effectiveness of research seems to be dominated by chances of stumbling on considerations for the EA researchers, GiveWell, 80K’s career recommendations, etc.
The impact of work on moral uncertainty seems to primarily come from field-building. Doing EA-relevant research within a prestigious branch of philosophy increase odds that more pressing EA questions would be addressed by the next generation of academics.
There are other potentials reasons to do research, say, one might prefer to fully concentrate on mentoring but need to do research for the second-order effects: having prestige for hiring; having scholars’ respect for better mentorship; having fresh meta-cognitive observations to emphasize with mentees for better advising). I am curious about which impact pathways do you prioritize?
I feel the most confused about moral uncertainty because it doesn’t resonate with my taste and my knowledge of the subject and of field politics is very limited. I hope my oversimplification doesn’t diminish/misrepresent your work too much.
Will most value of RSP will come from direct work done by scholars or by scholars [and program] indirectly influencing other people/organizations? [I would count consulting policy-makers as direct work.]
I want to say “yes, by indirect influence”, but I expect that this will be true also of most cases of consulting policy-makers (this would remain true even if you got to set policies directly, as I think that most things we do have value filtered through what future people do). This makes me think I’m somehow using a different lens on the world which makes it hard to answer this question directly.
Does FHI or the RSP have a relatively explicit, shared theory of change? Do different people have different theories of change, but these are still relatively explicit and communicated between people? Is it less explicit than that?
Whichever is the case, could you say a bit about why you think that’s the case?
For RSP, I think that:
In starting RSP, I had an implicit theory of change in my head
There are quite a few facets of this (mechanisms for value produced, a continuum of hypotheses, etc.)
One important facet (particularly for early-RSP) was a sense of “pretty sure there’s significant value available via something in this vicinity, let’s try it and see if we can hone in”
I explicitly share and communicate parts of this model to the extent that it’s accessible for me to do so
This involved some conversations with people before RSP started, and some presenting thoughts to the research scholars as the programme started, and periodically returning to it
As RSP has developed and other people have become major stakeholders, they’ve developed their own implicit theories of change
We make some space to discuss these / exchange models
As RSP matures, it will make more sense to pin down a theory of change and have it explicit and shared
The facet of “let’s work out what here is good” will naturally diminish, and we’ll work out which other facets are best to lean on
Some general thoughts:
Advantages of having an explicit theory of change:
Makes it easier to sync up about direction/priorities/reasons for doing things
Makes it easier for people to engage critically, or otherwise to notice mistakes and course-correct
Disadvantages of having an explicit theory of change:
Easy to have the case where your best expression of something is dumber than your real internal sense of it
In this case it may be preferable to be guided by the internal sense rather than the explicit version
(this is at least some distant relative of Goodhart’s law)
To the extent that you’re going to be guided by your internal sense rather than an explicit version, sharing something as an explicit theory of change can be misleading
In general I think it’s good to encourage lots of explicit discussion about theories of change
Ideally without committing to reaching an “answer”, but having that as a goal may be helpful for prompting the discussion
I think that I find the disadvantages quite emotionally resonant, which may pull me to err too far in the direction of not being explicit. I have appreciated some cases where people have pushed me towards “let’s have a discussion where we’re pretty explicit about best guesses”.
FHI I think has an explicit theory of change even less than RSP does; my guess it that Nick Bostrom is also averse to incurring the costs of these disadvantages (and maybe more strongly so than me), but that’s speculation.
Thanks for that detailed answer!
I’ve quoted the part from “Some general thoughts:” to the second-last paragraph in a new comment on my earlier question post Do research organisations make theory of change diagrams? Should they? (I flagged that you weren’t talking about ToC diagrams in particular.) Hope that’s ok.
A related question: which fraction of your and RSP’s impact do you expect to come from direct and from community/field-building?
E.g.
When working on a paper, do you think value consists of field-building or from a small personal chance of, say, coming up with a crucial consideration?
Will most value of RSP will come from direct work done by scholars or by scholars [and program] indirectly influencing other people/organizations? [I would count consulting policy-makers as direct work.]
Oh, even better! In your What Does (and Doesn’t) AI Mean for Effective Altruism? slide four speaks about different timelines: immediate (~5 years), this generation (~15), next-generation (~40), distant (~100). Which timelines are you optimizing RSP for?
Of these, I think RSP is most aiming at “next-generation”, with “this generation” a significant secondary target.
This question doesn’t quite feel right to me. I think that when working on a paper I normally have an idea of what insights I want it to convey. The value might be in field-building, or the direct value of disseminating that insight (not counting its spillover to field-building).
Work that might find crucial insights feels like it happens before the paper-writing stage. I try to spend some time in that mode.
Yeah, on a reflection framing of “working on a paper” is not quite right. So let me be more specific,
Prospecting for Gold’s impact comes from promoting a certain established way of thinking [≈ econ 101 and ITN] within the EA community and, unclear, if intended or not, also providing local communities with an excellent discussion topic.
The expected value of cost-effectiveness of research seems to be dominated by chances of stumbling on considerations for the EA researchers, GiveWell, 80K’s career recommendations, etc.
The impact of work on moral uncertainty seems to primarily come from field-building. Doing EA-relevant research within a prestigious branch of philosophy increase odds that more pressing EA questions would be addressed by the next generation of academics.
There are other potentials reasons to do research, say, one might prefer to fully concentrate on mentoring but need to do research for the second-order effects: having prestige for hiring; having scholars’ respect for better mentorship; having fresh meta-cognitive observations to emphasize with mentees for better advising). I am curious about which impact pathways do you prioritize?
I feel the most confused about moral uncertainty because it doesn’t resonate with my taste and my knowledge of the subject and of field politics is very limited. I hope my oversimplification doesn’t diminish/misrepresent your work too much.
I want to say “yes, by indirect influence”, but I expect that this will be true also of most cases of consulting policy-makers (this would remain true even if you got to set policies directly, as I think that most things we do have value filtered through what future people do). This makes me think I’m somehow using a different lens on the world which makes it hard to answer this question directly.