I personally agree with your reasoning, but it assumes the marginal cost-effectiveness of the human-focussed and animal-focussed interventions should be the same. Open Phil is not sold on this:
We’re also unsure conceptually whether we should be trying to equalize marginal returns between FAW and GHW or whether we should continue with our current approach.
I do not know what the “current approach” specifically involves, but it has led to Open Phil starting 6 new areas with a focus on human welfare in the last few years[1]. So it naively seems to me like Open Phil could have done more to increase the amount of funding going to animal welfare if there was a desire to do so. These areas will not be turned off easily. If Open Phil was in the process of deliberating how much funding animal-focussed interventions should receive relative to human-focussed ones, I would have expected a bigger investment in growing the internal cause-prioritisation team, or greater funding of similar research elsewhere[2].
Nice point, James!
I personally agree with your reasoning, but it assumes the marginal cost-effectiveness of the human-focussed and animal-focussed interventions should be the same. Open Phil is not sold on this:
I do not know what the “current approach” specifically involves, but it has led to Open Phil starting 6 new areas with a focus on human welfare in the last few years[1]. So it naively seems to me like Open Phil could have done more to increase the amount of funding going to animal welfare if there was a desire to do so. These areas will not be turned off easily. If Open Phil was in the process of deliberating how much funding animal-focussed interventions should receive relative to human-focussed ones, I would have expected a bigger investment in growing the internal cause-prioritisation team, or greater funding of similar research elsewhere[2].
South Asian air quality, global aid policy, innovation policy, effective altruism with a GHW focus, global health R&D, and global public health policy.
Open Phil has made grants to support Rethink’s moral weight project, but this type of work has apparently not been fully supported by Open Phil: