I strongly agree with this post and strongly upvoted it. I also talked a lot with Ariel in the making of this post. I think the arguments are good and I think EA in general should be focusing a lot more on animal welfare than GHW.
That said, I think it’s important to note that “EA” doesn’t own the money being given away by Open Phil. It’s Dustin/Cari’s money that is being given away and Open Phil was set up (by them, in a joint venture between Givewell and Good Ventures) to advise them where their money should go and they are inspired/wish to give away their money by EA principles.
The people at Open Phil are heavily influenced by Dustin/Cari’s values so it isn’t surprising that the people at Open Phil might value animals less than the general movement and if Dustin/Cari don’t want to give their money to non-human animal causes, that’s well within their rights. The “EA movement”, however you define it, doesn’t get to control the money and there are good reasons for this.
Like @MathiasKB, I want to generally encourage people to see how they can affect the funding landscape, primarily via their own donations as opposed to simply telling other people how they should donate. A very unstable equilibrium would result from a bunch of people steering and not a lot of people rowing.
I disagree, for the same reasons as those given in the critique to the post you cite. Tl;dr: Trades have happened, in EA, where many people have cast aside careers with high earning potential in order to pursue direct work. I think these people should get a say over where EA money goes.
The people at Open Phil are heavily influenced by Dustin/Cari’s values so it isn’t surprising that the people at Open Phil might value animals less than the general movement and if Dustin/Cari don’t want to give their money to non-human animal causes, that’s well within their rights.
Do you have a source for this? My sense was that Dustin and Cari mostly deferred to Open Phil’s researchers. I think Dustin tweeted about this at some point.
This is from 2016, but worth looking into if you’re curious how this works:
“At least 50% of each program officer’s grantmaking should be such that Holden and Cari understand and are on board with the case for each grant.
At least 90% of the program officer’s grantmaking should be such that Holden and Cari could easily imagine being on board with the grant if they knew more, but may not be persuaded that the grant is a good idea. (When taking the previous bullet point into account, this leaves room for up to 40% of the portfolio to fall in this bucket.)
Up to 10% of the program officer’s grantmaking can be done without meeting either of the above two criteria, though there are some basic checks in place to avoid grantmaking that creates risks for Open Philanthropy. We call this “discretionary” grantmaking. Grants in this category generally follow a different, substantially abbreviated approval process. Some examples of discretionary grants are here and here.”
In general, I would still say Open Phil’s grantmaking process is very opaque, and I think it would be great to have more transparency about how grants are made, including the influence of Dustin and Cari, at least for big ones. Just to illustrate how little information is provided, here is the write-up of a grant of 10.7 M$ to Redwood Research in 2022:
Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of $10,700,000 over 18 months to Redwood Research for general support. Redwood Research is a nonprofit research institution focused on aligning advanced AI with human interests.
There was nothing else. Here is the write-up regarding the 2021 support, 9.42 M$, mentioned just above:
Open Philanthropy recommended four grants totaling $9,420,000 to Redwood Research for general support. Redwood Research is a new research institution that conducts research to better understand and make progress on AI alignment in order to reduce global catastrophic risks.
Correct. Dustin and Cari mostly defer to OP. But the people at OP aren’t random. The selection of leadership at OP (Holden/Alex) are very much because of Dustin/Cari. FWIW, on the whole, I’m very thankful for them. Without them, EA would look quite a lot worse on the whole, including for animals.
I strongly agree with this post and strongly upvoted it. I also talked a lot with Ariel in the making of this post. I think the arguments are good and I think EA in general should be focusing a lot more on animal welfare than GHW.
That said, I think it’s important to note that “EA” doesn’t own the money being given away by Open Phil. It’s Dustin/Cari’s money that is being given away and Open Phil was set up (by them, in a joint venture between Givewell and Good Ventures) to advise them where their money should go and they are inspired/wish to give away their money by EA principles.
The people at Open Phil are heavily influenced by Dustin/Cari’s values so it isn’t surprising that the people at Open Phil might value animals less than the general movement and if Dustin/Cari don’t want to give their money to non-human animal causes, that’s well within their rights. The “EA movement”, however you define it, doesn’t get to control the money and there are good reasons for this.
Like @MathiasKB, I want to generally encourage people to see how they can affect the funding landscape, primarily via their own donations as opposed to simply telling other people how they should donate. A very unstable equilibrium would result from a bunch of people steering and not a lot of people rowing.
I disagree, for the same reasons as those given in the critique to the post you cite. Tl;dr: Trades have happened, in EA, where many people have cast aside careers with high earning potential in order to pursue direct work. I think these people should get a say over where EA money goes.
Hi Marcus,
Do you have a source for this? My sense was that Dustin and Cari mostly deferred to Open Phil’s researchers. I think Dustin tweeted about this at some point.
This is from 2016, but worth looking into if you’re curious how this works:
“At least 50% of each program officer’s grantmaking should be such that Holden and Cari understand and are on board with the case for each grant. At least 90% of the program officer’s grantmaking should be such that Holden and Cari could easily imagine being on board with the grant if they knew more, but may not be persuaded that the grant is a good idea. (When taking the previous bullet point into account, this leaves room for up to 40% of the portfolio to fall in this bucket.) Up to 10% of the program officer’s grantmaking can be done without meeting either of the above two criteria, though there are some basic checks in place to avoid grantmaking that creates risks for Open Philanthropy. We call this “discretionary” grantmaking. Grants in this category generally follow a different, substantially abbreviated approval process. Some examples of discretionary grants are here and here.”
(https://www.openphilanthropy.org/research/our-grantmaking-so-far-approach-and-process/)
Thanks for sharing, MvK!
In general, I would still say Open Phil’s grantmaking process is very opaque, and I think it would be great to have more transparency about how grants are made, including the influence of Dustin and Cari, at least for big ones. Just to illustrate how little information is provided, here is the write-up of a grant of 10.7 M$ to Redwood Research in 2022:
There was nothing else. Here is the write-up regarding the 2021 support, 9.42 M$, mentioned just above:
Correct. Dustin and Cari mostly defer to OP. But the people at OP aren’t random. The selection of leadership at OP (Holden/Alex) are very much because of Dustin/Cari. FWIW, on the whole, I’m very thankful for them. Without them, EA would look quite a lot worse on the whole, including for animals.