Will, thanks very much for writing this. It’s great to be having this discussion and to see the major players are thinking hard about this. I wanted to raise a couple of issues that merit reflection but haven’t (AFAIT) been made so far.
You note that EA has gone from a few guys in a basement to commanding serious funding. But, what might the future of EA be? Where could it be in another 10 years? There could be 10x, or even 100x, of relevant funding. In line with the idea of judicious ambition, how should we be planning for it? Who should be planning for it?
Related to this, how much, and what type, of centralisation and governance are optimal across the various bits of the movement? One thing that strikes me is that ‘EA resources’ are very centralised: there are only a few major donors, advisors to those donors, and leaders of key organisations, and all those people know each other. What’s more, lots of decision-making happens privately. All of this clearly has some major advantages, such as speed and coordination; it’s appropriate, given it’s about private individuals spending their money; it’s also pretty unsurprising that this has happened because EA started so recently.
But, as EA ‘grows up’, should it transition to operating in some different ways? Some of the risks you flag—reduction in quality of thought, resentment, and the loss of evolutionary forces—seem to stem, at least in part, from this dynamic.
What would the ideal structure be? If I do a Bostromian-Ordian ‘reversal test’, I wouldn’t want to see all ‘EA resources’ and decision-making concentrated in the hands of one person, no matter who it was. I’m not sure how far the other way would be best, but it seems worth reflecting on.
Will, thanks very much for writing this. It’s great to be having this discussion and to see the major players are thinking hard about this. I wanted to raise a couple of issues that merit reflection but haven’t (AFAIT) been made so far.
You note that EA has gone from a few guys in a basement to commanding serious funding. But, what might the future of EA be? Where could it be in another 10 years? There could be 10x, or even 100x, of relevant funding. In line with the idea of judicious ambition, how should we be planning for it? Who should be planning for it?
Related to this, how much, and what type, of centralisation and governance are optimal across the various bits of the movement? One thing that strikes me is that ‘EA resources’ are very centralised: there are only a few major donors, advisors to those donors, and leaders of key organisations, and all those people know each other. What’s more, lots of decision-making happens privately. All of this clearly has some major advantages, such as speed and coordination; it’s appropriate, given it’s about private individuals spending their money; it’s also pretty unsurprising that this has happened because EA started so recently.
But, as EA ‘grows up’, should it transition to operating in some different ways? Some of the risks you flag—reduction in quality of thought, resentment, and the loss of evolutionary forces—seem to stem, at least in part, from this dynamic.
What would the ideal structure be? If I do a Bostromian-Ordian ‘reversal test’, I wouldn’t want to see all ‘EA resources’ and decision-making concentrated in the hands of one person, no matter who it was. I’m not sure how far the other way would be best, but it seems worth reflecting on.