Metaculus estimates that GiveWell’s top charity in 2031 will need to spend $430 per life saved equivalent (according to GiveWell’s own analysis).
Assuming I’m not mistaken about how Metaculus works, $430 is the median of recent forecasters’ median forecasts on this question. But don’t we really care more about the mean expected cost-effectiveness than the median? (I could be wrong about this since after all (I think) GiveWell’s estimate is the median output of their staff members’ inputs into their cost-effectiveness model.)
Metaculus doesn’t give the mean value, but looking at the shape of the probability density distribution on the Metaculus question, it looks to be roughly symmetrical about the median and given that the axis is logarithmic, I think this means the mean value is greater than the median.
So assuming the mean is what we care about, then it seems that Metaculus community prediction is greater than GiveWell’s 2019 estimate, suggesting that money (given to GiveWell charities) will do less good in the future rather than more.
Assuming I’m not mistaken about how Metaculus works, $430 is the median of recent forecasters’ median forecasts on this question. But don’t we really care more about the mean expected cost-effectiveness than the median? (I could be wrong about this since after all (I think) GiveWell’s estimate is the median output of their staff members’ inputs into their cost-effectiveness model.)
Metaculus doesn’t give the mean value, but looking at the shape of the probability density distribution on the Metaculus question, it looks to be roughly symmetrical about the median and given that the axis is logarithmic, I think this means the mean value is greater than the median.
So assuming the mean is what we care about, then it seems that Metaculus community prediction is greater than GiveWell’s 2019 estimate, suggesting that money (given to GiveWell charities) will do less good in the future rather than more.