I also want to point out that having better outside income-maximizing options makes you more financially secure than other people in your income bracket, all else equal, which pro tanto would give you more reason to donate than them.
My point is that âother people in the income bracket AFTER taking a lower paying jobâ is the wrong reference class.
Letâs say someone is earning $10mn/âyear in finance. I totally think they should donate some large fraction of their income. But Iâm pretty reluctant to argue that they should donate more than 99% of it. So it seems completely fine to have a post donation income above $100K, likely far above.
If this person quits to take a job in AI Safety that pays $100K/âyear, because they think this is more impactful than their donations, I think it would be unreasonable to argue that they need to donate some of their reduced salary, because then their âmaximum acceptable post donation salaryâ has gone down, even though theyâre (hopefully) having more impact than if they donated everything above $100K
Iâm picking fairly extreme numbers to illustrate the point, but the key point is that choosing to do direct work should not reduce your âmaximum acceptable salary post donationsâ, and that at least according to my values, that max salary post donation is often above what they get paid in their new direct role.
I suppose what it comes down to is that I actually DO think it is morally better for the person earning $10m/âyear to donate $9.9m/âyear than $9m/âyear, about $900k/âyear better.
I want to achieve two things (which I expect you will agree with).
I want to âcaptureâ the good done by anyone and everyone willing to contribute and I want them welcomed, accepted and appreciated by the EA community. This means that if a person who could earn $10m/âyear in finance and is âonlyâ willing to contribute $1m/âyear (10%) to effective causes, I donât want them turned away.
I want to encourage, inspire, motivate and push people to do better than they currently are (insofar as itâs possible). I think that includes an Anthropic employee earning $500k/âyear doing mech interp, a quant trader earning $10m/âyear, a new grad deciding what to do with their career and a 65-year old who just heard of EA.
I think itâs also reasonable for people to set limits for how much they are willing to do.
This is reasonable. I think the key point that I want to defend is that it seems wrong to say that choosing a more impactful job should mean you ought to have a lower post donation salary.
I personally think of it in terms of having some minimum obligation for doing your part (which I set at 10% by default), plus encouragement (but not obligation) to do significant amounts more good if you want to
My point is that âother people in the income bracket AFTER taking a lower paying jobâ is the wrong reference class.
Is there a single appropriate reference class here, as opposed to looking at multiple reference classes and weighting the results in some manner?
I agree that similarly situated person who decided to take a very high-paying job is a relevant reference class and should get some weight. However, it doesnât follow that person with similar incomes working a non-impactful job is an irrelevant reference class or should get zero weight.
As Marcus notes, â[p]eople donât choose to be smart enough to do ML work.â I would add that people donât choose other factors that promote or inhibit their ability to choose a very high-paying job and/âor a high-impact job (e.g., location and circumstances of birth, health, family obligations, etc.) In a pair of persons who are similarly situated economically, giving the more advantaged person a total pass on the moral obligation to donate money seems problematic to me. In this frame of reference, their advantages allowed them to land a more impactful job at the same salary as the less advantaged personâand in a sense we would be excusing them from a moral obligation because they are advantaged. (Giving the more privileged person a big break is also going to make it rather hard to establish substantial giving as a norm in the broader community, but thatâs probably not in the scope of the question here.)
I donât have a clear opinion on how to weight the two reference classes beyond an intuition that both classes should get perceptible weight. (It also seems plausible there are other reference classes to weigh as well, although I havenât thought about what they might be.)
My argument is essentially that âsimilar income, non impactful jobâ is as relevant a reference class to the âsimilar income, impactful job personâ as it is as a reference class to the âhigh income, non impactful jobâ person. I also personally think reference classes is the wrong way to think about it. If taking a more impactful job also makes someone obliged to take on a lower post donation salary (when they donât have to), I feel like something has gone wrong, and the incentives are not aligned with doing the most good.
I also want to point out that having better outside income-maximizing options makes you more financially secure than other people in your income bracket, all else equal, which pro tanto would give you more reason to donate than them.
My point is that âother people in the income bracket AFTER taking a lower paying jobâ is the wrong reference class.
Letâs say someone is earning $10mn/âyear in finance. I totally think they should donate some large fraction of their income. But Iâm pretty reluctant to argue that they should donate more than 99% of it. So it seems completely fine to have a post donation income above $100K, likely far above.
If this person quits to take a job in AI Safety that pays $100K/âyear, because they think this is more impactful than their donations, I think it would be unreasonable to argue that they need to donate some of their reduced salary, because then their âmaximum acceptable post donation salaryâ has gone down, even though theyâre (hopefully) having more impact than if they donated everything above $100K
Iâm picking fairly extreme numbers to illustrate the point, but the key point is that choosing to do direct work should not reduce your âmaximum acceptable salary post donationsâ, and that at least according to my values, that max salary post donation is often above what they get paid in their new direct role.
I understand this. Good analogy.
I suppose what it comes down to is that I actually DO think it is morally better for the person earning $10m/âyear to donate $9.9m/âyear than $9m/âyear, about $900k/âyear better.
I want to achieve two things (which I expect you will agree with).
I want to âcaptureâ the good done by anyone and everyone willing to contribute and I want them welcomed, accepted and appreciated by the EA community. This means that if a person who could earn $10m/âyear in finance and is âonlyâ willing to contribute $1m/âyear (10%) to effective causes, I donât want them turned away.
I want to encourage, inspire, motivate and push people to do better than they currently are (insofar as itâs possible). I think that includes an Anthropic employee earning $500k/âyear doing mech interp, a quant trader earning $10m/âyear, a new grad deciding what to do with their career and a 65-year old who just heard of EA.
I think itâs also reasonable for people to set limits for how much they are willing to do.
This is reasonable. I think the key point that I want to defend is that it seems wrong to say that choosing a more impactful job should mean you ought to have a lower post donation salary.
I personally think of it in terms of having some minimum obligation for doing your part (which I set at 10% by default), plus encouragement (but not obligation) to do significant amounts more good if you want to
Is there a single appropriate reference class here, as opposed to looking at multiple reference classes and weighting the results in some manner?
I agree that similarly situated person who decided to take a very high-paying job is a relevant reference class and should get some weight. However, it doesnât follow that person with similar incomes working a non-impactful job is an irrelevant reference class or should get zero weight.
As Marcus notes, â[p]eople donât choose to be smart enough to do ML work.â I would add that people donât choose other factors that promote or inhibit their ability to choose a very high-paying job and/âor a high-impact job (e.g., location and circumstances of birth, health, family obligations, etc.) In a pair of persons who are similarly situated economically, giving the more advantaged person a total pass on the moral obligation to donate money seems problematic to me. In this frame of reference, their advantages allowed them to land a more impactful job at the same salary as the less advantaged personâand in a sense we would be excusing them from a moral obligation because they are advantaged. (Giving the more privileged person a big break is also going to make it rather hard to establish substantial giving as a norm in the broader community, but thatâs probably not in the scope of the question here.)
I donât have a clear opinion on how to weight the two reference classes beyond an intuition that both classes should get perceptible weight. (It also seems plausible there are other reference classes to weigh as well, although I havenât thought about what they might be.)
My argument is essentially that âsimilar income, non impactful jobâ is as relevant a reference class to the âsimilar income, impactful job personâ as it is as a reference class to the âhigh income, non impactful jobâ person. I also personally think reference classes is the wrong way to think about it. If taking a more impactful job also makes someone obliged to take on a lower post donation salary (when they donât have to), I feel like something has gone wrong, and the incentives are not aligned with doing the most good.