Another argument against: Without sufficiently good coordination within the EA community, funding diversification can exacerbate unilateralist’s curse dynamics; making it more likely for any impressive, impactful intervention that is judged by some as net-positive to get carried out. Thereby weakening the ability of the EA community to differentially carry out net-positive interventions in anthropogenic x-risk domains.
Notably, it seems that within the FTX Foundation it was considered reasonable to approve grants after less than 2 minutes of thought (see this comment).
Suppose there are 100 funders who are not coordinated (i.e. each of them funds things unilaterally), and there is some potential intervention for mitigating anthropogenic x-risks that any one of the funders can unilaterally decide to fully fund. If 99 funders think the intervention is net-negative but one funder thinks it’s net-positive and decides to fund it, the intervention gets carried out.
Some examples of interventions to consider here (neverminded whether any particular version of them is net-negative or net-positive):
an effort to draw attention to a certain low-profile domain of anthropogenic x-risks.
an effort to publish analyses about the most promising approaches for developing AGI.
Thanks for clarifying. That helps me understand your concern about the unilateralist’s curse with funders acting independently. But i don’t understand why the OP proposal of evaluating/encouraging funding diversification for important cause areas would exacerbate it. Presumably those funders could make risky bets regardless of this evaluation. Is it because you think it would bring a lot more funders into these areas or give them more permission to fund projects that they are currently ignoring?
Another argument against: Without sufficiently good coordination within the EA community, funding diversification can exacerbate unilateralist’s curse dynamics; making it more likely for any impressive, impactful intervention that is judged by some as net-positive to get carried out. Thereby weakening the ability of the EA community to differentially carry out net-positive interventions in anthropogenic x-risk domains.
Notably, it seems that within the FTX Foundation it was considered reasonable to approve grants after less than 2 minutes of thought (see this comment).
Could you explain further why funding diversity would exacerbate unilateralist’s curse?
Suppose there are 100 funders who are not coordinated (i.e. each of them funds things unilaterally), and there is some potential intervention for mitigating anthropogenic x-risks that any one of the funders can unilaterally decide to fully fund. If 99 funders think the intervention is net-negative but one funder thinks it’s net-positive and decides to fund it, the intervention gets carried out.
Some examples of interventions to consider here (neverminded whether any particular version of them is net-negative or net-positive):
an effort to draw attention to a certain low-profile domain of anthropogenic x-risks.
an effort to publish analyses about the most promising approaches for developing AGI.
an effort to create an impact market.
a certain outreach campaign.
a certain regulation advocacy campaign.
Thanks for clarifying. That helps me understand your concern about the unilateralist’s curse with funders acting independently. But i don’t understand why the OP proposal of evaluating/encouraging funding diversification for important cause areas would exacerbate it. Presumably those funders could make risky bets regardless of this evaluation. Is it because you think it would bring a lot more funders into these areas or give them more permission to fund projects that they are currently ignoring?
I meant to describe an argument against causing there to be more unilateralist funders in cause areas that involve anthropogenic x-risks.