Not affiliated with ATLAS, and just a guess. But, with regards to the $50k:
Because being a young adult with $50k gives you way more options about how you can choose to act on the world in a way which being a broke student doesn’t. Having rich parents doesn’t really help if they aren’t in fact willing to give the $50k to the members.
When I reach back to my own experience, I spent some time I wish I could get back selling unexciting corporate software for money and giving math classes, to pay for living expenses while doing some of my early research. $50k would have afforded me with more significant freedom of action.
Note that the Thiel Fellowship, which aims to steer promising people towards being formidable forces for good in the world, gives students $100k. If you look at their notable recipients, and imagine a similar cohort producing a similar amount of impact in a less capitalistic direction, it seems at least conceivable that such a bet could be well worth it.
(Speculative, I don’t know how ATLAS worked beyond the public details, I don’t think I know any ATLAS fellows)
This seems like a good argument if:
you think ATLAS fellows wouldn’t counterfactually have $50k to spend on altruistic efforts
you think ATLAS fellows are in a similar reference class to Thiel Fellowship recipients
But I’m sceptical about both:
EA seems really excited about ambitious young people, and I’d expect that if someone was both really promising and had an idea for a high impact altruistic project which they couldn’t secure other funding for, it’d be relatively easy to get EA funding for it.
I expect the ATLAS team worked hard on outreach and publicity, but it’s a new initiative with a kinda-weird-to-normal-people framing. The Thiel Fellowship has been running for a while and gets a lot of publicity from Thiel and from successful recipients. I’d be surprised if ATLAS attracted a similar caliber of applicant in its first year of operations.
I guess given this, I’d be surprised if ATLAS funding made a big difference, and $50k is kind of a lot.
My experience with Atlas fellows (although there was substantial selection bias involved here) is that they’re extremely high calibre.
I also think there’s quite a lot of friction in getting LTFF funding - it takes quite a long time to come through I think is the main one. I think there are quite large benefits to being able to unilaterally decide to do some project and having the funding immediately available to do it.
“Living expenses while doing some of my early research” is one of the main purposes of the LTFF; to me Atlas feels like a roundabout way of getting that. LTFF asks you to have a specific high-impact project or educational opportunity for you to pursue, but as far as I know that wasn’t true of Atlas.
I think The Century Fellowship would make a better comparison to the Thiel Fellowship than Atlas would. It seems aimed at similar types to the Thiel Fellowship (college age people who are prepared to start projects and need to be financially independent to do so), while Atlas targets a slightly younger demographic and gives scholarships.
Atlas is posed as a talent search and development program, so I think any evaluation of Atlas should focus on how well it is searching for and developing talent that would not otherwise exist. I personally don’t know anything about how that has been turning out, or what the graduates have done/are doing with the money, so I don’t feel very qualified to evaluate it myself.
“Living expenses while doing some of my early research” is one of the main purposes of the LTFF
I eventually did get a grant from the LTFF, but it was once I had a more or less clear research direction. Idk, it’s possible that I could now write a good grant application for exploratory and independent thinking, but at the time I would probably have produced a very awkward ask.
This sounds like a great reason to give young adults $50k, but if someone is giving young adults $50k for this reason, I don’t see why they would add a requirement that they be spent on “academic expenses”.
Not affiliated with ATLAS, and just a guess. But, with regards to the $50k:
Because being a young adult with $50k gives you way more options about how you can choose to act on the world in a way which being a broke student doesn’t. Having rich parents doesn’t really help if they aren’t in fact willing to give the $50k to the members.
When I reach back to my own experience, I spent some time I wish I could get back selling unexciting corporate software for money and giving math classes, to pay for living expenses while doing some of my early research. $50k would have afforded me with more significant freedom of action.
Note that the Thiel Fellowship, which aims to steer promising people towards being formidable forces for good in the world, gives students $100k. If you look at their notable recipients, and imagine a similar cohort producing a similar amount of impact in a less capitalistic direction, it seems at least conceivable that such a bet could be well worth it.
That’s my 2cts.
(Speculative, I don’t know how ATLAS worked beyond the public details, I don’t think I know any ATLAS fellows)
This seems like a good argument if:
you think ATLAS fellows wouldn’t counterfactually have $50k to spend on altruistic efforts
you think ATLAS fellows are in a similar reference class to Thiel Fellowship recipients
But I’m sceptical about both:
EA seems really excited about ambitious young people, and I’d expect that if someone was both really promising and had an idea for a high impact altruistic project which they couldn’t secure other funding for, it’d be relatively easy to get EA funding for it.
I expect the ATLAS team worked hard on outreach and publicity, but it’s a new initiative with a kinda-weird-to-normal-people framing. The Thiel Fellowship has been running for a while and gets a lot of publicity from Thiel and from successful recipients. I’d be surprised if ATLAS attracted a similar caliber of applicant in its first year of operations.
I guess given this, I’d be surprised if ATLAS funding made a big difference, and $50k is kind of a lot.
My experience with Atlas fellows (although there was substantial selection bias involved here) is that they’re extremely high calibre.
I also think there’s quite a lot of friction in getting LTFF funding - it takes quite a long time to come through I think is the main one. I think there are quite large benefits to being able to unilaterally decide to do some project and having the funding immediately available to do it.
“Living expenses while doing some of my early research” is one of the main purposes of the LTFF; to me Atlas feels like a roundabout way of getting that. LTFF asks you to have a specific high-impact project or educational opportunity for you to pursue, but as far as I know that wasn’t true of Atlas.
I think The Century Fellowship would make a better comparison to the Thiel Fellowship than Atlas would. It seems aimed at similar types to the Thiel Fellowship (college age people who are prepared to start projects and need to be financially independent to do so), while Atlas targets a slightly younger demographic and gives scholarships.
Atlas is posed as a talent search and development program, so I think any evaluation of Atlas should focus on how well it is searching for and developing talent that would not otherwise exist. I personally don’t know anything about how that has been turning out, or what the graduates have done/are doing with the money, so I don’t feel very qualified to evaluate it myself.
I eventually did get a grant from the LTFF, but it was once I had a more or less clear research direction. Idk, it’s possible that I could now write a good grant application for exploratory and independent thinking, but at the time I would probably have produced a very awkward ask.
Thank you, this response makes the most sense to me.
Edit: To clarify, this doesn’t mean I agree. I still believe the amount is too much. (See Edit 3 on the post for more details).
Cheers.
This sounds like a great reason to give young adults $50k, but if someone is giving young adults $50k for this reason, I don’t see why they would add a requirement that they be spent on “academic expenses”.
Fair point!