I think this is a great post, efficiently summarizing some of the most important takeaways from recent events.
I think this claim is especially important:
âItâs also vital to avoid a very small number of decision-makers having too much influence (even if they donât want that level of influence in the first place). If we have more sources of funding and more decision-makers, it is likely to improve the overall quality of funding decisions and, critically, reduce the consequences for grantees if they are rejected by just one or two major funders.â
Hereâs a sketchy idea in that vein for further consideration. One additional way to avoid extremely wealthy donors having too much influence is to try to insist that UHNW donors subject their giving to democratic checks on their decision-making from other EAs. For instance, what if taking a Giving What We Can pledge entitled you to a vote of some kind on certain fund disbursements or other decisions? What if Giving What We Can pledgers could put forward âshareholder proposalsâ on strategic decisions (subject to getting fifty signatures, say) at EA orgs, which other pledgers could then vote on? (Not necessarily just at GWWC) Obviously there are issues:
voters may not be the epistemic peers of grantmaking experts /â EA organization employees
voters may not be the epistemic peers of the UHNW donors themselves who have more reputational stake in ensuring their donations go well
UHNW donors have a lot of bargaining power when dealing with EA institutions and few incentives to open themselves up to democratic checks on their decision-making
determining who gets to vote is hard
some decisions need to be made quickly
sometimes there are infohazards
But there are advantages too, and I expect that often they outweigh the disadvantages:
Hereâs a sketchy idea in that vein for further consideration. One additional way to avoid extremely wealthy donors having too much influence is to try to insist that UHNW donors subject their giving to democratic checks on their decision-making from other EAs.
Fwiw, if I were a UHNW individual (which I am not, to be clear), this would make me much less receptive to EA giving and would plausibly put me off entirely. I would guess this is more costly than itâs worth?
While I wonât necessarily endorse your specific governance proposals here since I think it warrants serious thought about a good strategy, I like your goals and I wholeheartedly agree that EA needs to consider the impact of letting a small group of UHNW individuals control the direction of the movement. I also agree that the OP is excellent, and something Iâve been scrolling looking for here and in the EA subreddit hoping to find someone taking a harder look at the issue.
If a person were really on board with EA principles they should be willing to admit that their own judgement is fallible, so much so that it would be good to relinquish control of the money theyâre giving away to a larger, more diverse group of people. Certainly the funder could decide on the larger goals (climate change vs. AI safety, etc.), but I find myself questioning the motives of people who canât give up a large amount of control.
Was SBF legitimately on board with EA or was he doing it to launder his image? We may never know for sure, but thereâs a long history of billionaires doing exactly that through charitable giving. From Carnegie to the Sacklers, and I suspect even the recent announcement from Bezos, this is common practice among UHNW folks.
We as a community need to realize the danger this poses to the movement. Already, there is a negative perception of EA due to the embrace, and sometimes outright worship, of charismatic billionaires. Billionaires who do not live the values that EA is supposed to be pushing: epistemic humility, collaboration, and the belief that every personâs interests deserve equal weight. The acceptance from the community of billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel jump out at me as giant red flags.
I will remain quite skeptical of any UHNW pledges that donât include the following:
A transfer of a substantial amount of the pledge to a charitable organization in the short term, and a structured plan for how and when the balance of the pledge will be transferred. I understand that for people like SBF this wasnât possible because it wasnât liquid, but that just indicates that we should consider the pledge as unlikely to actually come to fruition. As the OP noted, we shouldnât consider a big pledge thatâs built on a highly volatile asset to be money in the bank.
The receiving organization gains control over how the funds are dispersed, and the funder does not have control over leadership. They may specify a general goal for the money, but once pledged the funder should no longer have outsized impact on how the money is dispersed.
Pledges that donât follow this might certainly still be overall good uses of money and count as good philanthropy, but I think we ought to push that they arenât doing EA. If we really believe in the principles of EA, then we should hold our most visible funders to them.
Perhaps there could be two forms of engagementâone that is more transactional, and one that involves the person more as a figurehead. If they seem like a problematic figurehead, EA could try in some way to keep them more at armâs length. I guess this has already happened with Elon a bit, as heâs not publicly associated with AI but is clearly EA-aligned.
I think there is at least one counterexample to your generally negative opinion of mega donors, btw, which is Dustin and Cari. I donât know them at all, so I guess this could age badly, but I have been thinking recently that we seem to have been exceptionally lucky with them. Open Phil is pretty close to best practice in a lot of ways.
I would also push back on your point 2, in that I actually think itâs important to have leadership that has the confidence of both the funder and e.g. grantees. I donât think thatâs incompatible with the donor choosing the leadership.
Dustin and Cari at Open Phil may be exceptions, I have zero inside knowledge about them. Assuming youâre right and theyâre paragons of EA-ness, which would be quite laudable, I see that as the exception that proves the rule. Maybe they donât need to give up the reins because they live the values of EA so well, but that isnât true of most people, and thereâs no reason to think thatâd be true of most UHNW people.
EA hasnât pushed Musk and Thiel away nearly strongly enough for me. I know EA isnât a top down movement, but there are individuals with lots of EA credibility who can and should be making it more clear that what those two are doing isnât EA.
On my point 2, Iâll admit I donât have a clear solution in mind. There needs to be a way to ensure there are good people in charge who will apply EA principles toward the organizationâs goals, and maybe the funder can have some initial influence. However, Iâm highly suspicious of people who got billions and now claim to want to give it away but only if they can control it. Concentration of power is dangerous in every other aspect of society, I think itâs obvious that EA is no exception. If someone truly believes in the principles of EA, then they must be willing to at least dilute their control considerably.
From my basic understanding of Open Phil, it does seem like Dustin & Cari have given up the reins to a large extent? Open Phil has hired lots of staff who are making the granting decisions, although maybe Dustin & Cari have a large influence over the cause areas.
I agree that your two points are the easier ones to implement (and hence I agree-voted), but I do believe democracy among a large group of stakeholders has to be baked in.
This is an interesting idea and I think should be discussed in some detail.
I am interested though in the trade offs between better governance and the sort of governance that might stop people giving at all.
So, for examples, I saw a good post saying that a reform could be âanyone asked to join a new funding vehicle could demand and audit and, if the funder refuses the audit, they should refuse to join and criticise it publicly and discourage other people from joining.â
That seems very likely to stop FTX recurring; but also very likely to stop any UHNW investment in EA directly. So the question is âwhat governance hurdles decrease risk but donât constitute a total barrier to entry?â
I wonder if submitting capital to your proposal seems a bit too much like the latter.
(Incidentally, I realise that asking âwhat might a bad actor agree to?â is a slippery slope when deciding on what checks and balances to employâbut I think things like âmega donors have to have an independent Board with financial and governance expertise, and register a charitable vehicleâ is possibly a better balance than âUHNWs need to let the crowd vet their giving decisions.â)
So the question is âwhat governance hurdles decrease risk but donât constitute a total barrier to entry?â
I agree. There are probably some kinds of democratic checks that honest UHNW individuals donât mind, but have relatively big improvements for epistemics and community risk. Perhaps there are ways to add incentives for agreeing to audits or democratic checks? It seems like SBFâs reputation as a businessman benefited somewhat from his association with EA (I am not too confident in this claim). Perhaps offering some kind of âSuper Effective Philanthropistâ title/âprize/âtrophy to particular UHNW donors that agree to subject their donations to democratic checks or financial audits might be an incentive? (Iâm pretty skeptical, but unsure.) Iâd like to do some more creative thinking here.
I wonder if submitting capital to your proposal seems a bit too much like the latter.
I think this is a great post, efficiently summarizing some of the most important takeaways from recent events.
I think this claim is especially important:
Hereâs a sketchy idea in that vein for further consideration. One additional way to avoid extremely wealthy donors having too much influence is to try to insist that UHNW donors subject their giving to democratic checks on their decision-making from other EAs. For instance, what if taking a Giving What We Can pledge entitled you to a vote of some kind on certain fund disbursements or other decisions? What if Giving What We Can pledgers could put forward âshareholder proposalsâ on strategic decisions (subject to getting fifty signatures, say) at EA orgs, which other pledgers could then vote on? (Not necessarily just at GWWC) Obviously there are issues:
voters may not be the epistemic peers of grantmaking experts /â EA organization employees
voters may not be the epistemic peers of the UHNW donors themselves who have more reputational stake in ensuring their donations go well
UHNW donors have a lot of bargaining power when dealing with EA institutions and few incentives to open themselves up to democratic checks on their decision-making
determining who gets to vote is hard
some decisions need to be made quickly
sometimes there are infohazards
But there are advantages too, and I expect that often they outweigh the disadvantages:
wisdom of crowds
diversified incentives
democracy is a great look
Fwiw, if I were a UHNW individual (which I am not, to be clear), this would make me much less receptive to EA giving and would plausibly put me off entirely. I would guess this is more costly than itâs worth?
While I wonât necessarily endorse your specific governance proposals here since I think it warrants serious thought about a good strategy, I like your goals and I wholeheartedly agree that EA needs to consider the impact of letting a small group of UHNW individuals control the direction of the movement. I also agree that the OP is excellent, and something Iâve been scrolling looking for here and in the EA subreddit hoping to find someone taking a harder look at the issue.
If a person were really on board with EA principles they should be willing to admit that their own judgement is fallible, so much so that it would be good to relinquish control of the money theyâre giving away to a larger, more diverse group of people. Certainly the funder could decide on the larger goals (climate change vs. AI safety, etc.), but I find myself questioning the motives of people who canât give up a large amount of control.
Was SBF legitimately on board with EA or was he doing it to launder his image? We may never know for sure, but thereâs a long history of billionaires doing exactly that through charitable giving. From Carnegie to the Sacklers, and I suspect even the recent announcement from Bezos, this is common practice among UHNW folks.
We as a community need to realize the danger this poses to the movement. Already, there is a negative perception of EA due to the embrace, and sometimes outright worship, of charismatic billionaires. Billionaires who do not live the values that EA is supposed to be pushing: epistemic humility, collaboration, and the belief that every personâs interests deserve equal weight. The acceptance from the community of billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel jump out at me as giant red flags.
I will remain quite skeptical of any UHNW pledges that donât include the following:
A transfer of a substantial amount of the pledge to a charitable organization in the short term, and a structured plan for how and when the balance of the pledge will be transferred. I understand that for people like SBF this wasnât possible because it wasnât liquid, but that just indicates that we should consider the pledge as unlikely to actually come to fruition. As the OP noted, we shouldnât consider a big pledge thatâs built on a highly volatile asset to be money in the bank.
The receiving organization gains control over how the funds are dispersed, and the funder does not have control over leadership. They may specify a general goal for the money, but once pledged the funder should no longer have outsized impact on how the money is dispersed.
Pledges that donât follow this might certainly still be overall good uses of money and count as good philanthropy, but I think we ought to push that they arenât doing EA. If we really believe in the principles of EA, then we should hold our most visible funders to them.
Perhaps there could be two forms of engagementâone that is more transactional, and one that involves the person more as a figurehead. If they seem like a problematic figurehead, EA could try in some way to keep them more at armâs length. I guess this has already happened with Elon a bit, as heâs not publicly associated with AI but is clearly EA-aligned.
I think there is at least one counterexample to your generally negative opinion of mega donors, btw, which is Dustin and Cari. I donât know them at all, so I guess this could age badly, but I have been thinking recently that we seem to have been exceptionally lucky with them. Open Phil is pretty close to best practice in a lot of ways.
I would also push back on your point 2, in that I actually think itâs important to have leadership that has the confidence of both the funder and e.g. grantees. I donât think thatâs incompatible with the donor choosing the leadership.
Dustin and Cari at Open Phil may be exceptions, I have zero inside knowledge about them. Assuming youâre right and theyâre paragons of EA-ness, which would be quite laudable, I see that as the exception that proves the rule. Maybe they donât need to give up the reins because they live the values of EA so well, but that isnât true of most people, and thereâs no reason to think thatâd be true of most UHNW people.
EA hasnât pushed Musk and Thiel away nearly strongly enough for me. I know EA isnât a top down movement, but there are individuals with lots of EA credibility who can and should be making it more clear that what those two are doing isnât EA.
On my point 2, Iâll admit I donât have a clear solution in mind. There needs to be a way to ensure there are good people in charge who will apply EA principles toward the organizationâs goals, and maybe the funder can have some initial influence. However, Iâm highly suspicious of people who got billions and now claim to want to give it away but only if they can control it. Concentration of power is dangerous in every other aspect of society, I think itâs obvious that EA is no exception. If someone truly believes in the principles of EA, then they must be willing to at least dilute their control considerably.
From my basic understanding of Open Phil, it does seem like Dustin & Cari have given up the reins to a large extent? Open Phil has hired lots of staff who are making the granting decisions, although maybe Dustin & Cari have a large influence over the cause areas.
It does indeed. I believe Dustin is on record saying that if he disagreed with Open Phil he would likely defer to their decision
I agree that your two points are the easier ones to implement (and hence I agree-voted), but I do believe democracy among a large group of stakeholders has to be baked in.
Thanks for this Zachary.
This is an interesting idea and I think should be discussed in some detail.
I am interested though in the trade offs between better governance and the sort of governance that might stop people giving at all.
So, for examples, I saw a good post saying that a reform could be âanyone asked to join a new funding vehicle could demand and audit and, if the funder refuses the audit, they should refuse to join and criticise it publicly and discourage other people from joining.â
That seems very likely to stop FTX recurring; but also very likely to stop any UHNW investment in EA directly. So the question is âwhat governance hurdles decrease risk but donât constitute a total barrier to entry?â
I wonder if submitting capital to your proposal seems a bit too much like the latter.
(Incidentally, I realise that asking âwhat might a bad actor agree to?â is a slippery slope when deciding on what checks and balances to employâbut I think things like âmega donors have to have an independent Board with financial and governance expertise, and register a charitable vehicleâ is possibly a better balance than âUHNWs need to let the crowd vet their giving decisions.â)
I agree. There are probably some kinds of democratic checks that honest UHNW individuals donât mind, but have relatively big improvements for epistemics and community risk. Perhaps there are ways to add incentives for agreeing to audits or democratic checks? It seems like SBFâs reputation as a businessman benefited somewhat from his association with EA (I am not too confident in this claim). Perhaps offering some kind of âSuper Effective Philanthropistâ title/âprize/âtrophy to particular UHNW donors that agree to subject their donations to democratic checks or financial audits might be an incentive? (Iâm pretty skeptical, but unsure.) Iâd like to do some more creative thinking here.
Probably.