I get that the diagram is just an illustration, and isn’t meant to be to scale, but the EA portion of the GHD bubble should probably be much, much smaller than is portrayed here (maybe 1%, because the GHD bubble is so much bigger than the diagram suggests). This is a really crude estimate, but EA spent $400 million on GHD in 2021, whereas IHME says that nearly $70 billion was spent on “development assistance for health” in 2021, so EA funding constitutes a tiny portion of all GHD funding.
I think this matters because GHD EAs have lots and lots of other organizations/spaces/opportunities outside of EA that they can gravitate to if EA starts to feel like it’s becoming dominated by AI safety. I worry about this because I’ve talked to GHD EAs at EAGs, and sometimes the vibe is a bit “we’re not sure this place is really for us anymore” (especially among non-biosecurity people). So I think it’s worth considering: if the EA community further grows the AI safety field, is this liable to push non-AI safety people—especially GHD people, who have a lot of other places to go—out of EA? And if so, how big of a problem is that?
I assume it would be possible to analyze some data on this, for instance: are GHD EAs attending fewer EAGs? Do EAs who express interest in GHD have worse experiences at EAGs, or are they less likely to return? Has this changed over time? But I’d also be interested in hearing from others, especially GHD people, on whether the fact that there are lots of non-EA opportunities around makes them more likely to move away from EA if EA becomes increasingly focused on AI safety.
That’s my big concern as well. I just applied for my first EAG, only after asking the organisers if there would be enough content/people to make it worthwhile for someone who really has something to offer only to GHD people. Their response was still pretty encouraging
“We’d roughly estimate about 10% of attendees at Boston will be focussed on Global Health and Development. Our content specialist will be aiming to curate about 15% of the content around Global Health and Development (which refers to talks, workshops, speed meetings, and meetups). ”
That would mean maybe 100-150 GHD people at the conference which is all good from my perspective, but if it was half that I would be getting a bit shaky on whether it would be worth it or not.
I like how you’re characterizing this!
I get that the diagram is just an illustration, and isn’t meant to be to scale, but the EA portion of the GHD bubble should probably be much, much smaller than is portrayed here (maybe 1%, because the GHD bubble is so much bigger than the diagram suggests). This is a really crude estimate, but EA spent $400 million on GHD in 2021, whereas IHME says that nearly $70 billion was spent on “development assistance for health” in 2021, so EA funding constitutes a tiny portion of all GHD funding.
I think this matters because GHD EAs have lots and lots of other organizations/spaces/opportunities outside of EA that they can gravitate to if EA starts to feel like it’s becoming dominated by AI safety. I worry about this because I’ve talked to GHD EAs at EAGs, and sometimes the vibe is a bit “we’re not sure this place is really for us anymore” (especially among non-biosecurity people). So I think it’s worth considering: if the EA community further grows the AI safety field, is this liable to push non-AI safety people—especially GHD people, who have a lot of other places to go—out of EA? And if so, how big of a problem is that?
I assume it would be possible to analyze some data on this, for instance: are GHD EAs attending fewer EAGs? Do EAs who express interest in GHD have worse experiences at EAGs, or are they less likely to return? Has this changed over time? But I’d also be interested in hearing from others, especially GHD people, on whether the fact that there are lots of non-EA opportunities around makes them more likely to move away from EA if EA becomes increasingly focused on AI safety.
That’s my big concern as well. I just applied for my first EAG, only after asking the organisers if there would be enough content/people to make it worthwhile for someone who really has something to offer only to GHD people. Their response was still pretty encouraging
“We’d roughly estimate about 10% of attendees at Boston will be focussed on Global Health and Development. Our content specialist will be aiming to curate about 15% of the content around Global Health and Development (which refers to talks, workshops, speed meetings, and meetups). ”
That would mean maybe 100-150 GHD people at the conference which is all good from my perspective, but if it was half that I would be getting a bit shaky on whether it would be worth it or not.
Also the $70 billion on development assistance for health doesn’t include other funding that contributes to development.
$100b+ on non health development
$500b+ remittances
Harder to estimate but over a trillion spent by LMICs on their own development and welfare