(Iâm one of the guest fund managers for this round, but this is my personal opinion only)
For future grant descriptions, it might be worthwhile to explain the cost when it seems surprisingly high.
I think this is a reasonable idea to float, but Iâd disagree that it should be encouraged more than it is at the moment, especially for very small grants like that $3.9k one. Reasons include:
Fund managersâ time has a quite high opportunity cost, so our default should be to not add more detail to these reports unless that seems very useful
If a given small grant turned out to cost 2 times as much as it shouldâve, thatâd hardly at all affect the cost-effectiveness of the relevant EA Fund. So it doesnât seem like very useful info for donors deciding whether to donate to the fund, nor a very useful thing to hold fund managers accountable on in hopes that that leads to them making better decisions.
One might think âYes, this one grant was small, but if there were many such grants then it could be useful to check the value-for-money of all of them or just a random subsample of them.â But even if thereâd been 10 grants like this one, thatâd still just be 39k out of the 1.7m paid out in this round, i.e. ~2%. So knowing whether those grants couldâve been smaller without reducing impact would still hardly affect estimates of the overall cost-effectiveness of EAIF in this round.
Meanwhile, readers should probably be very uncertain about how much positive or negative impact came from lots of the grants, and Iâd say thereâs âwhere most of the action isâ in evaluating how good EAIF is as a donation opportunity.
I think readers should be far more uncertain about the impact of the purchase of the laptop & monitors than about whether that level of spending was necessary for achieving that impact. So if more detail was worth providing, Iâd probably suggest starting with more detail on the former. (Like what will this person be doing, why does Buck thing itâd be useful, and why does Buck in general think better equipment is valuable for increasing impact.)
I think one of the main sources of value for these payout reports is insights into what fund managers (and the people they consult with) see as valuable projects, why they think those projects are valuable, what their models of various cause areas and projects and such are, and how they think. I think cost breakdowns wouldnât help much with that.
Here are some things Iâd be more excited about from this perspective (though theyâre probably still not worth the time):
Payout reports more clearly signalling how our (i.e., fund managers) excitement levels about different grants varied
Making clear our biggest reservation(s) about each grant
Giving Fermi estimates or forecasts of the impacts (positive or negative) of the grant
Spending longer writing out background thinking on a topic that a given grant connected to
E.g., me writing in more detail about my views of the paths to impact for Metaculus and for forecasting
Fund managers often donât know exactly what the cost breakdown will be, and Iâm confident that thatâs a good thing.
(To be fair, if we switched to showing cost breakdowns in payout reports, we could just leave things as approximations.)
Reasons why this situation is good:
Itâs good if grantees have flexibility to make adjustments to precisely how they use the money
Itâs good if fund managers make decisions relatively quickly (in terms of calendar time and in terms of hours spent), and things like checking what specific models of laptop and external monitor would be chosen and how much theyâd cost seems like it wonât improve decisions enough to be worth the time
Itâs bad if grantees apply for precisely what their best guess of the required amount is, such that thereâs a (say) 25% chance they later realise that it wouldâve been better to apply for more and the fund manager wouldâve approved that, but now they have to either just use some of their personal savings, apply again, or spend less than would be ideal
So itâs often best for people to apply for a bit more than their best guess of what they need
Applying again is less good than just having a larger original grant because it takes up some additional time from the grantee, the fund manager(s), and the ops people who process the grant, and because it creates another delay before the grantee gets the decision & money
I think many people who are in the EA community and are doing or are on track to do high value âdirect workâ are being too frugal with their money and insufficiently conscious of the value of their time. In other words, many people should be spending more to allow themselves to be more productive during their productive hours (e.g., by having a better computer or paying for books/âsoftware that would be useful) or to allow themselves to have more productive hours (e.g., spending less time searching for deals or free options, perhaps having a cleaner). Iâd worry that encouraging cost breakdowns for small grants like this $3.9k one is the kind of thing that could exacerbate these problems.
I think if Buck had just happened to decide to proactively and casually (not defensively or with an âI know this is a lot, Iâm sorryâ vibe) provided a cost breakdown, thatâd be fine. But it being like a policy would seem odd.
(Iâm one of the guest fund managers for this round, but this is my personal opinion only)
I think this is a reasonable idea to float, but Iâd disagree that it should be encouraged more than it is at the moment, especially for very small grants like that $3.9k one. Reasons include:
Fund managersâ time has a quite high opportunity cost, so our default should be to not add more detail to these reports unless that seems very useful
If a given small grant turned out to cost 2 times as much as it shouldâve, thatâd hardly at all affect the cost-effectiveness of the relevant EA Fund. So it doesnât seem like very useful info for donors deciding whether to donate to the fund, nor a very useful thing to hold fund managers accountable on in hopes that that leads to them making better decisions.
One might think âYes, this one grant was small, but if there were many such grants then it could be useful to check the value-for-money of all of them or just a random subsample of them.â But even if thereâd been 10 grants like this one, thatâd still just be 39k out of the 1.7m paid out in this round, i.e. ~2%. So knowing whether those grants couldâve been smaller without reducing impact would still hardly affect estimates of the overall cost-effectiveness of EAIF in this round.
Meanwhile, readers should probably be very uncertain about how much positive or negative impact came from lots of the grants, and Iâd say thereâs âwhere most of the action isâ in evaluating how good EAIF is as a donation opportunity.
I think readers should be far more uncertain about the impact of the purchase of the laptop & monitors than about whether that level of spending was necessary for achieving that impact. So if more detail was worth providing, Iâd probably suggest starting with more detail on the former. (Like what will this person be doing, why does Buck thing itâd be useful, and why does Buck in general think better equipment is valuable for increasing impact.)
I think one of the main sources of value for these payout reports is insights into what fund managers (and the people they consult with) see as valuable projects, why they think those projects are valuable, what their models of various cause areas and projects and such are, and how they think. I think cost breakdowns wouldnât help much with that.
Here are some things Iâd be more excited about from this perspective (though theyâre probably still not worth the time):
Payout reports more clearly signalling how our (i.e., fund managers) excitement levels about different grants varied
Making clear our biggest reservation(s) about each grant
Giving Fermi estimates or forecasts of the impacts (positive or negative) of the grant
Spending longer writing out background thinking on a topic that a given grant connected to
E.g., me writing in more detail about my views of the paths to impact for Metaculus and for forecasting
Fund managers often donât know exactly what the cost breakdown will be, and Iâm confident that thatâs a good thing.
(To be fair, if we switched to showing cost breakdowns in payout reports, we could just leave things as approximations.)
Reasons why this situation is good:
Itâs good if grantees have flexibility to make adjustments to precisely how they use the money
Itâs good if fund managers make decisions relatively quickly (in terms of calendar time and in terms of hours spent), and things like checking what specific models of laptop and external monitor would be chosen and how much theyâd cost seems like it wonât improve decisions enough to be worth the time
Itâs bad if grantees apply for precisely what their best guess of the required amount is, such that thereâs a (say) 25% chance they later realise that it wouldâve been better to apply for more and the fund manager wouldâve approved that, but now they have to either just use some of their personal savings, apply again, or spend less than would be ideal
So itâs often best for people to apply for a bit more than their best guess of what they need
Applying again is less good than just having a larger original grant because it takes up some additional time from the grantee, the fund manager(s), and the ops people who process the grant, and because it creates another delay before the grantee gets the decision & money
I think many people who are in the EA community and are doing or are on track to do high value âdirect workâ are being too frugal with their money and insufficiently conscious of the value of their time. In other words, many people should be spending more to allow themselves to be more productive during their productive hours (e.g., by having a better computer or paying for books/âsoftware that would be useful) or to allow themselves to have more productive hours (e.g., spending less time searching for deals or free options, perhaps having a cleaner). Iâd worry that encouraging cost breakdowns for small grants like this $3.9k one is the kind of thing that could exacerbate these problems.
I think if Buck had just happened to decide to proactively and casually (not defensively or with an âI know this is a lot, Iâm sorryâ vibe) provided a cost breakdown, thatâd be fine. But it being like a policy would seem odd.
Some semi-relevant further discussion can be found at https://ââforum.effectivealtruism.org/ââtag/ââtime-money-tradeoffs and https://ââwww.lesswrong.com/ââtag/ââtime-value-of