The Patreon idea is interesting! One potential drawback is that it could skew participants’ incentives (and feeback mechamisms) a bit in the direction of whatever made the class of people who disproportionately participated in Patreon happy.
For example, I believe that median salaries for people working in AI safety are considerably higher than those working in global health & wellbeing. If everyone spent (say) 0.03% of their salaries on Patreon subsidies, and people were more inclined to use Patreon to send money to semi-volunteers in their own area of focus, using Patreon as a feedback mechanism would likely skew toward AI safety merely because AI safety folks tend to have more money to give.
The Patreon idea is interesting! One potential drawback is that it could skew participants’ incentives (and feeback mechamisms) a bit in the direction of whatever made the class of people who disproportionately participated in Patreon happy.
For example, I believe that median salaries for people working in AI safety are considerably higher than those working in global health & wellbeing. If everyone spent (say) 0.03% of their salaries on Patreon subsidies, and people were more inclined to use Patreon to send money to semi-volunteers in their own area of focus, using Patreon as a feedback mechanism would likely skew toward AI safety merely because AI safety folks tend to have more money to give.