A review of the OpenPhil grants database shows that since the EA funds were founded, Nick Beckstead was the grant investigator for OpenPhil grants made in both these areas, larger than either of these funds; for example $2.7M to CEA and $3.75M to MIRI. These are good grants, and there are more good ones in the grants database.
My concern is that the marginal effect of donating to one of these funds on the amount of money actually reaching charities might be zero. Given that OpenPhil spent below its budget, and these funds are managed by OpenPhil staff, it appears as though these funds put money on the wrong side of a bottleneck.
Basically, it looks like Nick Beckstead is in charge of two sources of funding designated for the same cause areas, EA Funds are the smaller of the two sources, and they aren’t really needed.
I think the grants just announced confirm your view that Nick Beckstead can typically convince Open Phil to fund the grantees that he thinks are good (though I also agree with Jeff Kaufman that this may not be true for other Open Phil program officers). To the extent that EA Funds are premised on deferring to the judgment of someone who works full time on identifying giving opportunities, the best alternative to an Open Phil employee may be someone who works on EA Grants.
Here’s one way EA Funds could be used to support EA Grants. CEA could choose multiple grant evaluators for each cause area (AI safety, biosecurity, community building, cause prioritization) and give each evaluator for a cause area the same amount of money. The evaluators could then choose which applicants to support; applicants supported by multiple evaluators would receive money from each of them (perhaps equally or perhaps weighted by the amount each one recommended). Donors would be able to see who evaluators had funded in the past and donate directly to the fund of a specific evaluator. If CEA commits to giving each evaluator for a cause area the same amount of money, then donors can be confident that their donations cause evaluators they trust more to have more money (although it’d be harder for them to be confident that they are increasing the overall amount of money spent on a cause area).
Right, but if they weren’t needed in the first place, and that’s evident now, why wasn’t this noticed earlier? Moreso than how the money has now been allocated from the EA Funds, it’s a matter of trust and accountability in the CEA, since as an organization over the last several months they’ve given a self-contradictory impression of how the EA Funds would be managed, without clarification.
A review of the OpenPhil grants database shows that since the EA funds were founded, Nick Beckstead was the grant investigator for OpenPhil grants made in both these areas, larger than either of these funds; for example $2.7M to CEA and $3.75M to MIRI. These are good grants, and there are more good ones in the grants database.
When the EA Funds were first announced, I wrote:
Basically, it looks like Nick Beckstead is in charge of two sources of funding designated for the same cause areas, EA Funds are the smaller of the two sources, and they aren’t really needed.
Lewis Bollard is also in this position, however, so this isn’t everything.
I think the grants just announced confirm your view that Nick Beckstead can typically convince Open Phil to fund the grantees that he thinks are good (though I also agree with Jeff Kaufman that this may not be true for other Open Phil program officers). To the extent that EA Funds are premised on deferring to the judgment of someone who works full time on identifying giving opportunities, the best alternative to an Open Phil employee may be someone who works on EA Grants.
Here’s one way EA Funds could be used to support EA Grants. CEA could choose multiple grant evaluators for each cause area (AI safety, biosecurity, community building, cause prioritization) and give each evaluator for a cause area the same amount of money. The evaluators could then choose which applicants to support; applicants supported by multiple evaluators would receive money from each of them (perhaps equally or perhaps weighted by the amount each one recommended). Donors would be able to see who evaluators had funded in the past and donate directly to the fund of a specific evaluator. If CEA commits to giving each evaluator for a cause area the same amount of money, then donors can be confident that their donations cause evaluators they trust more to have more money (although it’d be harder for them to be confident that they are increasing the overall amount of money spent on a cause area).
Right, but if they weren’t needed in the first place, and that’s evident now, why wasn’t this noticed earlier? Moreso than how the money has now been allocated from the EA Funds, it’s a matter of trust and accountability in the CEA, since as an organization over the last several months they’ve given a self-contradictory impression of how the EA Funds would be managed, without clarification.