This sort of comment sounds good in the abstract, but what specific process would you propose that you think would actually achieve this? CEA has to post all project proposals over a certain amount to the EA forum? Are people actually going to read them? What if they only appeal to specific funders? How much of a tax on the time of CEA staff are we willing to pay in order to get this additional transparency?
Personally, I think something like a quarterly report on incoming funds and outgoing expenses, ongoing projects and cost breakdowns, and expected and achieved outcomes would work very well. This is something I’d expect of any chariry or NGO that values effectiveness and empirical backing, and particularly from one that places it at the center of its mission statement, so I struggle to think of it as a “tax” on the time of CEA workers rather than something that should be an accepted and factored in cost of doing business.
The grandparent comment asks for decisions to be explained before criticism appears. Your proposal (which I do think is fairly reasonable) would not have helped in this case: Wytham Abbey would have got a nice explanation in the next quarterly report after it got done, i.e. far too late.
You would instead require ongoing, very proactive transparency on a per-decision basis in order to really pre-empt criticism.
I struggle to think of it as a “tax” on the time of CEA workers rather than something that should be an accepted and factored in cost of doing business.
I put a negative framing on it and you put a positive one, but it’s a cost that prevents staff from doing other things with their time and so should be prioritised and not just put onto an unbounded queue of “stuff that should be done”.
The grandparent comment asks for decisions to be explained before criticism appears. Your proposal (which I do think is fairly reasonable) would not have helped in this case: Wytham Abbey would have got a nice explanation in the next quarterly report after it got done, i.e. far too late.
I think my broader frame around the issue affected how I read the parent comment. I took it as the problem being a general issue in EA transparency—my general thinking on a lot of the criticisms from within EA was something along the lines of the lack of transparency as a general issue is the larger problem, if EAs knew there would be a report/justification coming, it would not have been such an issue within the community. I do see your point now, although I do think there are some pretty easy ways around it, like determining a reasonably high bar on the basis of CEA’s general spending-per-line-item that would necessitate a kind of “this is a big deal” announcement.
I put a negative framing on it and you put a positive one, but it’s a cost that prevents staff from doing other things with their time and so should be prioritised and not just put onto an unbounded queue of “stuff that should be done”.
I agree that it is a cost, like all other things. On the point of prioritization, I would argue that because of EA principles being so heavily tied into cost effectiveness and empiricism, treating this as something that can be foregone to give CEA staff to do other stuff that should be done is not only hypocritical, it’s bad epistemically insofar as it implies that EAs (or at least EAs who work at CEA) are not beholden to the same principles of transparency and epistemic rigor that they expect from other similar organizations, ie. “we are above these principles for some reason or other”.
I think this is all pretty reasonable, but also I suspect I might think that existing similar organisations were doing too much of this kind of transparency activity.
CEA has to post all project proposals over a certain amount to the EA forum?
Yes, that sounds about it. Although I would add decisions that are not very expensive but are very influential.
What if they only appeal to specific funders?
What do you mean?
How much of a tax on the time of CEA staff are we willing to pay in order to get this additional transparency?
A significant amount. This is well worth it. Although in practice I don’t imagine there are that many decisions of this calibre. I would guess about 2-10 per year?
That’s pretty unclear to me. We are in the position of maximum hindsight bias. An unusual and bad event has happened, that’s the classic point at which people overreact about precautions.
This sort of comment sounds good in the abstract, but what specific process would you propose that you think would actually achieve this? CEA has to post all project proposals over a certain amount to the EA forum? Are people actually going to read them? What if they only appeal to specific funders? How much of a tax on the time of CEA staff are we willing to pay in order to get this additional transparency?
Personally, I think something like a quarterly report on incoming funds and outgoing expenses, ongoing projects and cost breakdowns, and expected and achieved outcomes would work very well. This is something I’d expect of any chariry or NGO that values effectiveness and empirical backing, and particularly from one that places it at the center of its mission statement, so I struggle to think of it as a “tax” on the time of CEA workers rather than something that should be an accepted and factored in cost of doing business.
The grandparent comment asks for decisions to be explained before criticism appears. Your proposal (which I do think is fairly reasonable) would not have helped in this case: Wytham Abbey would have got a nice explanation in the next quarterly report after it got done, i.e. far too late.
You would instead require ongoing, very proactive transparency on a per-decision basis in order to really pre-empt criticism.
I put a negative framing on it and you put a positive one, but it’s a cost that prevents staff from doing other things with their time and so should be prioritised and not just put onto an unbounded queue of “stuff that should be done”.
I think my broader frame around the issue affected how I read the parent comment. I took it as the problem being a general issue in EA transparency—my general thinking on a lot of the criticisms from within EA was something along the lines of the lack of transparency as a general issue is the larger problem, if EAs knew there would be a report/justification coming, it would not have been such an issue within the community. I do see your point now, although I do think there are some pretty easy ways around it, like determining a reasonably high bar on the basis of CEA’s general spending-per-line-item that would necessitate a kind of “this is a big deal” announcement.
I agree that it is a cost, like all other things. On the point of prioritization, I would argue that because of EA principles being so heavily tied into cost effectiveness and empiricism, treating this as something that can be foregone to give CEA staff to do other stuff that should be done is not only hypocritical, it’s bad epistemically insofar as it implies that EAs (or at least EAs who work at CEA) are not beholden to the same principles of transparency and epistemic rigor that they expect from other similar organizations, ie. “we are above these principles for some reason or other”.
I think this is all pretty reasonable, but also I suspect I might think that existing similar organisations were doing too much of this kind of transparency activity.
Yes, that sounds about it. Although I would add decisions that are not very expensive but are very influential.
What do you mean?
A significant amount. This is well worth it. Although in practice I don’t imagine there are that many decisions of this calibre. I would guess about 2-10 per year?
That’s pretty unclear to me. We are in the position of maximum hindsight bias. An unusual and bad event has happened, that’s the classic point at which people overreact about precautions.
I’ve been writing the same calls for transparency for months. This has nothing to do with FTX.