I believe GWWC’s recommendation of Against Malaria Foundation was based on GiveWell’s (otherwise they might’ve recommended another bednet charity). And Peter Singer generally did not recommend the charities that GiveWell ranks highly, before GiveWell ranked them highly.
I don’t want to deny, though, that for any given research project you might undertake, there’s often a much quicker approach that gets you part of the way there. I think the process you described is a fine way to generate some good initial leads (I think GWWC independently recommended Schistosomiasis Control Initiative before GiveWell did, for example). As the stakes of the research rise, though, I think it becomes more valuable and important to get a lot of the details right—partly because so much money rides on it, partly because quicker approaches seem more vulnerable to adversarial behavior/Goodharting of the process.
Apologies for chiming in so late!
I believe GWWC’s recommendation of Against Malaria Foundation was based on GiveWell’s (otherwise they might’ve recommended another bednet charity). And Peter Singer generally did not recommend the charities that GiveWell ranks highly, before GiveWell ranked them highly.
I don’t want to deny, though, that for any given research project you might undertake, there’s often a much quicker approach that gets you part of the way there. I think the process you described is a fine way to generate some good initial leads (I think GWWC independently recommended Schistosomiasis Control Initiative before GiveWell did, for example). As the stakes of the research rise, though, I think it becomes more valuable and important to get a lot of the details right—partly because so much money rides on it, partly because quicker approaches seem more vulnerable to adversarial behavior/Goodharting of the process.