Brilliant piece, we need more work examining grantmakers in EA. I just submitted a paper for peer review on grantmakers in Biosecurity (forum post coming soon), and In our lit review we found 3 articles/papers examining biosecurity grantmakers in the last 7 years, written by independent authors. This kind of work is rare, and incredibly valuable.
“When one funder accounts for half of all spending, their priorities are the field’s priorities by default– and so are their gaps.”
This is very very important, and also needs to be addressed. We don’t know in detail where all the money comes from, where it is all spent, and why. It is not by default true that a more stable ecosystem is more effective at producing a desired outcome.
I agree that we need more stability, and I agree that diversifying viewpoints is a way to get that (as well as for building capacity for growth), but we need more clarity on where the gaps are before we can confidently fill them. And work needs to be done to get that
In my paper we examine field priorities in biosecurity, and highlight limitations. I would be interested to read something like this in AI safety too.
Regarding clarity on gaps, what sort of work would you envision? Is methodology here something like going through all of CG’s accepted vs. rejected grants, and trying to identify patterns in what is/is not funded by institutions more broadly?
Curious to hear if you have thoughts regarding how we can get more people into AI biosecurity grantmaking specfically, given it’s such a new + small/niche field?
Brilliant piece, we need more work examining grantmakers in EA. I just submitted a paper for peer review on grantmakers in Biosecurity (forum post coming soon), and In our lit review we found 3 articles/papers examining biosecurity grantmakers in the last 7 years, written by independent authors. This kind of work is rare, and incredibly valuable.
“When one funder accounts for half of all spending, their priorities are the field’s priorities by default– and so are their gaps.”
This is very very important, and also needs to be addressed. We don’t know in detail where all the money comes from, where it is all spent, and why. It is not by default true that a more stable ecosystem is more effective at producing a desired outcome.
I agree that we need more stability, and I agree that diversifying viewpoints is a way to get that (as well as for building capacity for growth), but we need more clarity on where the gaps are before we can confidently fill them. And work needs to be done to get that
In my paper we examine field priorities in biosecurity, and highlight limitations. I would be interested to read something like this in AI safety too.
Thank you so much for your comment!
Regarding clarity on gaps, what sort of work would you envision? Is methodology here something like going through all of CG’s accepted vs. rejected grants, and trying to identify patterns in what is/is not funded by institutions more broadly?
I think one major gap here is c4s, have written more on this in a recent piece re: “stop donating to AI safety research”
Curious to hear if you have thoughts regarding how we can get more people into AI biosecurity grantmaking specfically, given it’s such a new + small/niche field?