Hi Owen, even if youāre confident today about identifying investment-like giving opportunities with returns that beat financial markets, investing-to-give can still be desirable. Thatās because investing-to-give preserves optionality. Giving today locks in the expected impact of your grant, but waiting allows for funding of potentially higher impact opportunities in the future.
The secretary problem comes to mind (not a perfect analogy but I think the insight applies). The optimal solution is to reject the initial ~37% of all applicants and then accept the next applicant thatās better than all the ones weāve seen. Given that EA has only been around for about a decade, you would have to think that extinction is imminent for a decade to count for ~37% of our total future. Otherwise, we should continue rejecting opportunities. This allows us to better understand the extent of impact thatās actually possible, including opportunities like movement building and global priorities research. Future ones could be even better!
But the investment-like giving opportunities also preserve optionality! This is the sense in which they are investment-like. They can result in more (expected) dollars held in a future year (say a decade from now) by careful thinking people who will be roughly aligned with our values than if we just make financial investments now.
Thanks for the clarification, Owen! I had mis-understood āinvestment-likeā as simply having return compounding characteristics. To truly preserve optionality though, these grants would need to remain flexible (can change cause areas if necessary; so grants to a specific cause area like AI safety wouldnāt necessarily count) and liquid (can be immediately called upon; so Founderās Pledge future pledges wouldnāt necessarily count). So yes, your example of grants that result āin more (expected) dollars held in a future year (say a decade from now) by careful thinking people who will be roughly aligned with our valuesā certainly qualifies, but I suspect thatās about it. Still, as long as such grants exist today, I now understand why you say that the optimal giving rate is implausibly (exactly) 0%.
If I recall correctly (and I may well be wrong), the secretary problemās solution only applies if your utility is linear in the ranking of the secretary that you chooseāIāve never come across a problem where this was a useful assumption.
Interesting! The secretary problem does seem relevant as a model, thanks!
Given that EA has only been around for about a decade, you would have to think that extinction is imminent for a decade to count for ~37% of our total future.
Hi Owen, even if youāre confident today about identifying investment-like giving opportunities with returns that beat financial markets, investing-to-give can still be desirable. Thatās because investing-to-give preserves optionality. Giving today locks in the expected impact of your grant, but waiting allows for funding of potentially higher impact opportunities in the future.
The secretary problem comes to mind (not a perfect analogy but I think the insight applies). The optimal solution is to reject the initial ~37% of all applicants and then accept the next applicant thatās better than all the ones weāve seen. Given that EA has only been around for about a decade, you would have to think that extinction is imminent for a decade to count for ~37% of our total future. Otherwise, we should continue rejecting opportunities. This allows us to better understand the extent of impact thatās actually possible, including opportunities like movement building and global priorities research. Future ones could be even better!
But the investment-like giving opportunities also preserve optionality! This is the sense in which they are investment-like. They can result in more (expected) dollars held in a future year (say a decade from now) by careful thinking people who will be roughly aligned with our values than if we just make financial investments now.
Thanks for the clarification, Owen! I had mis-understood āinvestment-likeā as simply having return compounding characteristics. To truly preserve optionality though, these grants would need to remain flexible (can change cause areas if necessary; so grants to a specific cause area like AI safety wouldnāt necessarily count) and liquid (can be immediately called upon; so Founderās Pledge future pledges wouldnāt necessarily count). So yes, your example of grants that result āin more (expected) dollars held in a future year (say a decade from now) by careful thinking people who will be roughly aligned with our valuesā certainly qualifies, but I suspect thatās about it. Still, as long as such grants exist today, I now understand why you say that the optimal giving rate is implausibly (exactly) 0%.
If I recall correctly (and I may well be wrong), the secretary problemās solution only applies if your utility is linear in the ranking of the secretary that you chooseāIāve never come across a problem where this was a useful assumption.
Interesting! The secretary problem does seem relevant as a model, thanks!
FWIW, many of us do think that. I do, for example.