I’ve known Kat Woods for as long as Eric Chisholm has. I first met Eric several years before either of us first got involved in the EA or rationality communities. I had a phone call with him a few hours ago letting him know that this screencap was up on this forum. He was displeased you didn’t let him know yourself that you started this thread.
He is extremely busy for the rest of the month. He isn’t on the EA Forum either. Otherwise, I don’t speak for Eric. I’ve also made my own reply in the comment thread Eric started on Eliezer’s Facebook post. I’m assuming you’ll see the rest of that comment thread on Facebook too.
You can send me a private message to talk or ask me about whatever, or not, as you please. I don’t know who you are.
For anyone else curious, here is a Google Doc I’ve started writing up about the origins of the EA and rationality groups in Vancouver.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p8MPC5j2aZrVX_ugBSHy8-N9HSHWiulR5GHJBfKhQe8/edit?usp=sharing
Evan_Gaensbauer
The EA Community and Long-Term Future Funds Lack Transparency and Accountability
Increased Availability and Willingness for Deployment of Resources for Effective Altruism and Long-Termism
Remote Volunteering Opportunities in Effective Altruism
[Question] What are the numbers in mind for the super-short AGI timelines so many long-termists are alarmed about?
[Question] How do employers not affiliated with effective altruism regard experience at EA-affiliated organizations?
Public Spreadsheet of Effective Altruism Resources by Career Type
Neglected Goals for Local EA Groups
EA Still Needs an Updated and Representative Introductory Guidebook
Announcement: Join the EA Careers Advising Network!
The Culture of Fear in Effective Altruism Is Much Worse than Commonly Recognized
Wild Animal Welfare Literature Library: Introductory Materials, Philosophical & Empirical Foundations
The question of to what extent more effective altruists should return to earning to give during the last year as the value of companies like Meta and FTX has declined has me pondering whether that’s worthwhile, given how nobody in EA seems to know how to spend well way more money per year on multiple EA causes.
I’ve been meaning to write a post about how there has been a lot of mixed messaging about what to do about AI alignment. There has been an increased urgency to onboard new talent, and launch and expand projects, yet there is an apparently growing consensus that almost everything everyone is doing is either pointless or making things worse. Setbacks the clean meat industry faces have been mounting during the last couple years. There aren’t clear or obvious ways to make significant progress on overcoming those setbacks mainly by throwing more money at them in some way.I’m not as familiar with how much room for more funding before diminishing marginal returns are hit for other priority areas for EA. I expect that other than a few clear-cut cases like maybe some of Givewell’s top recommended charities, there isn’t a strong sense of how to spend well more money per year than a lot of causes are already receiving from the EA community.
It’s one thing for smaller numbers of people returning to give to know the best targets for increased marginal funding that might fall through after the decline of FTX. It seems like it might be shortsighted to send droves of people rushing back into earning to give when there wouldn’t be any consensus for what interventions they should earning to give to.
AMA: “The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements”
Update on the Vancouver Effective Altruism Community
I have a for a long time thought it would be valuable for RC’s approach to be replicated in many other countries. So I am glad there is now an article like this with which to show effective altruists in other countries what the value of tax-deductible donation portals like RC really is. So there is a good chance I will cite this article in the future if I discuss the topic on the EA Forum again, or elsewhere.
Oskar Schindler: I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don’t know. If I’d just… I could have got more.
Itzhak Stern: Oskar, there are eleven hundred people who are alive because of you. Look at them.
Oskar Schindler: If I’d made more money… I threw away so much money. You have no idea. If I’d just...
Itzhak Stern: There will be generations because of what you did.
Oskar Schindler: I didn’t do enough!
Itzhak Stern: You did so much.
[Schindler looks at his car]
Oskar Schindler: This car. Goeth would have bought this car. Why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. Ten people. Ten more people.
[removing Nazi pin from lapel]
Oskar Schindler: This pin. Two people. This is gold. Two more people. He would have given me two for it, at least one. One more person. A person, Stern. For this.
[sobbing]
Oskar Schindler: I could have gotten one more person… and I didn’t! And I… I didn’t!
Summary: This is the most substantial round of grant recommendations from the EA Long-Term Future Fund to date, so it is a good opportunity to evaluate the performance of the Fund after changes to its management structure in the last year. I am measuring the performance of the EA Funds on the basis of what I am calling ‘counterfactually unique’ grant recommendations. I.e., grant recommendations that, without the Long-Term Future Fund, individual donors nor larger grantmakers like the Open Philanthropy Project would have identified or funded.
Based on that measure, 20 of 23, or 87%, grant recommendations, worth $673,150 of $923,150, or ~73% of the money to be disbursed, are counterfactually unique. Having read all the comments, multiple concerns with a few specific grants came up, based on uncertainty or controversy in the estimation of value of these grant recommendations. Even if we exclude those grants from the estimate of counterfactually unique grant recommendations to make a ‘conservative’ estimate, 16 of 23, or 69.5%, of grants, worth $535,150 of $923,150, or ~58%, of the money to be disbursed, are counterfactually unique and fit into a more conservative, risk-averse approach that would have ruled out more uncertain or controversial successful grant applicants.
These numbers are an extremely significant improvement in the quality and quantity of unique opportunities for grantmaking the Long-Term Future Fund has made since a year ago. This grant report generally succeeds at achieving a goal of coordinating donations through the EA Funds to unique recipients who otherwise would have been overlooked for funding by individual donors and larger grantmakers. This report is also the most detailed of its kind, and creates an opportunity to create a detailed assessment of the Long-Term Future Fund’s track record going forward. I hope the other EA Funds emulate and build on this approach.
General Assessment
In his 2018 AI Alignment Literature Review and Charity Comparison, Larks had the following to say about changes in the management structure of the EA Funds.
To clarify, the purpose of the EA Funds has been to allow individual donors relatively smaller than grantmakers like the Open Philanthropy Project (including all donors in EA except other professional, private, non-profit grantmaking organizations) to identify higher-risk grants for projects that are still small enough that they would be missed by an organization like Open Phil. So, for a respective cause area, an EA Fund functions as like an index fund that incentivizes the launch of nascent projects, organizations, and research in the EA community.
Of the $923,150 of grant recommendations made to Centre for Effective Altruism for the EA Long-Term Future Fund this round of grantmaking, all but $250,000 of it went to the kind of projects or organizations that the Open Philanthropy Project tends to make. To clarify, there isn’t a rule or practice of the EA Funds not making those kinds of grant. It’s at the discretion of the fund managers to decide if they should recommend grants at a given time to more typical grant recipients in their cause area, or to newer, smaller, and/or less-established projects/organizations. At the time of this grantmaking round, recommendations to better-established organizations like MIRI, CFAR, and Ought were considered the best proportional use of marginal funds allotted for disbursement at this time.
20 (~87% of total number) grant recommendations totalling $723,150 = ~73%
+ 3 (~13% of total number) grant recommendations totalling $200,00 = ~27%
= 23 grant (in total) recommendations totalling $923,150 = 100%
Since this is the most extensive round of grant recommendations from the Long-Term Future Fund to date with the EA Funds’ new management structure, this is the best apparent opportunity for evaluating the success of the changes made to how the EA Funds are managed. In this round of grantmaking, 87% of the total number of grant recommendations were for efforts of individuals, totalling 73% of the total amount of money that would be disbursed for these grants, that would otherwise have been missed by individual donors, or larger grantmaking bodies.
In other words, the Long-Term Future (LTF) Fund is directly responsible for 87% of 23 grant recommendations made, totalling 73% of $923.15K worth of unique grants, that, presumably, would not have been counterfactually identified had individual donors not been able to pool and coordinate their donations through the LTF Fund. I keep highlighting these numbers, because they can essentially be thought of as the LTF Funds’ current rate of efficiency in fulfilling the purposes it was set up for.
Criticisms and Conservative Estimates
Above is the estimate for the number of grants, and the amount of donations to the EA Funds, that are counterfactually unique to the EA Funds, and can be thought of how effective the impact of the Long-Term Future Fund in particular is. That is the estimate for the grants donors to the EA Funds very probably could not have identified by themselves. Yet another question is would they opt to donate to the grant recommendations that have been just been made by the LTF fund managers? Part of the basis for the EA Funds thus far is to trust the fund mangers’ individual discretion based on their years of expertise or professional experience working in the respective cause area. My above estimates are based on the assumption all the counterfactually unique grant recommendations the LTF Funds make are indeed effective. We can think of those numbers as a ‘liberal’ estimate.
I’ve at least skimmed or read all 180+ comments on this post thus far, and a few persistent concerns with the grant recommendations have stood out. These were concerns that the evidence basis on which some grant recommendations were made wasn’t sufficient to justify the grant, i.e., they were ‘too risky.’ If we exclude grant recommendations that are subject to multiple, unresolved concerns from the LTF Funds, we can make a ‘conservative’ estimate of the percentage and dollar value of counterfactually unique grant recommendations made by the LTF Fund.
Concerns with 1 grant recommendations worth $28,000 to hand out printed copies of fanfiction HPMoR to international math competition medalists.
Concerns with 2 grant recommendations worth $40,000 for individuals who are not currently pursuing one or more specific, concrete projects, but rather are pursuing independent research or self-development. The concern is the grant is based on the fund manager’s (managers’ ?) personal confidence in the individual, and even explication for the grant recommendations expressed concern with the uncertainty in the value of grants like these.
Concerns that with multiple grants made to similar forecasting-based projects, there would be redundancy, in particular concern with 1 grant recommendation worth $70,000 to forecasting company Metaculus that might be better suited to an investment for equity in a startup rather than a grant from a non-profit foundation.
In total, these are 4 grants worth $138,000 that multiple commenters have raised concerns with on the basis the uncertainty for these grants means the grant recommendations don’t seem justified. To clarify, I am not making an assumption about the value of these grants are. All I would say about these particular grants is they are unconventional, but that insofar as the EA Funds are intended to be a kind of index fund willing to back more experimental efforts, these projects fit within the established expectations of how the EA Funds are to be manged. Reading all the comments, the one helpful, concrete suggestion was for the LTF Fund to follow-up in the future with grant recipients and publish their takeaways from the grants.
Of the 20 recommendations made for unique grant recipients worth $673,150, if we were to exclude these 4 recommendations worth $138,000, that leaves 16 of 23, or 69.5% of total recommendations, worth $535,150 of $923,150, or ~58% worth of the total grant recommendations, uniquely attributable to the EA Funds. Again, those grant recommendations excluded from this ‘conservative’ estimate are ruled out based on the uncertainty or lack of confidence in them from commenters, not necessarily the fund managers themselves. While presumably any of the value of any grant recommendation could be disputed, these are the only grant recipients for which multiple commenters have made raised still-unresolved concerns so far. These grants are still initially being made, so whether the best hopes of the fund managers for the value of each of these grants will be borne out is something to follow-up with in the future.
Conclusion
While these numbers don’t address suggestions for how the management of the Long-Term Future Fund can still be improved, overall I would say these numbers show the Long-Term Future Fund has made extremely significant improvement since last year at achieving a high rate of counterfactually unique grants to more nascent or experimental projects that are typically missed in EA donations. I think with some suggested improvements like hiring some professional clerical assistance with managing the Long-Term Future Fund, the Long-Term Future Fund is employing a successful approach to making unique grants. I hope the other EA Funds try emulating and building on this approach. The EA Funds are still relatively new, and so to measure their track record of success with their grants remains to be done, but this report provides a great foundation to start doing so.