Ian Turner

Open Philan­thropy: Eco­nomic Growth in Low- and Mid­dle-In­come Countries

• Ian TurnerJan 14, 2025, 6:55 PM

  6 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: Are AI safe­ty­ists cry­ing wolf?

  I feel like @Zvi put it well when he wrote,

  I don’t see any wolves. So why are you proposing to have a boy watch the sheep and yell ‘wolf’ if a wolf shows up? Stop crying wolf.

• Ian TurnerJan 14, 2025, 6:50 PM

  10 points

  5 ∶ 0

  on: The ugly sides of two ap­proaches to charity

  Thanks Julia for writing this. It’s correct all the way around.

  I can’t help but feel though that there is something a little mean-spirited in targeting those donating to Notre Dame, the opera, etc. There is a common and (in my opinion) somewhat toxic pattern where if someone spends their money on yachts, mansions, etc., then nobody complains but as soon as they do something even a little bit public spirited then all of a sudden everyone feels free to criticize. Like, we can have plenty of objections to MacKenzie Scott’s philanthropic choices, but shouldn’t Jeff Bezos get at least as much commentary for his non-philanthropic choices?

• Ian TurnerJan 5, 2025, 4:46 PM

  5 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: SofiiaF’s comment on: SofiiaF’s Quick takes

  What is an HEA?

• Ian TurnerJan 4, 2025, 3:20 PM

  5 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: Nathan Young’s Shortform

  Can you give an example of the sort of prediction market you’re referring to, or what kind of consequences there have been?

• Ian TurnerJan 2, 2025, 5:13 AM

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: [UK] Claiming tax back on dona­tions as a higher rate tax payer with a nor­mal job

  Is donating via payroll deduction a simpler way to achieve this result?

• Ian TurnerDec 31, 2024, 4:41 PM

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Toby Tremlett🔹’s comment on: Dona­tion Cel­e­bra­tion Post

  Here’s a summary of UK tax treatment of charitable donations. As I understand it, donations are sometime deductible, and sometimes eligible for gift aid, but never both.

  GWWC has a somewhat complicated treatment of gift aid; you can count gift aid towards your pledge, but

  If you are counting Gift Aid towards your pledge it is recommended to calculate your pledge amount based on your pre-tax income. If you are not claiming Gift Aid or any tax benefit then it is recommended to calculate your pledge amount based on your post-tax income.

• Ian TurnerDec 27, 2024, 11:38 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Hzn’s comment on: MichaelDick­ens’s Shortform

  The evidence is quite strong. You can most likely get more detail than you ever wanted from the GiveWell review.

• Ian TurnerDec 25, 2024, 8:27 PM

  3 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: JBentham’s comment on: GiveWell may have made 1 billion dol­lars of harm­ful grants, and Am­bi­tious Im­pact in­cu­bated 8 harm­ful or­gani­sa­tions via in­creas­ing fac­tory-farm­ing?

  It is also highly controversial to state that charity doesn’t begin at home

  Completely different scale. Not that we can determine what is true/​correct by polling; but 29% of people chose to give internationally, while I would wager less than 1% would endorse the view that we should let humans suffer and die because otherwise they might eat animals.

• Ian TurnerDec 23, 2024, 4:06 PM

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Arthur D’s comment on: Arthur D’s Quick takes

  My impression is that most EA oriented charities can already accept tax-advantaged donations from most countries via intermediaries. Is there a particular country/​charity combination you are thinking of that is not currently possible?

• Ian TurnerDec 23, 2024, 4:01 PM

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Dona­tion Cel­e­bra­tion Post

  New Incentives

• Ian TurnerDec 22, 2024, 7:56 PM

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: The “Pro­gres­sive Pledge”

  Interesting idea. Even more so than for the 10% pledge, it seems to me that this one should be based on after-tax income, since otherwise getting more income could leave you with less spending money.

• Ian TurnerDec 22, 2024, 4:57 PM

  5 points

  11 ∶ 6

  in reply to: Fai’s comment on: GiveWell may have made 1 billion dol­lars of harm­ful grants, and Am­bi­tious Im­pact in­cu­bated 8 harm­ful or­gani­sa­tions via in­creas­ing fac­tory-farm­ing?

  I disagree-voted, rather than downvoted, but I could understand downvoting on the basis that, like so many animal welfare pieces on the forum, this one smuggles in a ton of unstated and highly controversial beliefs about the value of animals. I feel like pieces like this should come with a disclaimer at the top saying, “warning: this essay rests on highly unconventional beliefs about the value of animal welfare”.

  Personally I find repugnant the idea that we should let little kids suffer from malaria because of the chance they might grow up to eat chicken. The same logic could be used to justify school shootings.

  What links here?

  • JWS 🔸's comment on GiveWell may have made 1 billion dol­lars of harm­ful grants, and Am­bi­tious Im­pact in­cu­bated 8 harm­ful or­gani­sa­tions via in­creas­ing fac­tory-farm­ing? by Vasco Grilo🔸 (Dec 22, 2024, 7:33 PM; 54 points)

• Ian TurnerDec 12, 2024, 10:32 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Chil­dren in Low-In­come Countries

  Here’s a GiveWell blog post from 2009 that engages with this question.

• Ian TurnerDec 11, 2024, 5:46 PM

  21 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: Earn­ing to Give (EtG) Pledge Club

  Speaking for myself, this is the sort of thing that would make me more excited to sign a pledge.

• Ian TurnerDec 9, 2024, 11:12 AM

  11 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Un­der­stand­ing Shap­ley Values with Venn Diagrams

  Thanks for posting this.

  Do we have an intuition for how to apply shapely values in typical EA scenarios, for example: • How much credit goes to donors, vs charity evaluators, vs object level charities? • How much credit goes to charity founders/​executives, vs other employees/​contractors? • How much credit goes to meta vs object organizations?

• Ian TurnerDec 6, 2024, 12:25 AM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Ozzie Gooen’s comment on: Ozzie Gooen’s Shortform

  Hmm, I would argue than an AI which, when asked, causes human extinction is not aligned, even if it did exactly what it was told.

• Ian TurnerDec 4, 2024, 6:24 PM

  3 points

  4 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Ben Millwood🔸’s comment on: BenMill­wood’s Shortform

  Is your question how we should think about meta vs object level work, excluding considerations of personal fit? Because, at least in this example, I would expect fit considerations to dominate.

  Basically, it seems to me that for any given worker, these career options would have pretty different levels of expected productivity, influenced by things like aptitude and excitement/​motivation. And my prior is that in most cases, these productivity differences should swamp the sort of structural considerations you bring up here.

• Ian TurnerDec 2, 2024, 5:26 PM

  3 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: Fund­ing needed to screen for hu­man H5N1 flu transmission

  Have you already solicited funding from government funders such as NIH or CDC, or philanthropic funders such as Open Philanthropy? If so, what did they say about this?

• Ian TurnerNov 30, 2024, 2:24 AM

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: INTELLECT-1 Re­lease: The First Globally Trained 10B Pa­ram­e­ter Model

  This seems bad, if true. Has anyone considered reaching out to these people?