People intersted in this topic can also read this: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tMv3KWqcx5oFq27gN/the-contribution-of-average-direct-worker-in-ai-risks-may-be
jackchang110
Karma: 376
Critique: There are not enough “realistic” topics in EA public discussion
IMO the fact is crazier, it’s “despite billions of funding, small donors still have a siginificant better marginal value of dontaing money than big donors”
[Question] How much money does it need for you to compensate that you have to die now?
Thanks for your answeing. I think there’s another category for your theory of change: 3.Doing important work that not enough people “can” do it well. And that’s more similar to 1. Another way to put it, how much $ do you think would it be worth for me to pay for a USA green card, if it can be bought?
It’s very impressive to donate 80%. For other EAs who are pursuing “earn to give” as a main strategy, I think it’s a model to learn with. Although the default is to donate 10%, but I think most EAs could aim for a higher value. However, there’s also a case for saving money. I think EAs could use “earn to give+save” as a metric, we can aim for “give+save 50% every year”
[Question] How important is it to immigrate to USA to impact on reducing AI risks?
[Question] How useful is hardware knowledge in AI s-risks research?
What I mean here is if you can give> $50000 a year, then it could be probable the contribution is better than direct work.
Of course, doing any small altruistic things is valuable and worth admiration(even only giving $1)
That’s partially true I think. However, some EA orgs aren’t funding constrainted at all, therefore they hire people that’s better than a certain bar, not hiring people in a limited number. In this, you get whole credit, because even if you decide not to work there, there won’t be another people hired
Thanks for your willingness to type down your critique. Your idea is basically: Maybe I can’t become a PR 90 researcher, but at least I probably could become PR 90 at something and collaborate with others and make impact.
But my critique is : Suppose you’re PR 90 at writing skills but average at every other things. Maybe you can apply for writing position in EA world, to help researchers publish better articles/papers. But it’s hard to get in EA world, if you work in non-EA world, it seems impossible to reduce AI s-risks if you’re only good at writing. You’ll still get a writing job in non-EA world, but what you’re going to write is probably not related to AI s-risks at all. It seems only people with the skill of research or policy can make impact for AI s-risks in the non-EA world(such as implementing safety designs). There’s in fact not that many skills that can make influences in the non-EA world, especially for s-risks
You probably won’t successfully build up skills and become capable enough.
I think you point out a good point: Some of the donators are too conservative of donating. I wonder if you have thoughts to this question: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/n76Hpb8N53JBeeWD4/resolving-paradox-funding-isn-t-bottleneck-vs-80-high
Have you ever considered donating to the field of AI s-risks, like Center for reducing suffering or independent s-risks reserachers?
I think some of Brain Tomasiks essays are quite persuasive: https://briantomasik.com/
Also, I think we could say: Imagine you’re going to be thrown to a volcano for 10 minutes, but you’d get X years of happiness, how many years are you willing to do this exchange? I think most of us even if we wouldn’t want to be thrown to a volcano to exchange 1000 years of happiness, that’s why reducing extreme suffering is important
Some rough ideas- 1.For older people, it’s harder to change their career path to something like AI safety. However, they could still do earn to give(But unfortunately, EtG is less discussed in EA recently)
2.The cost of turning values: It’d be harder for people over 40 to change their value systems they hold for years to completely EA value systems. For me, since I touched EA at 15 so I don’t have this problem.
Thanks very much for your answering, I’m very grateful for it. I think bascially your idea is “The impact of AI risks research is fat-tailed”. But there’s still a question: If there are money left, and 80% of people aren’t funded, why don’t you fund them even though they have little impact? Maybe you’ll say we should save money, but will the AI risks researchers in the future be much more capable than now? In other words, if the funding bar is still that high, is it probable 10 years later, still 80% of people can’t reach the funding bar and do direct work?
It seems many unfunded s-risks researchers are already senior(have 5+ years of experience), which means even if they have 10 years more, they probably wouldn’t get more capable and pass the funding bar. But I’m unceratin and welcome to criticize this idea.
[Question] Resolving Paradox: Funding Isn’t Bottleneck vs. ~80% high Rejection Rates in AI Safety
Could this news really be the evidence of “It’s probably in the future the funding gap would decrease significantly”. Of course in the future 3 years there may be a lot of small donors coming from Anthropic, but what if Anthropic is surpassed by other AI frontier labs in the future?(like: Open AI, Google Deepmind) There may be way fewer donor in these companies. Therefore, the increase of funding may not continue long-term. (Though, I’m very uncertain, welcome to comment below to share your intuitions about this).
Hello Ariel
You’re right that E2G depends on cause area. However, I doubt the saying “AI safety isn’t funding constrainted”, as I see the funding bar is still really high.(and some aspiring AI safety researchers can’t get an EA job). It’s true that some org said they don’t need more money, but they could be too stingy on funding researchers. In the AI s-risks(suffering risks) field, it’s probably more funding constrainted than AI x-risks field. Because, if there are only 1 or 2 major donors in a field, there maybe blind spots of the donor and some great projects aren’t funded. As I know, there are very few indidvidual donors donating > $50000 annually now. In this case, small donors could fill the gap. Imagine if there’s a PR90 researcher unfunded, if you donate to him, your impact would be better than 90% of people in EA. I have a FB post on EA career discussion group to explain deeper of this idea:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18oL5QjUUq/