jared_m

Karma: 526

UK’s new 10-year “National AI Strategy,” released today

jared_m22 Sep 2021 11:18 UTC

28 points

7 comments1 min readEA link

jared_m 23 Nov 2021 17:00 UTC
25 points
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on: Despite billions of extra funding, small donors can still have a significant impact
Completely agree with the thrust of this post.
I do have one small phraseology suggestion here:
I’d especially encourage ‘medium’ donors (e.g. people who might donate $200k - $2m per year) to think seriously about making ‘angel’ donating a significant focus e.g. choose an area to specialise in and spend 1-2 days per month on research...
You might reconsider labeling this group as ‘substantial’ donors (rather than ‘medium’ donors) given the historic average of <$10K/year for EA donors. That survey data suggests the $2M donor level is likely close to the far right end of the donor distribution. There may be a risk that framing the $200K-$2M range as ‘medium’ raises eyebrows and undoes some of the goals of the post. Given efforts to reduce legacy ETG-centric perceptions of EA from the 2010s, I worry this tack could rub those new to EA the wrong way. The average donor may be surprised to learn EA orgs perceive a $1.99M/year donor as medium-sized. They may wonder if a ≤$199K donor would be a small donor, and perhaps a ≤$99K donor is extra-small and (core message of this post aside) near-inconsequential? If a donor with a typical income perceives four- or five-figure annual donations as a source of real financial anxiety — but perhaps ‘extra-small’ in the lights of EA leaders — that may be demoralizing, and reduce their warm glow for making future donations at that scale in the future.
One point I really like is:
making donations also helps to build the effective altruism community, since it’s a hard-to-fake symbol that we’re serious about doing good, and that helps to get more people on board.
For new and small-scale charities, I also hope there’s a warm glow on the recipient side when individuals chip in $100 here and there to smaller meta and other charities via opportunities like this.

jared_m 15 Aug 2020 16:54 UTC
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on: Why I’ve come to think global priorities research is even more important than I thought
Thank you for sharing more about GPI’s priorities and non-Open Phil fundraising goals for this year. Our family will plan to contribute in November or December, after focusing on some other non-profit investments in the next few months.
To borrow a page from political fundraising in the U.S., it could make sense to create formal or informal recognition strategies (along the lines of 80,000 Hours’s “Our donors” page) or social opportunities for donors to GPI—whether on the GPI site or on a Medium page a supporter might roguely maintain if that’s easier. Perhaps a fundraiser “Zoom” for $500 or $1,000 a head, where guests could have the chance to meet each other and ask questions of one or more game members of the GPI team? I’d be happy to help organize one of those if helpful.
Also: one suggested edit for the GPI team, in the tiny chance it has an infinitesimal impact on someone’s decision re: how much or whether to give to GPI. On the following page, ” We are very greatful for any support!” should read “grateful.” https://globalprioritiesinstitute.org/supporting-gpi/

jared_m 30 Jul 2021 0:47 UTC
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on: Matt Levine on the Archegos failure
Matt Levine’s newsletter is a delight to read, and I’m happy others here enjoy it!
The report on the Challenger disaster also chalked the loss of life and failure up to poor risk (and conflict) management. Experts the night before the launch raised serious concerns about the safety of launching under certain temperature conditions… and were basically over-ruled by managers who didn’t want to pull the plug on such a high-profile launch that had been so long in the making.

We recently enjoyed this documentary on Wirecard’s failure. The firm’s auditors at E&Y (much like Arthur Andersen for Enron) basically mailed in their audits to avoid rocking the boat with a large client, ignoring flaming red flags that follow-on auditors from KPMG identified immediately.

Not sure that the Challenger and Wirecard examples add more beyond the valuable points you’ve made re: Archegos, but sharing as additional case studies in case they may be of interest to others.

jared_m 3 Jan 2021 19:02 UTC
21 points
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on: Can I have impact if I’m average?
Individuals in common (or “average”) roles can also make having an impact seem to be more accessible — and a more-compelling moral necessity — to others who have typical, or even outstanding, resources to make a difference.

For example, the Washington Post noted that this waiter’s and part-time teacher’s financial support of low-income students in Ghana inspired both his friends and wealthy members at the country club where he works to also donate. While bed nets or other investments may be higher value from an EA perspective, this is still an interesting case study of an average-income person (from a U.S. perspective) having impact well beyond his own professional work or ETG capacity:
To help supplement his teaching salary, Quarcoo was working part time as a waiter at Woodmont Country Club, an exclusive golf and tennis club where initial membership costs $80,000.
When some of the members learned about his efforts to help students in Ghana, they asked if they could chip in, said Quarcoo, who has worked at the country club since 1975. He also is a part-time substitute teacher in Montgomery County.
“I have never asked for donations, but people are generous and wanted to help,” he said. “A member would say, ‘Hey, Sam, next time you go to Ghana, let me know. I will try to help you.’ By word of mouth, it took off from there.”
Quarcoo’s humble nature and desire to help is contagious at the country club, said Adrienne Maman, a donor who met him about 35 years ago when he waited on her family’s table.
“His heart is right in front of you — you can see his soul when you meet him,” said Maman, 67, who lives in Chevy Chase, Md.
“Sam is a genuine person who just took it upon himself to help these schools,” she added. “Single-handedly, he worked on his own for many years until people slowly began to find out. He has never wanted anything for himself — everything he does is for the children of Ghana.”
Even though Quarcoo has been furloughed from waiting tables since March because of the coronavirus pandemic, club members still donated $19,000 to his efforts this year, he said. The funds were used to buy supplies for nearly 2,000 students.

jared_m 15 Oct 2020 16:23 UTC
21 points
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on: Longtermist reasons to work for innovative governments
Thank you for this post. I agree with the attractiveness of the opportunity! Two top-of-mind potential avenues for someone to explore this would be:
1) Nation state-level political innovation: one might become an e-resident (and an active one) of Estonia, and study upfront how its public sector innovations are or aren’t working. The country is small and public leaders are accessible. So even if it’s difficult for a foreigner to work for the Estonian government, I suspect it isn’t that difficult to become a moderately influential voice on their model as a digital nomad working in Tallinn and reporting on Estonia’s innovation under their new residency program. Other states that embrace well-educated foreigners in high-leverage public sector advisory roles under the right conditions include the Gulf States: Qatar, UAE, etc.
2) Local political innovation: City Halls in wealthy cities are great sources of innovation. For example, in NYC, Mayor Bloomberg’s former aides went on to advise Mexico City and many other cities on innovations piloted in New York. Hopefully de Blasio’s aides will distill and share the advantages and drawbacks to their Meatless Monday pilot in New York’s public schools. Toronto City Hall aides would have a front-row seat to which innovations were most promising and which were most problematic in Alphabet’s shuttered plan to remake part of the city. Anne Hidalgo’s climate and COVID policies will certainly lead to lessons for other big-city mayors, for a European example.
Thanks for framing this opportunity, and I look forward to hearing which approaches people pursue to run opportunities like this down!

jared_m 1 Dec 2021 17:09 UTC
19 points
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on: Have any EA nonprofits tried offering staff funding-based compensation? If not, why not? If so, how did it go?
FWIW: in the 2010s I remember being surprised to learn that the Association of Fundraising Professionals opposed percentage-based compensation for full-time nonprofit fundraisers.
I don’t have a refined view on pros/cons of variable compensation structures like this in certain nonprofit contexts, but am sharing this primary document in case valuable as food for thought. Some excerpts are below.
AFP holds that percentage based compensation can encourage abuses, imperils the integrity of the voluntary sector, and undermines the very philanthropic values on which the voluntary sector is based. AFP stands firm with its Standards which prohibits members from working for percentage-based compensation or accepting finder’s fees...

Members shall:
21. not accept compensation or enter into a contract that is based on a percentage of contributions; nor shall members accept finder’s fees or contingent fees.
22. be permitted to accept performance-based compensation, such as bonuses, only if such bonuses are in accord with prevailing practices within the members’ own organizations and are not based on a percentage of contributions.
23. neither offer nor accept payments or special considerations for the purpose of influencing the selection of products or services.
24. not pay finder’s fees, commissions or percentage compensation based on contributions.

jared_m 9 Jun 2022 21:37 UTC
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on: Two Tiny Requests from HIA, Two Mins of your Time
Done, re: following on Twitter.
My main contact at Pau and Marc Gasol’s Gasol Foundation (focused on “research, holistic, data-driven” work to eradicate childhood obesity) appears to have left. They are a thoughtful group, and may be worth writing in the 10-20% chance they evolve into HIA supporters — or can be helpful in another way.

jared_m 30 Nov 2021 23:03 UTC
15 points
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in reply to: Lakin’s comment on: Wikipedia editing is important, tractable, and neglected
Several EAs have accurately updated prominent individuals’ bios (e.g., the profile of Michael Kremer) to highlight their founding roles in Giving What We Can — or other notable EA affiliations.
I can’t take credit for those additions, but think they are smart, consistent with the spirit of Wikipedia, and worthwhile.

jared_m 13 Feb 2022 16:37 UTC
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on: The best EA Global yet? (And other updates.)
Thank you for strong EAGs in 2020 and 2021, in ultra-challenging circumstances! Re:
- The virtual side of the event underperformed, although it still added around 1,500 connections; it was positively received by attendees, but we did not optimize it.
  We are reconsidering running hybrid conferences in the future, and might run separate virtual and in-person conferences in order to give more attention to each side.
Sharing across one data point that I found the virtual event and a few subsequent connections very valuable. Conflicting October travel meant I wouldn’t have applied/been able to join in-person in London — so it was both useful and encouraging to participate in the virtual side of the event.
Without endorsing this particular source, this strikes me as a valuable perspective as far as inclusion reasons to keep investing in hybrid options when viable.
1. Hybrid events are more inclusive and accessible than in-person-only events.
There are many barriers people may face to attending an in-person conference, especially if it requires flying or a long drive:
- Physical disabilities and mobility issues: blindness, deafness, using a wheelchair or walker, inability to walk quickly, chronic pain, chronic fatigue
- Health issues that require equipment or a regimented medication schedule to manage
- Caring for children or older relatives at home
- Complex dietary restrictions
...Hybrid events are more accessible to these audiences because they allow attendees to participate from home without travel or overnight stays.

Donations tripled to GiveDirectly through 12/5 (crypto gifts only)

jared_m29 Nov 2021 16:44 UTC

12 points

2 comments1 min readEA link

jared_m 18 Dec 2021 14:59 UTC
12 points
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in reply to: Denkenberger’s comment on: A huge opportunity for impact: movement building at top universities
Agree that honors college students are an attractive organizing opportunity. One could look at U.S. public flagships that reel in a disproportionate share of National Merit Scholars (UF, University of Minnesota, etc.) for their honors programs as starting points. These, and other talent-dense schools like Penn State, are very promising. To your point here:
I think the capability is there (and perhaps less entitlement).
EA might gain more mindshare at public honors colleges. Students at those schools strike me as a bit scrappier/more focused than students at stereotypical private universities where I and many EAs studied. Private university students may have more sirens of influence calling their names, in terms of:
- Constant recruiting events by Goldman Sachs, consultancies, and other firms not-so-subtly offering large bonuses and potential channels to OECD country influence
- Unusual faculty mentorship opportunities from former heads of state, prominent writers, etc.
- Time-consuming groups with a history of producing influential leaders and writers
The current Campus Specialist plan (including the set of first-wave campuses!) makes total sense to me. At the same time I’m rooting for target-rich public honors colleges and universities topping this list to comprise a good share of Wave 2!
Goldman’s own data-driven recruiters have taken this approach. From a 2017 article:
Goldman Sachs is embracing top students from outside the hallowed halls of the Ivy League… Lloyd Blankfein hosted a fireside chat in September for 250 students from Macaulay Honors College, a New York-based public school, during which he outlined the firm’s new outlook on recruiting talent. He told students the firm is no longer “trapping” itself by “recruiting from the same 30 or 40 schools.”
The firm has been deepening its relationship with the college, which is considered a high-caliber public school. On November 3, Goldman hosted a resume and interview workshop for 75 Macaulay students....

[Blankfein]: “It wasn’t an act of kindness on my part, or generosity, or trying to create diversity; it was pure selfish, naked self-interest. We wanted to really extend our net further because everybody’s involved pretty much in a war for talent...”

jared_m 2 Nov 2021 1:56 UTC
12 points
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in reply to: Julia_Wise’s comment on: Make a $100 donation into $200 (or more)
+1. This was fun, it was a great excuse to bring up some EOY giving by a month — and your instructions were ultra-clear. Thank you, William!

jared_m 7 Sep 2021 15:24 UTC
12 points
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on: Open Thread: September 2021
Our Mayo Clinic team featured Charity Entrepreneurship alumna and Giving What We Can member Dr. Lucia Coulter and the Lead Exposure Elimination Project on our blog several weeks ago.
Links here, for those interested!

jared_m 19 Feb 2022 22:56 UTC
11 points
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in reply to: Tyner’s comment on: We need 40000h or maybe even 20000h
Thanks for sharing your thinking, @Tyner. Will DM you, but had one thought related to these two bullets:
- All of the jobs I’ve seen listed at non-profits pay pretty poorly. Does it really make sense to take a 70% pay cut?
...
- A few times I have helped friends or family with work issues and generally done a really good job. Like, my friend spent maybe 40 hours struggling with getting a database to do what she wanted and I solved her issues in less than 2 hours. If I can really be 20x more productive then average then I really am awesome and should be using my skills directly. But that’s probably an outlier.
Rather than committing to a durable pay cut by leaving your full-time job, you could see if there are bite-sized bits of work that well align with your skillset that you can spend a few hundred hours a year on (for pay). You could consider taking a “little bet” by seeing if you could take a 1-3 month leave of absence — or go to 60% or 80% time in your current job for a few months — while supporting an EA project that could benefit from your skills.
There’s a good chance the EA Funds team would fund a well-scoped project where you would invest several hundred hours a year advancing a line of work that currently is under-staffed or missing your technical expertise.

jared_m 31 Jul 2021 10:23 UTC
11 points
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in reply to: Arepo’s comment on: Stephen Fry narrating a video on effective altruism, explaining the cause-prioritisation framework while giving us the appropriate emotional response to helping others
It looks like Stephen Fry and his co-founders do: https://www.ictforeducation.co.uk/news/stephen_fry.html

jared_m 23 Jan 2021 13:19 UTC
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in reply to: EmeryCooper’s comment on: Money Can’t (Easily) Buy Talent
Agreed. I appreciate this post and responses alike, but think there are many examples of:
- Brilliant mathematics/CS graduates who might earn $1M+ in finance, but of which there is an undersupply in direct work
- Brilliant PhDs in history or other fields whose private-sector alternatives are rarely >$90K/year, and of which there is also an undersupply in direct work
I expect there are several cases a year where the world would be better off if an individual in category 1 would EtG and fund direct work of 5-10 individuals in category 2, than if the individual in bullet 1 were to choose direct work instead. Not that those in category 1 should mostly EtG rather than do direct work, but I’d be more bullish on the EtG path in some cases than Mark is given the huge labor supply in category 2.
A sad example of the glut of brilliant history PhDs is the challenging labor market and career that Thea Hunter confronted, despite her extraordinary reputation/abilities according to Foner and others. Her painful trajectory is a sign that there is real slack in the “brilliant historian” market. I expect some rising star historians could be induced to work on EA-relevant problems via grants from those whose academic backgrounds offer greater potential to EtG than history or political science PhDs do.

“She had this ability to be extemporaneous and brilliant,” he said. Eric Foner, a renowned American historian and Thea’s adviser, noticed this too...
Her work provided a new way of thinking about America’s past. And she had an ambition: to use an Atlantic understanding of history, of liberty, of freedom, to better grasp the present. It’s one thing to call for a new perspective on history, Foner says; it’s a completely different thing to be one of the “pioneering young scholars” to develop it.

jared_m 30 Nov 2021 23:25 UTC
9 points
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on: Creating Individual Connections via the Forum
The “Looking for people who live in the same obscure geographic area as you” use case is a super-promising one. One example is Florida, the third most-populous U.S. state with 21 million people. While the Forum map doesn’t list any Floridians, several dozen have joined this (admittedly sleepy) Facebook group since late 2020.
A number of them live in Gainesville, and a smaller number are in Orlando. Those cities feature two of the four largest universities in the U.S. I’m not in either city so have been unable to support meetups in those areas, but there is likely some low-hanging organizing fruit by getting EAs near large universities to meet.

jared_m 29 Nov 2021 22:22 UTC
9 points
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in reply to: Neel Nanda’s comment on: Donations tripled to GiveDirectly through 12/5 (crypto gifts only)
Anecdotally, the match did lead a non-EA friend of mine to make a BTC gift she otherwise wouldn’t have. So it could still lead to more 2021 giving to GD overall.

jared_m 18 Sep 2021 12:39 UTC
9 points
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on: Guarding Against Pandemics
Thanks for sharing this write-up, and I look forward to learning more at the ¹⁰⁄₁₂ call.
I also chipped in via the ActBlue link — and would encourage other U.S. citizens thinking about their 2021 and 2022 effective giving to do the same. Contributions also have a greater impact earlier in the election cycle (e.g., in fall 2021 versus fall 2022) so there’s no time like the present.

jared_m

UK’s new 10-year “Na­tional AI Strat­egy,” re­leased today

1. Hybrid events are more inclusive and accessible than in-person-only events.

Dona­tions tripled to GiveDirectly through 12/​5 (crypto gifts only)

UK’s new 10-year “National AI Strategy,” released today

Donations tripled to GiveDirectly through 12/5 (crypto gifts only)