I run the Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research (CEARCH), a cause prioritization research and grantmaking organization.
Joel Tan🔸
Karma: 1,943
Hi Vasco, thanks for flagging out. I’ve updated our Work With Us page to include the direct donation link (additional 1-3% in fees, but more convenient; if donors prefer minimizing fees, they should feel free to reach out and we can guide them through the cheaper wire transfer)
I think people who have otherwise not looked into this might reasonably update a bit on the fact that someone (us) looked into this, but fundamentally, they shouldn’t update a lot or let this (or anything, really) change their minds without having looked into this themselves and satisfied their own worldview.
And to give more information on why I’d rather not publish our human-animal welfare comparisons—I try to regularly review this issue (e.g. there was a considerable revision after the RP moral weights were published, and a smaller one earlier this year), but to not touch this outside those regular revisions (I tend to let myself get sucked into spending too much time thinking about fundamental normative and epistemic issues in a way that is probably not very useful).
Publishing and inviting public suggestions/comments/criticisms would almost certainly cause me to spend too much time on this right now, in a way that would be detrimental to our other ongoing research (mainly effective giving) and our outreach/donor advisory work with non-EA donors (mainly GHD, some AW). On this issue, I’d rather just wait and see what is published this year (and your work is certainly very relevant/useful) and then re-evaluate at one go, maybe in early 2026.
Hi Vasco,
I think our estimates rely too much on subjective input that I don’t think it would be useful to others, though I will say that the RP estimates helped eliminate one major source of uncertainty (even if too much remains).
Cheers,
Joel
Generally, I’ll say that even when I disagree with Vasco, I admire his willingness to go where the evidence/logic points to, even if the conclusion thus arrived at is extremely unwelcome (e.g. the meat eater problem for saving human lives, or the wild animal problem for the opposite).
FWIW CEARCH has previously looked into the meat eater problem and tried to quantify the downside for animal welfare (in equivalent human DALY terms) when saving a human life, while also trying to adjust for additional considerations such as wild animal suffering and bias (since we’re keenly aware that self-interest/preconceived moral values pushes us to reason in a certain direction). Our conclusion is that saving human lives is net positive, but not as high as it would be if not for the meat eater problem.
I’m not sure how much I would update on Vasco’s argument (convenient as it is for our GHD work), and my main uncertainties relate both to (a) neuron count (I wouldn’t rely on LLMs to spit out the correct answer here, because even beyond the usual risks of hallucinations when there is a correct answer written out there, the true value for this probably doesn’t even exist in the written literature); and (b) the neuron/welfare relationship (though Vasco’s regression is pretty interesting, and a reasonably good first step).
Overall, I think more research in this area (and more funding for such research) is clearly merited.
Thanks for flagging out! Have fixed it.
Hey Vasco, the adjustment is specific to GiveWell vs us (or indeed, non-GW CEAs), since GiveWell probably is the most rigorous in discounting, while other organizations are less so, for various reasons (mainly time—that’s true for us, and why we just use a rough 10x GW threshold; and it’s true of FP too; Matt Lerner goes into detail here on the tradeoff between drilling down vs spending researcher time finding and supporting more high EV opportunities instead).
Relative to every other organization, I don’t find CEARCH to be systematically overoptimistic in the same way (at least for our deep/final round CEAs).
For our GWWC evaluation, I think the ballpark figure (robustly positive multiplier) probably still holds, but I’m uncertain about the precise figure right now, after seeing some of GWWC’s latest data (they’ll release their 2023-24 impact evaluation soon).
Our grantmaking always aims at maximizing DALYS averted (with income and other stuff translated to DALYs too).
In terms of cost-effectiveness, it’s nominally 30-50x GW, but GiveWell is more rigorous in discounting, so our figures should be inflated relative to GW. Based on some internal analysis we did of GW’s greater strictness in individual line-item estimation and in the greater number of adjustments they employ, we think a more conservative estimate is that our estimates may be up to 3x inflated (i.e. something we think is 10x GW may be closer to 3x GW, which is why we use a 10x GW threshold for recommending GHD causes in the first place—to ensure that what we recommend is genuinely >GW, and moving money to the new cause area is +EV).
So my more conservative guess for our grantmaking is that it’s closer to 9-15x GW, but again I have to emphasize the high uncertainty (and riskiness, which is the inherent price we pay for these ultra high EV policy interventions).
I do think RTSL’s salt policy work (and other salt policy projects, particularly ImagineLaw in the Philippines) are reasonably good bets for maximizing life years saved. That said, I don’t an individual donation to RTSL would help insofar as smaller donors can’t purpose restrict it (see their donation button at https://resolvetosavelives.org/).
In practice, I would suggest donating to CEARCH’s GHD policy regranting budget (via https://exploratory-altruism.org/work-with-us/, or just email me and I’ll put you in touch with our fiscal sponsor), making a note on purpose-restriction if you wish, and then your donation goes out as part of a broader consolidated package (e.g. that 63k grant we made on SSB tax enforcement was me personally and 5 other EA donors pulling together).
On nuclear/volcanic winter—won’t the direct effect just be straightforwardly mass extinction of wild animals, which eliminates their suffering? And in contrast, a lot of currently valuable farmland may just not be usable when temperatures shift, so there may not be an offset. A lot of uncertainty regardless, and reasonable people can disagree.
Hi Vasco,
(1) We’ve generally looked at DALYs (and not just deaths/YLL averted), but given the high cost-effectiveness of both hypertension/salt & diabetes/SSB in DALY terms (with the former being somewhat less cost-effective but having deaths make up like 90% of the burden), they’re plausible candidates (CEAs linked in the cause evaluation result spreadsheet). Trans fat/tobacco/alcohol are other plausible candidates—given the clear scientific evidence on mortality + it being difficult to beat policy ideas for cost-effectiveness. You’ll probably also have more speculative stuff like funding development of new vaccines or doing biological control of mosquitoes, but we haven’t done any deep research there.
Nuclear/volcanic winter famine mitigation is another candidate (CEA in the spreadsheet), though obviously there’s a strong self-defeating element from a WAW perspective.
(2) GiveWell’s grantmaking criteria include not just cost-effectiveness but also evidence of effectiveness (which means excluding those high-uncertainty high-EV stuff), though I would say that there is a distinction between their public facing recommendations (which do need to work within the constraint of retail donor risk aversion) and some of what GiveWell funds through other means (e.g. the explicitly more maximization-oriented All Grants Fund or via recommendation to OP). Some riskier stuff GiveWell/OP has funded include alcohol policy and pesticide suicide prevention.
(3) Chris Smith and his team are great, but extremely limited in their time, so I don’t think there’s much ability to expand beyond lead and air pollution right now, even if they wanted to. Also, it’s always important to keep in mind that OP isn’t any different from other research/grantmaking organizations insofar as the researchers/programme officers are constrained by donor preference and risk aversion (specifically GV’s).
Hi Vasco, I made a consolidated comment here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/k7NjuGEKdRSrrJHmZ/deep-report-on-hypertension?commentId=weQHRcDt53BkCuLct
Hi Vasco,
(1) In hypertension/salt reduction policy, CEARCH (in collaboration with the donors we advise) has made 150k in grants (specifically, projects advocating for—and assisting governments in implementing—reformulation policies to reduce sodium in food).
In diabetes/soda taxes, CEARCH has made 63k in grants (specifically, technical assistance to improve enforcement of and compliance with SSB taxes).
(2) For the the bigger GW grantmakers, I’m unsure how much I can share given confidentiality, and I don’t want to falsely give the impression that these grantmakers have already developed any specific views/positions/recommendations in this area, but I think I can broadly share that:
(a) FP previously asked us to help evaluate two large global NGO that worked on salt policy, with a specific focus on trying estimate the counterfactual advocacy success rate of salt policy advocacy campaigns (it’s about 10%). We ended up making a positive recommendation, particularly for RTSL and its salt reduction work. Note that FP already supports RTSL’s trans fat reduction work.
(b) GiveWell is currently considering making a salt grant to RTSL, but I understand it’s exploratory in nature (see how this goes, then follow-up from there). They have also done some internal CEAs of SSB taxation projects; I think their major concern (a frustration shared by us) relates to high uncertainty over the existing GBD estimates of the SSB burden (n.b. the estimates changed wildly from one iteration of the GBD to the next, and it’s not clear to us how or why the methodology changed). FWIW, I don’t see any evidence that the GBD estimates are systematically biased (particularly upwards, which would be the main concern), so we’re happy to go ahead.
(3) Broadly speaking, I’ll say that while there is very good reason think that health policy to prevent NCDs is extremely cost-effective (NCDs are a big and growing problem + policy offers large scale of impact at low cost), it’s also very risky, and very much hits-based EV-maximizing grantmaking, which is not something many grantmakers or donors are comfortable with. Correspondingly, we’ve only been able to move about 100k per annum so far in this area (compared to something like mental health, where we helped a partner move 10x that).
Hi Vasco,
Apologies if I didn’t explain clearly. Yes, the 10% estimate from GWWC was used as a sense-check, against our own calculation based on the assumptions laid out above (i.e. 1st decile of funding is 10 units of impact out of 55, 2nd decile is 9⁄55, 3rd decile is 8⁄55 … 8th decile is 3⁄55, 9th decile is 2⁄55, and 10th & final decile is 1⁄55 - and since 70% of the budget is already funded, the remaining 30% is 3+2+1=6 units of impact out of 55).Definitely not scientific, but I wanted to model a smooth decline across each decile of funding, and I ended up not worrying too much as Sjir’s own subjective assessment converging with ours.
Hi Vasco,
Just copying over the analysis from within the spreadsheet:We expect that the typical funding decision will be made in a context where GWWC has already raised—or will likely go on to raise—a meaningful portion of its budget anyway from other donors.
Hence, I discount for diminishing marginal returns, based on (a) the assumption that the initial 10% of baseline funding has 10 units of marginal returns, and marginal returns decline by 1 unit for every 10% increase in baseline funding; and (b) the assumption that GWWC’s funding situation at the end of 2023 (about 70% of baseline budget expected to be secured) is representative of how much funding will usually be left after institutional and other reliable individual donors have made their contributions or have had their expected contributions factored in. In other words, we are assessing the value specifically of filling the last 30% of GWWC’s baseline budget.
Note that we have gotten an independent estimate from GWWC as to the likely marginal value of the last 30% of their baseline budget, and they ballpark it at 10%.
However, the uncertainty is radical; and both we and GWWC expect better calibration once GWWC trials out different pledge outreach strategies over the next year and measures their returns in terms of pledges secured.
Hope that helps!
Hi Vasco,
We ended up deprioritizing this perhaps 2 years ago—I can’t remember the precise reason, but it was something alone the lines of being concerned with tractability and suspecting that the estimates would probably fall, potentially even by a couple of magnitudes, especially given how sensitive they are to even small methodological changes.
Right now, CEARCH thinks that food security policies to mitigate nuclear & volcanic winter (i.e. ALLFED-style work but with more of a policy bent) is more promising; particularly more common-sense asks related to trade, crop relocation, redistribution (rather than technology-focused asks).
As a matter of fact, early this year we finished evaluating project proposals from ALLFED and some other GCR policy organizations for food security/nuclear winter projects, and have been recommending grants to some of our GCR-inclined donor partners. Unfortunately, there’s been no concrete interest so far, and we’ve not been able to move any money in this area, compared to GHD (where we’ve funded or advised the funding of stuff in nutrition policy and mental health). All things considered, nuclear is definitely more neglected within EA compared to AI and bio.
Hope this is helpful, and thanks for the new tags!
Joel
Just to address some of the valid points you raise:
(1) On charity effectiveness: At least in global health & development, GiveWell is considered the gold standard, and they are extremely rigorous in their evaluations—whether in terms looking at the scientific evidence or consulting experts or surveying beneficiaries or crunching the numbers in cost-effectiveness analysis or monitoring and evaluation.
I strongly suggest taking a look at their intervention reports (e.g. on mosquito nets to combat malaria: (https://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/insecticide-treated-nets) and their CEAs (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18ROI6dRdKsNfXg5gIyBa1_7eYOjowfbw5n65zkrLnvc/edit?gid=1364064522#gid=1364064522), to see just how meticulous and thorough they are, and to judge whether they take into account the concerns you have on corruption etc.
To provide some examples of what GiveWell adjust for, in their typically obsessive way—they adjust for (i) risk of wastage from double treatment/ineffective goods/goods purchased and left in storage till expiry, (ii) risk of misappropriation and of false monitoring, (iii) risk in the charity changing priorities or having non-funding bottlenecks or funging funding between more vs less effective programmes; (iv) % of mosquito nets actually used, (v) coverage years lost due to use of residual nets from previous distributions, (vi) program not having impact because it simply moved distributions closer together, (vii) internal & external validity issues with the randomized control trails used as evidence etc.
(2) On giving now vs later. I think it generally comes down to the following considerations.
(a) Value drift: I do think it’s a real risk that by not donating, you lose the motivation to do so (it’s easy to come up with excuses to put it off, not unlike exercise or dieting or quitting smoking/drugs/alcohol etc) and just end up not giving at all.
(b) Reduced cost-effectiveness over time: For most top GHD interventions available to the public, their cost-effectiveness will decline over time, because economic growth makes countries richer and reduces poverty and disease burdens over time—so if you give later, some of the cheapest ways of saving lives or reducing poverty will no longer exist (e.g. think of how expensive it is to save a life in America vs in the Congo, as an extreme example).
(c) Interest rates—as you point out, saving allows for your donation pool to grow (whether you invest in stocks or bonds or whatever).
Overall, (a) + (b) probably outweigh (c), making it more optimal to give now rather than later.
This might be of interest—goes through the various substantive issues with VSL as a method
Hey Ozzie—the MCF runs biannual grant rounds, and this round also seems to have moved less than the average so far (e.g. see the winter 2023 round which moved about 700k and summer 2024 which moved 2m). In general, I would expect the average annual amount moved to be higher than what was granted this time, but Joey would know more than me.
I know a couple of MCF members, and I understand some are “2nd tier” members—they have access to the applications but I’m not sure if they commit to the annual 100k. @Joey ?
Thanks for the thoughts!
(1) I’m in strong agreement with worries over people leaving/disengaging from EA due to applying for a huge number of jobs and getting disillusioned when not landing any. From my conversations with various EAs, this seems a genuine problem, and there are probably structural reasons for this: (a) the current EA job market (demand > supply); and (b) selection effects in terms of who gives advice (by definition, us EA folks at EA organizations giving advice on EA jobs, have been successful in landing a direct EA job, and may underrate the difficulties of doing so).
(2) On whether the average early career EA should try for E2G—I’m not sure about this. It’s true that they’ve been selected for, but they’re still fundamentally at a big disadvantage in terms of experience, and I’m seriously worried about a lot of selection into low career-capital but nominally EA roles that disadvantage them later on, both in terms of impact and financial security.
In any case, at EAGx Singapore last weekend, I did a talk to a crowd of mainly these early career EAs on having impact with and without an EA career, and I basically pitched trying for an EA job but also seriously considering impact by effective giving in a non-EA job as a Plan B. I think it’s especially relevant for LMIC EAs, who cannot move to the UK/US for high-impact roles (or find it harder to do so).
Hi Alex. It’s a great idea to have this AMA! Hopefully it helps raise more awareness of earning to give as a potential path to impact for more people.
Two questions that I’d be keen to get your views on, and which may be of interest to the community:
(1) How do you balance your earning to give/effective giving commitments with your family commitments? (e.g. in my own experience, one’s partner may disapprove of or be stressed out by you giving >=10%, and of course with a mortgage/kids things get even tougher)
(2) Would you say currently, the median EA should consider trying some E2G (or at least non-EA work while giving significantly) early on in their career?
The main considerations, as far as I see, relate to: (a) the EA labour market (where currently, demand for jobs outstrip supply—so chances of landing a job are low & counterfactual impact relative to next best hire is small); (b) whether money is the bottleneck for EA (it does seem so, at least for GHD/AW—and importantly, you can’t always choose to work at the most effective charities but can choose to donate to them); and (c) miscellaneous issues like financial stability, building career capital, and ability to switch career paths (traditional work in finance/consulting/tech for 1-3 years of E2G seem to be stronger on all three counts, relative to the marginal EA job that a fresh grad is likely to land)
Cheers,
Joel
I would agree for Westminster, but this is relatively tractable in LMICs where governments rely a lot on external NGOs for policy development and implementation + US legislators always have the habit of adding riders to bills. The title may be misleading unless qualified.
Edit: As a former civil servant in Singapore, and as someone whose friends are all still serving, our favourite joke is that we signed up to do evidence-based policy-making, but what we often do instead is policy-based evidence-making (and this is in Singapore, which is famed for fairly extreme technocracy).
Anyone who joins a high-income country civil service to make a difference should expect being stalled by bureaucracy (plus legitimate constraints on policy options, whether political or budgetary or operational, that aren’t necessarily apparent to the public). Also, it really makes a difference if it’s a politician pushing it vs someone in the civil service hierarchy; civil servants are deferential to democratically elected politicians in a way they aren’t to their own peers or juniors in the service. Suggesting new ideas is met, at baseline, by the dead-eye stare of someone who knows this just creates more work for them.