Hi there! I’m an EA from Madrid. I am currently finishing my Ph.D. in quantum algorithms and would like to focus my career on AI Safety. Send me a message if you think I can help :)
PabloAMC 🔸
PabloAMC ’s Quick takes
However, I think the large effects on animals should be seen as a motivation to help animals as cost-effectively as possible, and I do not see how killing people would fit this bill.
I think this is trying to dodge a bullet. It is not a matter of cost effectiveness, it is a matter that letting a child die of malaria because they could each chicken is a terrible idea in many (most) ethical frameworks. Let me reemphasize, but in Elizer Yudkowski words (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Tc2H9KbKRjuDJ3WSS/leaky-generalizations) now:
In my moral philosophy, the local negative utility of Hitler’s death is stable, no matter what happens to the external consequences and hence to the expected utility.
Now, you could argue that similarly to this case, the expected utility of saving the child might be negative even if local utility is pretty positive. It seems to me that this is convicting someone of something bad (eating a chicken) that he has not had time to do yet, and furthermore, on very handwavy probability calculations that could turn out to be wrong!
Let me also quote William MacAskill comments on “What We Owe the Future” and his reflections on FTX (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WdeiPrwgqW2wHAxgT/a-personal-statement-on-ftx):
A clear-thinking EA should strongly oppose “ends justify the means” reasoning.
First, naive calculations that justify some harmful action because it has good consequences are, in practice, almost never correct.
Second, plausibly it is wrong to do harm even when doing so will bring about the best outcome.
Finally, let me say the post itself seems to pit animal welfare against global poverty causes, which I found divisive and probably counterproductive.
I downvoted this post because it is not representative of the values I believe EA should strive for. It may have been sufficient to show disagreement, but if someone goes for the first time into the forum and sees the post with many upvotes, their impression will be negative and may not become engaged with the community. If a reporter reads the forum and reads this, they will negatively cover both EA and animal welfare. And if someone was considering taking the 10% pledge or changing their career to support either animal welfare or global health and read this, they will be less likely to do so.
I am sorry, but I will strongly oppose “ends justify the means” argument put forward by this post.
If you feel uncomfortable with being preachy perhaps donation matching may feel more so than just highlighting that you are donating a percentage of earnings.
I guess it is ok to mention it, particularly in a holiday gift. Specifically I would feel it is ok to mention what it achieved without being preachy. Some companies use smaller amounts (1%) to signal social impact.
Edit: upon reflection I think this idea may not be that useful. Since the 10% pledge is for the entire career, not each year, that flexibility is already incorporated. And a pause could produce some attrition.
Thanks Luke! It makes sense what you mention. It is true that it would become significantly more messy to track, even when the spirit of the 10% pledge would suggest accounting for it. Just a random idea: perhaps you could offer the option of “pausing” the pledge temporarily so it does not become a blocker for people aiming to do direct work that they deem to be particularly impactful.
I think there might be a confusion here. Your claim is that the dollars we own are more valuable per dollar
Clearly the dollars you own are the most valuable. If you think someone else could do more with your dollars, you can just give them your dollars!
But the post is referring to the overall amount of dollars. Eg Jeff Bezos dollars might be more valuable than mine.
What I mean is that there’s some hard to objectively reduce uncertainty about these choices, so it is important to attach the pledge to the method or goal, not the result we get at one point in time.
It would be similar as EA becoming just about animal welfare. Even if it were the most effective use of resources, you want to keep the method, not just stick to the result, and obviate how you got there.
After all, changing assumptions (for example in the tools provided by rethink priorities, https://rethinkpriorities.org/our-research-areas/worldview-investigations/) you can get different answers of what you should prioritise.
I am a bit confused by 2b. I would argue that the spirit of the 10% pledge is to donate part of your possible income. So if you have offers by $2X but instead take a direct impact job that you deem highly impactful for just $X, then you are donating close to $X already? In fact, the condition
and are able to receive it at any point in the future if you wish.
may be looked the other way round. If you can take the $2X job now, but you may not in the future (say, because you are changing fields), you may be donating more than just $X this year.
For what is worth, I think keeping cause neutrality is important: the spirit of the 10% pledge is to do the most good, not choose specific causes. I would find it reasonable to highlight reasons why one may consider cause X particularly effective, but not give a final answer on this.
Let us imagine you live in a couple but you are the only one currently getting an income, but you fully share finances. Would it be reasonable to donate half of 10%?
Suppose someone takes a direct-impact job that directly lowers the salary by double-digit percentage, particularly when changing careers. What is the best rule of thumb for incorporating that into the amount pledged?
I think you should explain in this post what the pledge people may take :-)
I am particularly interested in how to pledge more concrete. I have always thought that the 10% pledge is somewhat incomplete because it does not consider the career. However, I think it would be useful to make the career pledge more actionable.
Hits based giving sorry! I wrote too fast.
What are his thoughts on impact-based giving?
1⁄6 might be high, but perhaps not too many orders of magnitude off. There is an interview in the 80000hours podcasts (https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/ezra-karger-forecasting-existential-risks/) about a forecasting contest in which experts and superforecasters estimated AI extinction risk in this century to be 1% to 10%. And after all, AI is likely to dominate the prediction.
Where will the podcast be released?
It’s inevitable tulip farmer wages will go down if we airdrop an additional tulip farmer.
Maybe what is inevitable is the additional person will start producing something else.
Contra Vasco Grilo on GiveWell may have made 1 billion dollars of harmful grants, and Ambitious Impact incubated 8 harmful organisations via increasing factory-farming?
The post above explores how under the utilitarian hedonistic moral framework, the meat-eater problem may result in GiveWell grants or AIM charities to be net-negative. The post seems to argue that one expected value grounds, one should let children die of malaria because they could end up eating chicken, for example.
I find this argument morally repugnant and want to highlight it. Using some of the words I have used in a reply:
Let me quote William MacAskill comments on “What We Owe the Future” and his reflections on FTX (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WdeiPrwgqW2wHAxgT/a-personal-statement-on-ftx):
Finally, let me say the post itself seems to pit animal welfare against global poverty causes, which I found divisive and probably counterproductive.
I downvoted this post because it is not representative of the values I believe EA should strive for. It may have been sufficient to show disagreement, but if someone goes for the first time into the forum and sees the post with many upvotes, their impression will be negative and may not become engaged with the community. If a reporter reads the forum and reads this, they will negatively cover both EA and animal welfare. And if someone was considering taking the 10% pledge or changing their career to support either animal welfare or global health and read this, they will be less likely to do so.
I am sorry, but I will strongly oppose “ends justify the means” argument put forward by this post.