I am open to work.
Vasco Grilošø
Karma: 8,438
Regarding prioritization: You can find details on how we allocate funding across programmatic areas in our financial statements. Our funding distribution varies from year to year, and different sources of funding also influences how resources are allocatedānot just cost-effectiveness.
I was looking for your thinking on prioritisation, not just the allocation of funds (this results from your thinking, but is not the prioritisation process itself).
As I mentioned earlier, the only portion of our unrestricted funding that supports our diet change work comes from donors who, while choosing to give unrestrictedly, have expressed that this program is their primary motivation for supporting us.
I am not sure I got it. If those donors give unrestrictedly, you could use their donations to support your cage-free work which you also think is more cost-effective than your meal replacement work?
Thanks, Carolina! I have followed up there too.
Thanks for the follow-up, Carolina!
Regarding your question, we want to emphasize that we have reflected extensively on our prioritization of resources, including by considering your own analysis. This is an area of constant strategic consideration for us.
Is there any public write-up of your thinking on prioritisation you could point me to?
It is important to clarify that our meal replacement (diet-change) program is funded through restricted donationsāmeaning the funds allocated to this initiative come from donors who would not otherwise contribute to our cage-free or pig welfare campaigns.
Have you considered making the case to such donors that your cage-free work is way more cost-effective? Do you spend any unrestricted funds on the meal replacement program? If yes, the difference in their cost-effectiveness suggests it would be good for your to spend less. If not, I do not understand why Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) assessed its cost-effectiveness, as donations would not fund it by default.
For instance, in 2023, we secured approximately USD 162K in restricted funding specifically for our meal replacement work, and at least USD 100K in donations were influenced by the programās objectives and results. These amounts combined exceeded the programās total expenditures for the year.
Where did the additional donations go to? If the meal replacement program caused additional donations equal to 61.7 % (= 100*10^3/ā(162*10^3)) of the spending on it, and they all went to the meal replacement program, it would only become 1.62 (= 1 + 0.617) times as cost-effective, or 0.173 % (= 1.62*1.07*10^-3) as cost-effective as your cage-free campaigns. On the other hand, if they all went to your cage-free campaigns, it would become 578 (= 1 + 0.617/ā(1.07*10^-3)) times as cost-effective, or 61.8 % (= 578*1.07*10^-3) as cost-effective as your cage-free campaigns. In this latter case, 99.8 % (= 1 ā 1ā578) of the impact of your meal replacement program would come from increasing the funds supporting your cage-free campaigns.
In short, when it comes to impact, we believe that cost effectiveness estimates per dollar do not tell the full story.
I think you mean that increases in welfare do not tell the full story. Even if you have other goals, such as ending factory-farming even if that is not ideal in terms of decreasing suffering, and increasing happiness, you could estimate the cost-effectiveness in terms of decreases in the number of animals, adjusted for their capacity for welfare, per $.
I suspect the crux of the disagreement might be a skepticism about the potential impact of working within the system
I believe there are positions within the system which are more impactful than a random one in ACEās recommended charities. However, I think those are quite senior, and therefore super hard to get, especially for people wanting to go against the system in the sense of prioritising animal welfare much more.
they are often more replaceable in these roles than they would be in an APA position and their impact is limited only to the difference between their skills and the next best candidate which for many roles is not that much.
I guess this also applies to junior positions within the system, whose freedom would be determined to a significant extent by people in senior positions.
Thanks for sharing your views, Lauren!
I disagree quite strongly with this!
I find it hard to be confident considering the lack of detailed quantitative analyses about the counterfactual impact of policy roles.
But I think as discussed during this week it is because you have the need for greater certainty over direct impact and policy in general is a much messier theory of change.
My guesses above refer to the expected counterfactual impact of the roles. They are supposed to be risk neutral with respect to maximising expected total hedonistic welfare, which I strongly endorse. I most likely act as if I prefer averting 1 h of disabling pain with certainty over decreasing by 10^-100 the chance of 10^100 h of disabling pain, but still recognise 1 h of disabling is averted in expectation in both scenarios, and therefore think both scenarios are equally good.
I also think this missed the point entirely of personal fit which is a multiplier for every persons impact.
My guesses are about the impact of people in the roles, who have to be a good fit. Otherwise, they would not have been selected.
Therefore offering them opportunities for potential impact and career capital should be compared against no role in the movement at all, not another hypothetical role
I would also consider working outside animal welfare to earn more, and therefore donate more to the best animal welfare organisations. I think this may well be more impactful than working in impact-focussed animal welfare organisations.
Thanks for sharing, Ula and Neil! I guess (I have not seen the report) that is super valuable work.
Due to the sensitive nature of the strategic analysis, this report is available exclusively to:
Established advocacy organizations with EU policy programs
Grantmakers supporting farmed animal welfare initiatives in Europe
Strategic partners with demonstrated commitment to advancing EU animal welfare reforms
I was a little surprised that I was denied access. I have done research on animal welfare, and participated in Impactful Policy Careers, so I was guessing I could fall under the 3rd point above.
Thanks for the remarks, Jan. I also participated in the program.
Iāve heard of several people under 30 who have had a relatively large influence on AI and biorisk policy within the European Commission. Perhaps this is because these are ānewerā policy areas within the EU, and the same opportunities donāt exist in animal welfare-related roles.
I agree.
Also, I was curious: was there a particular reason you didnāt mention think tank or NGO work (outside influence) as much? Do you see that as less impactful, or were there other reasons for not focusing on it?
Here are some related guesses.
Thanks for sharing, Joris! I also really liked the program. I can hardly imagine something better for people interested in helping animals working in EUās institutions.
Based on what I learned in the program, and my background beliefs, I guess:
For over 90 % of the positions in the Commission, donating 10 % of oneās net income to the Shrimp Welfare Project would imply over 90 % of oneās impact coming from those donations. Relatedly, I think donating more and better is the best strategy to maximise impact for the vast majority of people working in impact-focussed organisations.
The direct (expected counterfactual) impact of working in a random role in Animal Charity Evaluatorsā (ACEās) recommended charities is larger than that of a random APA, and this is larger than that of a random role in the Commision.
Thanks for the post, Gergo! Do you think donating to local AI safety groups results in more quality-adjusted research-years per $ than to BlueDot? I would estimate that proxy for the cost-effectiveness from āquality of the future research of the additional participantsā*āacceleration of the career of the additional participants in yearsā/āācost per participantā. I guess BlueDot has a higher bar for acceptance, and lower cost per parcitipant, so that local AI safety groups would need to accelerate the careers of participants significantly more to be as cost-effective as BlueDot.
Thanks, Gergo! I will have a look.
Thanks, Huw.
Iām struggling to see the connection between this post and your recommendation to donate to WAI.
In the past, Iāve heard that wild animal suffering is probably not very tractable. Is that true for both insects and vertebrates? [...]
Cost-effectiveness takes into account tractability, research on more humane pesticides looks super cost-effective, and WAI has supported work on that, although I do not know which fraction of the marginal donations to WAI funds that work.
What about WAI sets them up for success here? (You mention they support research into pesticides, but not direct work?)
WAI has been recommended by Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) since 2020. You may want to check their last review from 2023 (very brief summary below). My case for recommending WAI is mostly about figuring out ways of cost-effectively helping wild animals in the future, and building a movement and research field to enable that.
Wild Animal Initiative is a U.S.-based organization working to improve our understanding of wild animalsā lives by advancing the field of wild animal welfare science. By conducting their own research and supporting other wild animal researchers, Wild Animal Initiative aims to increase academic interest in wild animal welfare and identify evidence-based solutions to improving wild animalsā wellbeing.
Wild anĀiĀmal sufferĀing is suĀper neĀglected comĀpared with facĀtory-farmĀing, and this is suĀper neĀglected comĀpared with conĀflicts, epiĀdemics/āpanĀdemics, and global warming
Thanks for fighting for the voiceless, Matthew!
Great points, Marcus!
Here is an example of @Vasco Grilošø doing a pretty good critique of Sinergia that they should be trying to focus on their cage-free campaigning as opposed to meal replacement. That is extremely useful. Itās particularly useful because itās something that @Carolina GalvaniāSinergia Animal can engage with [Carolina is Sinergiaās founder and executive director], doesnāt assume Sinergia is lying, and additional reasons can then be given for why Sinergia might still want to do something etc.
Thanks for noting that! For readersā context, in that comment I made 4 months ago on a post from Carolina, I estimated based on Animal Charity Evaluatorsā (ACEās) cost-effectiveness analysis of Sinergia that their meal replacement program in 2023 was 0.107 % as cost-effective as their cage-free campaigns, which suggests it would be good to move funds from the former to the latter. I also shared the comment 3.5 months ago with @LChamberlain (Sinergiaās senior development manager), and LĆŗcia Perreira (Sinergiaās impact and strategy director). Both LChamberlain and LĆŗcia said they were going to have a look, but they have not followed up. I think posting about it, sharing a draft with Sinergia before the publication, would have led to a reply, or at least a faster reply. This could have been good if it had caused Sinergia to reflect on their prioritisation earlier, and eventually change their allocation of funds.
I feel like Animal Charity Evaluatorsā (ACEās) cost-effectiveness analysis overestimates your role in achieving the listed cage-free commitments. Among the 5 very big or giant ones driving their cost-effectiveness, 20 % of the impact is attributed to you in 2 cases, and 50 % in 1 case where you did not run a campaign or pre-campaign, and did not send a campaign notice.
The field is interested in looking more closely at valence independently of consciousness
Could you link the most relevant piece you are aware of? What do you mean by āindependentlyā? Under hedonism, I think the probability of consciousness only matters to the extent it informs the probability of valences experiences.
The probability of sentience (valenced experiences) conditional of consciousness is quite high for animals? Should we expect the same for AIs?
you could at least confirm that AIs donāt have valenced experience
Interesting! How?
Independently, weāre also very interested in how to capture the difference between positive and negative experiences in alien sorts of minds. It is often taken for granted based on human experience, but it isnāt trivial to say what it is.
Makes sense. Without that, it would be very hard to improve digital welfare.
Thanks for this great project! Do you also plan to estimate the welfare range conditional on consciousness, or the probability of positive or negative experiences conditional on consciousness?
If you do not put physical barriers, fish would move across different properties, making overfishing profitable anyway. It is like two āprivateā oil fields over the same oil reservoir.
Profitable for who? I am thinking companies owning some waters would charge fishing companies proportionally to how much they capture in their waters. Overfishing would eventually lead to no fish being captured in their areas, and therefore no revenue from fishing.
It is the canonical case for an immediate Pigovian tax: the externality is global, uniform, circulates in the atomosfereā¦ Regarding imports, you can charge a carbon tariff.
The increase in the death from non-optimal temperature is not uniform.
Thanks, Arturo.
I find this criticism not so good in general, because there are many externalities and āmeasuringā them means nothing. To some extent an externality is simply āwhat the market does not measure for usā, so Pigovianism is more a framework than a theory.
Right, quantifying the externalities is challenging. Privatisation of public goods makes the market measure more for us. Instead of setting up regulations to prevent overfishing, the oceans could be privatised, and then the companies owning them would have an incentive to prevent the collapse of fish stocks (otherwise, they would go out of fish, and therefore would no longer be able to charge fishing companies).
On the other hand, the lack of Pigovian taxes on carbon (the canonical case where the framework is almost a theory by itself) and the incredible roundabouts to avoid the simple and well known solution proves the utter disgrace that are our social systems.
I think global warming may well be beneficial in many regions. However, at least for countries wanting to decrease it, I suppose taxing CO2eq would make sense. One challenge is that people with lower income may spend relatively more on energy, so they would be relatively more affected by the higher energy prices resulting from taxing CO2eq, altghough this could be mitigated by disproportionally directing the tax revenue to such people. Another challenge is that countries taxing CO2eq would start importing more energy from countries that do not tax it.
Thanks for the post, Max.
Advanced AI is a general purpose technology, so I expect it to be widely distributed across society. I would think about it as electricity or the internet. Relatedly, I expect most AI will come from broad automation, not from research and development (R&D). I agree with the view Ege Erdil describes here.
2047 is the median for all tasks being automated, but the median for all occupations being automated was much further away. Both scenarios should be equivalent, so I think it makes sense to combine the predictions for both of them. This results in the median expert having a median date of full automation of 2073.