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If you are unclear between AMF (bed nets) and AI Risk, and you find AI Risk dubious, then donate to AMF. It sounds like you're complaining that your choices hav

If you are unclear between AMF (bed nets) and AI Risk, and you find AI Risk dubious, then donate to AMF. It sounds like you're complaining that your choices have been pared down to two, and you don't like one of them.

austhrow743 6y ago
Reads to me like they've been consuming a lot of the output of other peoples recreation, despite not wanting to, and are now complaining about those people having left it somewhere where they could read it.
notahacker 6y ago
I think the pared down bit is important: the whole point behind EA is to increase giving to some types of organization at the expense of giving to other types of organization based on success metrics. So if leading EA initiatives are dissuading (say) giving to electrify Africa because of a lack of efficacy data or wealth of existing funding, they might event be having a quantitative negative impact on those particular causes. If they instead promote an already exceptionally well-funded AI research project their friends work for whose impact on Microsoft's share price is much easier to quantify than their impact on preventing Hypothetical Cyberpunk Future, then that's a questionable/bad decision under their own utilitarian framework. Even if they're generating enormous interest in philanthropy and analytical rigour overall, the bit where they might be discouraging people from choosing better causes than the ones they choose is a problem. Ultimately people have a right to donate their money to the causes they want whether it's having a quantifiable impact on reducing human suffering, taking moonshots on interesting speculative stuff or funding their ex-roomate's creative pursuits, but the whole point of the E in EA is to prioritise the former over the latter. If leading EA organizations are inconsistent in the standards they apply, that's a problem for those particular organizations, and if it turns out that future AI risk and basic services for poor people tomorrow simply aren't readily comparable, that's a problem for the whole EA optimization framework.
- FeepingCreature 6y ago
  The point of EA is to prioritize E for people who want to be E, and to help people in general to make informed decisions. If you think raising up your city or your country is unboundedly more important than raising up, say, Africa, then EA supports you making the best decision in that framework. But it's still silly that we expect everyone to independently evaluate charity choice in depth on, basically, the basis of their advertisement material. And people will usually either not care, or want to do the most good they can do, period. It's a rare case of a person who wants to do the most good they can for their country, but stops caring at the border. > So if leading EA initiatives are dissuading (say) giving to electrify Africa because of a lack of efficacy data or wealth of existing funding, they might event be having a quantitative negative impact on those particular causes. Well, yes, spending is zero sum. On the other hand, this creates an incentive to gather efficacy data, which I enormously welcome. The point isn't to maximize moneyflow to charity, the point is to maximize good things happening. > an already exceptionally well-funded AI research project their friends work for whose impact on Microsoft's share price is much easier to quantify than their impact on preventing Hypothetical Cyberpunk Future I don't understand what this means. At any rate, Microsoft share price is not generally seen as a negative. If a project that buys Microsoft compute nodes has positive value for the world, it would be stupid not to fund it just because doing so also happened to be good for Microsoft. edit: Oh yeah, inasmuch as AI safety as a cause is well-funded now it's because of Effective Altruism raising the alarm to begin with - and AI capability research still outstrips it a hundred times over. Frankly, what I'm seeing with EA is that ... like, Effective Altruism started out talking about maximizing the amount of good for the world, and the "weird AI people" were the ones who showed up. And it's not like it's a contradiction either, inasmuch as EA now focuses less on earning to give, it's because people like Bill Gates, once-leader of Microsoft, have Malaria handled. Focusing on tech people seems to have been very good for the Malaria cause. So to come in now, years later, and to say that EA shouldn't have focused on the weird AI thing because it might put off some other people who never gave a damn to begin with is almost insulting.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    > I don't understand what this means GiveWell founder Holden Karnofsky spent $30m of philanthropic cash buying a board seat on the charitable subsidiary of OpenAI Inc, an extremely well funded organization drawing on research to produce high value closed source software, much of it now exclusively licensed to Microsoft (and theoretically stopping AGI armageddon). No evidence of any AI risks mitigated has ever been produced (but I don't doubt the commercial arm can sell lots of product). I'm fine with people donating money to OpenAI if they think it's a big deal and like supporting software projects (certainly nobody can argue that the organization hasn't produced some quality research) but if you're going to dedicate large parts of your life to putting "do not recommend" next to charities than don't do RCTs to prove that nutrition works to encourage people to donate to other causes instead, then it's not reasonable to apply completely different standards to diverting philanthropic cash to an entity your former roommate worked for. It also undermines a lot of Holden's own previous arguments on GiveWell (including a good piece questioning AI risk arguments!) > Frankly, what I'm seeing with EA is that ... like, Effective Altruism started out talking about maximizing the amount of good for the world, and the "weird AI people" were the only ones who showed up Isn't that mostly because "EA" is something which started in the "rationalist" community? Plenty of other people think about how they donate or or quantitatively assess charity performance without calling themselves Effective Altruists or hanging out on those forums. I'm also aware that many people considering themselves Effective Altruists are either uninterested in prioritising AI risk, or aren't demanding RCTs for everything else, and my arguments about inconsistency don't apply to them. > to say that EA shouldn't have focused on the weird AI thing because it might put off people who never gave a damn to begin with is almost insulting. This misses the point. I'm not saying "association with weird AI people puts people off donating". I'm saying that [i] writing extended "do not recommend; not rigorous enough and well funded enough already" reviews of charities puts people off donating [ii] promoting considerably less rigorous and better funded AI risk causes is inconsistent with this => worse funding allocation based on their own criteria for what constitutes an effective charity, and/or undermines the credibility of those criteria Either the EAs in question are wrong about where they're sending the funds or they're wrong about the importance of publicly-available evidence-based efficacy metrics (relative to "this seems really important to me", which is a perfectly fine reason to give all your money to something more speculative like AI risk research or a charity to promote African entrepreneurs which GiveWell is unimpressed by the evidence for).

austhrow743 6y ago

Reads to me like they've been consuming a lot of the output of other peoples recreation, despite not wanting to, and are now complaining about those people having left it somewhere where they could read it.

notahacker 6y ago

I think the pared down bit is important: the whole point behind EA is to increase giving to some types of organization at the expense of giving to other types of organization based on success metrics. So if leading EA initiatives are dissuading (say) giving to electrify Africa because of a lack of efficacy data or wealth of existing funding, they might event be having a quantitative negative impact on those particular causes. If they instead promote an already exceptionally well-funded AI research project their friends work for whose impact on Microsoft's share price is much easier to quantify than their impact on preventing Hypothetical Cyberpunk Future, then that's a questionable/bad decision under their own utilitarian framework. Even if they're generating enormous interest in philanthropy and analytical rigour overall, the bit where they might be discouraging people from choosing better causes than the ones they choose is a problem. Ultimately people have a right to donate their money to the causes they want whether it's having a quantifiable impact on reducing human suffering, taking moonshots on interesting speculative stuff or funding their ex-roomate's creative pursuits, but the whole point of the E in EA is to prioritise the former over the latter. If leading EA organizations are inconsistent in the standards they apply, that's a problem for those particular organizations, and if it turns out that future AI risk and basic services for poor people tomorrow simply aren't readily comparable, that's a problem for the whole EA optimization framework.

FeepingCreature 6y ago
The point of EA is to prioritize E for people who want to be E, and to help people in general to make informed decisions. If you think raising up your city or your country is unboundedly more important than raising up, say, Africa, then EA supports you making the best decision in that framework. But it's still silly that we expect everyone to independently evaluate charity choice in depth on, basically, the basis of their advertisement material. And people will usually either not care, or want to do the most good they can do, period. It's a rare case of a person who wants to do the most good they can for their country, but stops caring at the border. > So if leading EA initiatives are dissuading (say) giving to electrify Africa because of a lack of efficacy data or wealth of existing funding, they might event be having a quantitative negative impact on those particular causes. Well, yes, spending is zero sum. On the other hand, this creates an incentive to gather efficacy data, which I enormously welcome. The point isn't to maximize moneyflow to charity, the point is to maximize good things happening. > an already exceptionally well-funded AI research project their friends work for whose impact on Microsoft's share price is much easier to quantify than their impact on preventing Hypothetical Cyberpunk Future I don't understand what this means. At any rate, Microsoft share price is not generally seen as a negative. If a project that buys Microsoft compute nodes has positive value for the world, it would be stupid not to fund it just because doing so also happened to be good for Microsoft. edit: Oh yeah, inasmuch as AI safety as a cause is well-funded now it's because of Effective Altruism raising the alarm to begin with - and AI capability research still outstrips it a hundred times over. Frankly, what I'm seeing with EA is that ... like, Effective Altruism started out talking about maximizing the amount of good for the world, and the "weird AI people" were the ones who showed up. And it's not like it's a contradiction either, inasmuch as EA now focuses less on earning to give, it's because people like Bill Gates, once-leader of Microsoft, have Malaria handled. Focusing on tech people seems to have been very good for the Malaria cause. So to come in now, years later, and to say that EA shouldn't have focused on the weird AI thing because it might put off some other people who never gave a damn to begin with is almost insulting.
- notahacker 6y ago
  > I don't understand what this means GiveWell founder Holden Karnofsky spent $30m of philanthropic cash buying a board seat on the charitable subsidiary of OpenAI Inc, an extremely well funded organization drawing on research to produce high value closed source software, much of it now exclusively licensed to Microsoft (and theoretically stopping AGI armageddon). No evidence of any AI risks mitigated has ever been produced (but I don't doubt the commercial arm can sell lots of product). I'm fine with people donating money to OpenAI if they think it's a big deal and like supporting software projects (certainly nobody can argue that the organization hasn't produced some quality research) but if you're going to dedicate large parts of your life to putting "do not recommend" next to charities than don't do RCTs to prove that nutrition works to encourage people to donate to other causes instead, then it's not reasonable to apply completely different standards to diverting philanthropic cash to an entity your former roommate worked for. It also undermines a lot of Holden's own previous arguments on GiveWell (including a good piece questioning AI risk arguments!) > Frankly, what I'm seeing with EA is that ... like, Effective Altruism started out talking about maximizing the amount of good for the world, and the "weird AI people" were the only ones who showed up Isn't that mostly because "EA" is something which started in the "rationalist" community? Plenty of other people think about how they donate or or quantitatively assess charity performance without calling themselves Effective Altruists or hanging out on those forums. I'm also aware that many people considering themselves Effective Altruists are either uninterested in prioritising AI risk, or aren't demanding RCTs for everything else, and my arguments about inconsistency don't apply to them. > to say that EA shouldn't have focused on the weird AI thing because it might put off people who never gave a damn to begin with is almost insulting. This misses the point. I'm not saying "association with weird AI people puts people off donating". I'm saying that [i] writing extended "do not recommend; not rigorous enough and well funded enough already" reviews of charities puts people off donating [ii] promoting considerably less rigorous and better funded AI risk causes is inconsistent with this => worse funding allocation based on their own criteria for what constitutes an effective charity, and/or undermines the credibility of those criteria Either the EAs in question are wrong about where they're sending the funds or they're wrong about the importance of publicly-available evidence-based efficacy metrics (relative to "this seems really important to me", which is a perfectly fine reason to give all your money to something more speculative like AI risk research or a charity to promote African entrepreneurs which GiveWell is unimpressed by the evidence for).