4 ms·

I like the first half of the idea (donating 10% of one's income) but I feel strongly against their definition of "effective" and "biggest problems". This typica

I like the first half of the idea (donating 10% of one's income) but I feel strongly against their definition of "effective" and "biggest problems". This typically happens when someone multiplies a tiny probability by an infinite value like "time till the heath death of the universe". In particular, their top four recommended charities are managed by "Effective altruism funds", with the 3rd best-ranked charity spending money to prevent "potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence" which I strongly consider a waste of money. Of course, everyone's values are different. I'd just encourage people to take 5 minutes and choose their own charities instead of blindly choosing their suggestions.

pkd 5y ago
It's not always that random (not saying it couldn't be). GiveWell, the best known research outfit, publishes their process: https://www.givewell.org/how-we-work/process https://www.givewell.org/how-we-work/process Peter Singer (who also runs The Life You Can Save), has lots of thoughts about why one should go with "effective" altruism instead of always donating to your local charity, and I would say they are worth listening to.
zozbot234 5y ago
> which I strongly consider a waste of money Do you consider all research on AI ethics and bias to be a waste of money? The EA folks are doing some of the best work in that field, and have been focusing on it for quite a while. People used to consider biosecurity and pandemic preparedness a waste of money too, but hopefully we know better.
- handoflixue 5y ago
  > pandemic preparedness There's a big difference between a threat that has existed for all of human history (pandemics), and a completely novel threat model that might exist in the future (AI)
- probably_wrong 5y ago
  No, I do think research on AI ethics is important and necessary. But I also think there's a time and a place, and "third most pressing issue for humanity" is not it. Biased AI algorithms are a problem for the 10% of countries where AI is part of their daily decision process. For the other 90%, "I don't have enough nutrients for my brain to develop" and "I'm severely disabled due to a preventable but unprofitable illness" are much more pressing issues. I support basic research, even in areas whose economic benefit may not be clear. But if someone asks "how can I help humanity the most?", I consider "AI research" to be a really bad answer, to the point of being almost a lie.
  - nearbuy 5y ago
    Their concern isn't biased AI algorithms. Their concern (well, one of their main concerns) is that a super-intelligent AI could wipe out humanity sometime in the next 100 years. They have arguments that this could happen even if the AI wasn't malicious. I'm a bit skeptical too (and I haven't looked into that much), but it's not obviously stupid. They'd point out that even if there's just a 1% chance of humans being wiped out in the not-so-distant future, that's a big deal (and a large expected value for number of deaths) and we should work on reducing those odds. A lot of this rests on the assumption that super-intelligence is really powerful. Like, take-over-the-world type of powerful.
    - probably_wrong 5y ago
      That's what I had in mind with my "tiny probability, infinite timescale" multiplier, and also why I said "waste of money". The comment I replied to had a more nuanced point about AI research, which I think merits a more nuanced approach. Having said that, I repeat what I said at some point: once they show that they can stop the dumbest DDOS, then and only then I'll listen to what they have to say about a super-intelligent AI. If they can't do even that, then I don't know why I would listen to anything else they have to say.
      - nearbuy 5y ago
        I'm not sure if you're referring to a DDOS attack on one of their charities. I hadn't heard of that. Cloudflare prevents DDOS attacks. Why would effective altruists work on DDOS attacks?
handoflixue 5y ago
I'd strongly recommend looking at GiveWell specifically: They avoid the weird "AI risk" stuff and mostly focus on Malaria prevention and other very well studied, high-value third world interventions. In particular, they also list where your money is going, so you can just pick and choose which of their causes you want to support (although I personally donate directly to them so they can decide which charity they think currently maximizes impact-per-dollar): https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities > I'd just encourage people to take 5 minutes and choose their own charities instead of blindly choosing their suggestions. The problem here is that some organizations have a very well proven track record of solving real problems; some organizations instead focus on very nebulous "social messaging and awareness"; and some organizations exist primarily to pay their executives well. A quick 5 minute search won't really yield a lot of information on effectiveness, but an organization like GiveWell can afford to hire actual researchers to answer these questions. (I'm sure there's other decent sources to help evaluate that question, of course. GiveWell is just the one I'm most familiar/fond of)
- sneak 5y ago
  Note also that if you spend all of your funds allocated to Lord Bezos at smile.amazon.com instead of the base 2LD, you can specify GiveWell as the beneficiary and they get a small cut of each purchase. It's per purchase though so you have to update your bookmarks to point to smile.amazon.com. Uninstall the app to help you remember.
  - epanchin 5y ago
    This is old - you can now set the app to use smile. And when you share product links it will use the smile link.
    - sneak 5y ago
      The setting in the app expires after a period of time, and requires that you remember to set it again, just like Twitter's algorithmic timeline opt-out.
nearbuy 5y ago
> This typically happens when someone multiplies a tiny probability by an infinite value like "time till the heath death of the universe". This is absolutely not what they are doing. Most of their charities are working on immediate problems and are evaluated on their short term impact. The obvious exceptions are the Long-Term Future category and the Climate Change category, which are looking at around 50-100 years from now. They are not multiplying some tiny utilitarian value by an extreme number of years. Their top 4 charities by total donation amount are Against Malaria Foundation, GiveWell, Global Health and Development Fund, and GiveDirectly. All are fighting immediate problems. There are different categories of charities because people will never agree on which categories are most important. Does animal suffering matter? Is preventing a life of extreme poverty better or worse than preventing an early death? Everyone has different answers to these questions, so the site gives donors a variety of suggestions. They suggest charities that are well evaluated for their category. E.g. Climate change charities are evaluated on their climate impact per dollar donated, and human health charities are evaluated by lives saved and disease prevented.

pkd 5y ago

It's not always that random (not saying it couldn't be). GiveWell, the best known research outfit, publishes their process: https://www.givewell.org/how-we-work/process https://www.givewell.org/how-we-work/process Peter Singer (who also runs The Life You Can Save), has lots of thoughts about why one should go with "effective" altruism instead of always donating to your local charity, and I would say they are worth listening to.

zozbot234 5y ago

> which I strongly consider a waste of money Do you consider all research on AI ethics and bias to be a waste of money? The EA folks are doing some of the best work in that field, and have been focusing on it for quite a while. People used to consider biosecurity and pandemic preparedness a waste of money too, but hopefully we know better.

handoflixue 5y ago
> pandemic preparedness There's a big difference between a threat that has existed for all of human history (pandemics), and a completely novel threat model that might exist in the future (AI)
probably_wrong 5y ago
No, I do think research on AI ethics is important and necessary. But I also think there's a time and a place, and "third most pressing issue for humanity" is not it. Biased AI algorithms are a problem for the 10% of countries where AI is part of their daily decision process. For the other 90%, "I don't have enough nutrients for my brain to develop" and "I'm severely disabled due to a preventable but unprofitable illness" are much more pressing issues. I support basic research, even in areas whose economic benefit may not be clear. But if someone asks "how can I help humanity the most?", I consider "AI research" to be a really bad answer, to the point of being almost a lie.
- nearbuy 5y ago
  Their concern isn't biased AI algorithms. Their concern (well, one of their main concerns) is that a super-intelligent AI could wipe out humanity sometime in the next 100 years. They have arguments that this could happen even if the AI wasn't malicious. I'm a bit skeptical too (and I haven't looked into that much), but it's not obviously stupid. They'd point out that even if there's just a 1% chance of humans being wiped out in the not-so-distant future, that's a big deal (and a large expected value for number of deaths) and we should work on reducing those odds. A lot of this rests on the assumption that super-intelligence is really powerful. Like, take-over-the-world type of powerful.
  - probably_wrong 5y ago
    That's what I had in mind with my "tiny probability, infinite timescale" multiplier, and also why I said "waste of money". The comment I replied to had a more nuanced point about AI research, which I think merits a more nuanced approach. Having said that, I repeat what I said at some point: once they show that they can stop the dumbest DDOS, then and only then I'll listen to what they have to say about a super-intelligent AI. If they can't do even that, then I don't know why I would listen to anything else they have to say.
    - nearbuy 5y ago
      I'm not sure if you're referring to a DDOS attack on one of their charities. I hadn't heard of that. Cloudflare prevents DDOS attacks. Why would effective altruists work on DDOS attacks?

handoflixue 5y ago

I'd strongly recommend looking at GiveWell specifically: They avoid the weird "AI risk" stuff and mostly focus on Malaria prevention and other very well studied, high-value third world interventions. In particular, they also list where your money is going, so you can just pick and choose which of their causes you want to support (although I personally donate directly to them so they can decide which charity they think currently maximizes impact-per-dollar): https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities > I'd just encourage people to take 5 minutes and choose their own charities instead of blindly choosing their suggestions. The problem here is that some organizations have a very well proven track record of solving real problems; some organizations instead focus on very nebulous "social messaging and awareness"; and some organizations exist primarily to pay their executives well. A quick 5 minute search won't really yield a lot of information on effectiveness, but an organization like GiveWell can afford to hire actual researchers to answer these questions. (I'm sure there's other decent sources to help evaluate that question, of course. GiveWell is just the one I'm most familiar/fond of)

sneak 5y ago
Note also that if you spend all of your funds allocated to Lord Bezos at smile.amazon.com instead of the base 2LD, you can specify GiveWell as the beneficiary and they get a small cut of each purchase. It's per purchase though so you have to update your bookmarks to point to smile.amazon.com. Uninstall the app to help you remember.
- epanchin 5y ago
  This is old - you can now set the app to use smile. And when you share product links it will use the smile link.
  - sneak 5y ago
    The setting in the app expires after a period of time, and requires that you remember to set it again, just like Twitter's algorithmic timeline opt-out.

nearbuy 5y ago

> This typically happens when someone multiplies a tiny probability by an infinite value like "time till the heath death of the universe". This is absolutely not what they are doing. Most of their charities are working on immediate problems and are evaluated on their short term impact. The obvious exceptions are the Long-Term Future category and the Climate Change category, which are looking at around 50-100 years from now. They are not multiplying some tiny utilitarian value by an extreme number of years. Their top 4 charities by total donation amount are Against Malaria Foundation, GiveWell, Global Health and Development Fund, and GiveDirectly. All are fighting immediate problems. There are different categories of charities because people will never agree on which categories are most important. Does animal suffering matter? Is preventing a life of extreme poverty better or worse than preventing an early death? Everyone has different answers to these questions, so the site gives donors a variety of suggestions. They suggest charities that are well evaluated for their category. E.g. Climate change charities are evaluated on their climate impact per dollar donated, and human health charities are evaluated by lives saved and disease prevented.