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One thing I've been saying since the FTX days is that we absolutely shouldn't be donating to politics in general (with exceptions of course but in broad strokes and definitely don't donate to the Presidential race or a national party). The evidence that donations to political parties past a certain point do much is unclear (people only can see so many ads) and there are just much much larger problems in the world that EAs should be spending their money on, at worst you can just donate to AMF and this would do way better than most money spent on politics.

The exceptions would be that a very high integrity person was running who was a committed EA. In these cases, I think the math checks out but rarely will it for just some generic candidate.

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Marcus Abramovitch 🔸

May 15

I won't say who it was (though they can out themselves) but someone convinced me that they do a donation strategy that I approve of. They donate to both sides to be able to lobby their congressperson on AI issues. I think this makes a lot of sense. #changedmymind

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸

May 15

First, sorry for the late reply. I thought I had sent it but it was still in autosave. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440241279659#bibr25-21582440241279659 I had chatgpt analyze this paper on US House of Representatives. It finds that doubling spending for incumbents actually has ~no effect and in general you get about 4.5% increased win probability from doubling spending. You get the biggest gains for challengers with little name recognition. It also turns out that incumbents spend about $3M on a race and challengers spend about the same as well. So we're talking about $3M to gain 4.5% extra chance of winning a house seat. The paper goes on to explain that increases in spending faces increasingly diminishing returns. To answer the question bluntly. I'll just define past a certain point as 50% more than average spending. About 5% of races are "close" based on my crude metric of a margin of victory of less than 3 points. Also, my criticism basically don't apply (and in fact, I think we should be spending more money on) things like ballot initiatives and specific campaigns. I'm also much happier about things like primaries than general elections. If you are donating to just a generic race, even if it's close, I don't think there is actually enough evidence that one party is much better than the other. A lot of money is spent on politics already. Unless there is very very specific issues of EA concern, I don't think it's worth donating to. There are tremendously good donation opportunities out there and political ads or Beyonce concerts aren't among them IMO.

Neel NandaMay 173

I think we just agree. Don't donate to politics unless you're going to be smart about it

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Consider not donating under $100 to political candidates

by DanielFilan

May 111 min read 11

83

AI safetyCareer choicePolicyAI governanceOpinionPolitical polarizationUS policy

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Consider not donating under $100 to political candidates

11 comments

Epistemic status: thing people have told me that seems right. Also primarily relevant to US audiences. Also I am speaking in my personal capacity and not representing any employer, present or past.

Sometimes, I talk to people who work in the AI governance space. One thing that multiple people have told me, which I found surprising, is that there is apparently a real problem where people accidentally rule themselves out of AI policy positions by making political donations of small amounts—in particular, under $10.

My understanding is that in the United States, donations to political candidates are a matter of public record, and that if you donate to candidates of one party, this might look bad if you want to gain a government position when another party is in charge. Therefore, donating approximately $3 can significantly damage your career, while not helping your preferred candidate all that much. Furthermore, at the time you make this donation, you might not realize that you will later want to get a government position.

Now, I don’t want to overly discourage this sort of thing. It’s your money, free speech is great, and fundamentally I think it’s fine to have and publicly express political views (for example, I think Donald Trump is extremely bad, and am disappointed in my fellow countrymen for voting for him). That said, I think that one should be aware of the consequences of making political donations, and it seems plausible to me that if you’re not willing to donate more than $100 to a political candidate, consider that the career cost to you of making that donation may be higher than the benefit that it confers.

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tlevinMay 1213

I basically agree with this (and might put the threshold higher than $100, probably much higher for people actively pursuing policy careers), with the following common exceptions:

It seems pretty low-cost to donate to a candidate from Party X if...

You've already made donations to Party X. Larger and more recent ones are slightly worse, but as Daniel notes, even small ones from several elections ago can come back to bite.
You don't see a realistic world where you go into the federal government during a Party Y administration even if you didn't donate to Party X, because...
- You don't think you could go into the federal government at all (though as Daniel notes, you may not realize at the time of making the donation that you might want to later; what I have in mind is like, you have significantly below average people skills, and/or you've somehow disqualified yourself).
- You have a permanently discoverable digital paper trail of criticizing Party Y, e.g. social media posts, op-eds, etc.
- You just don't think you'd be able to stomach working in a Party Y administration. (Though consider asking, would you really not be able to stomach it for a few years if it seemed like an amazing career and impact opportunity?)

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸May 116

The exceptions would be that a very high integrity person was running who was a committed EA. In these cases, I think the math checks out but rarely will it for just some generic candidate.

Tim HuaMay 1110

In case people don't know, Oath is an Democratic party affiliated org that identifies underfunded and close races where your marginal donations could really matter.

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸May 155

#changedmymind

Neel NandaMay 115

Define "past a certain point"? What fraction of close races in EG the US meet this? Especially if you include eg primaries for either party with one candidate with much more sensible views than the other. Imo donations are best spent on specific interventions or specific close but neglected races, but these can be a big deal

Marcus Abramovitch 🔸May 152

First, sorry for the late reply. I thought I had sent it but it was still in autosave.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440241279659#bibr25-21582440241279659

I had chatgpt analyze this paper on US House of Representatives. It finds that doubling spending for incumbents actually has ~no effect and in general you get about 4.5% increased win probability from doubling spending. You get the biggest gains for challengers with little name recognition. It also turns out that incumbents spend about $3M on a race and challengers spend about the same as well. So we're talking about $3M to gain 4.5% extra chance of winning a house seat.

The paper goes on to explain that increases in spending faces increasingly diminishing returns.

To answer the question bluntly. I'll just define past a certain point as 50% more than average spending. About 5% of races are "close" based on my crude metric of a margin of victory of less than 3 points.

Also, my criticism basically don't apply (and in fact, I think we should be spending more money on) things like ballot initiatives and specific campaigns. I'm also much happier about things like primaries than general elections. If you are donating to just a generic race, even if it's close, I don't think there is actually enough evidence that one party is much better than the other.

A lot of money is spent on politics already. Unless there is very very specific issues of EA concern, I don't think it's worth donating to. There are tremendously good donation opportunities out there and political ads or Beyonce concerts aren't among them IMO.

Neel NandaMay 173

I think we just agree. Don't donate to politics unless you're going to be smart about it

JasonMay 122

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that making a partisan donation could be an issue for some non-governmental roles either. I don't have a strong sense of that, but recall that people looking to assert that an organization has a partisan bent will search their employees' contribution records and then report that as evidence of bent. So I were trying to come across as a non-partisan organization, I might be concerned about hiring a bunch of people who had all donated to the same team.

That's admittedly speculative . . . but probably not more speculative than a ~$10 donation being outcome-determinative in a major US political race, either.

Vasco Grilo🔸May 151

Hi Daniel,

I wonder whether it would be possible to donate anonymously or indirectly via other people to solve the issue.

JasonMay 155

(US perspective)

There's a limit of $50 for anonymous cash donations to a candidate. They could be annoying enough to account for -- and vaguely disreputable enough -- that they are of no meaningful benefit to the candidate. I don't recall ever seeing a candidate provide a clear mechanism for such donations, and that may be why (although my experience is limited).

Donating through a straw donor to evade campaign-finance laws is an excellent way to end up in trouble with the feds.

Shubham DhameliaMay 153

This may encourage corruption / bribery instances. For example, companies/individuals paying bribes to a particular political party in favour of getting government contracts or letting them off the hook from compliance violations.

This happened in India, where government had introduced electoral bonds. The information of donation would not be made public, and as a result donors of such bonds were observed making substantial amount of donations. Supreme Court of India stuck down this mechanism citing violation of right to information and likelihood of corruption instances.

The Court also forced a release of some documents which provided information about donations and donors. See this report. Very interestingly, most of the donations come around allotment of some very big government contracts, mentioned here.