Atlas Fellowship has announced it's shutting down its program - see full letter on their site: https://www.atlasfellowship.org Reasons listed for the decision are 1) funding landscape has changed 2) the programs were less impactful than expected and 3) some staff think they'll have more impact pursuing careers in AI safety.
Good News Friday: Actor Jesse Eisenberg (Social Network) announced he's donating his kidney to a stranger today :)
The Effective Ventures Foundation UK’s Full Accounts for Fiscal Year 2022 has been released via the UK companies house filings (August 30 2023 entry - it won't let me direct link the PDF).
* A reminder that both EVF UK and US annual reports can be found on their website
EVF US has also released their 2022 990 tax form
* Note the fiscal year 2021-2022 (June) preceded the FTX collapse and leadership changes.
If I messed up any of these numbers please let me know and I'll update. Thanks!
I'm not an accountant, but some of the jump between FY 2021 and FY 2022 may have to do with how EVF US was treated in certain respects?
On grantmaking, it appears that almost all of those grants came out of restricted funds (p. 30 / 32nd page of PDF).
The reported staff compensation (p. 36 / 38th page of PDF) does suggest the existence of many more staff salaries in the higher reporting bands in 2022 than 2021. However, could EVF US being a subsidiary of EVF UK for the 2022 reports impact this?
I skimmed the 990 -- also for FY 2022, which ended in June 2022 -- less carefully, but there is more granularity on some smaller grants if you want it on pp. 33-59. There are also specific salaries for trustees and the five highest paid employees (p. 7). About $8MM in 211 crypto contributions (p. 63) -- a figure that suggests some degree of reliance on donations from the crypto industry (don't know if these are FTX-related or not).
the Global Priorities Institute at Oxford University has shut down as of July. More information, publication list and additional groups on website. Surprised this hasn't been brought up given how important GPI was in establishing EA as a legitimate academic research space. By my count, barring Trajan House, it now appears that EA has officially been annexed from Oxford University. This feels like a significant change post-FTX - I see pros and cons to not being tied to one university. Thoughts?
edited: to clarify I meant the university not the city
By my count, barring Trajan House, it now appears that EA has officially been annexed from Oxford
Do you mean Oxford University? That could be right (though a little strong, I'm sure it has its sympathisers). Noting that Oxford is still one of the cities (towns?) with the highest density of EAs in the world. People here are also very engaged (i.e. probably work in the space).
Yes, sorry I meant the university. Thanks for including the charts, I always love to see the data!
By my count, barring Trajan House, it now appears that EA has officially been annexed from Oxford.
Forethought, AI Gov at Oxford Martin, and EA Oxford operate out of Oxford. I am sure Uehiro has EA/adjacent philosophers? GPI's closure is a shame, of course.
Forethought appears to have spun out and become a separate organization, Oxford Martin AIGI does have a handful of people who were affiliated with the former Future of Humanity Institute, but the OM AIGI itself is not directly affiliated with EA. Yes the college chapter EA Oxford is still running, but I meant professional working groups (sorry if that wasn't clear).
If you would like to receive email updates about any future research endeavours that continue the mission of the Global Priorities Institute, you can also sign up here.
I signed up for the mailing list! Is there any other way to support research similar to GPI's work—for instance, would it make sense to donate to Forethought Foundation?
That's great Eevee! Forethought has shifted to focusing on AGI (so yes, I'm sure they need support, but it isn't doing work like GPI, just to be clear). There is a list at the bottom of the page of other organizations but none of them work directly on the philosophical approach to cause and resource prioritization - which is what made GPI so valuable to the movement. My best recommendation would be to broadly support groups like Givewell, Giving What We Can and the Life You Can Save since they do some level of research (really all groups do). You could also follow specific researchers work and reach out directly to see if they need support.
Wytham Abbey soft-launched earlier this year with it's own team, but has now formally been added to EV's list of projects and is accepting workshop applications https://www.wythamabbey.org
In case you haven't seen it, CEA has redone their website. I like the new look and the content makes it much easier to understand the scope of their work. Bravo to whomever worked on this!
EA in the wild: I'm having trouble adding a screenshot but I recently made an online purchase and at the bottom of the checkout page was a "give 1% of your purchase to a high-impact cause" - and it was featuring Giving What We Can's funds!
Always fun to see EA in unexpected places. :)
Was it Bullet Journal???
Yes it was!
deleted my original comment about the first DDS attack because it was called a 'crackpot theory and shouldn't be on the forum'. I didn't phrase it right but was asking for any research from potential catastrophic risk groups on probability/estimates of attacks like this increasing (especially with global heat around AGI race) and any recommendations for regular citizens to prepare for it.
Second attack hit this morning in under a week and it's now picking up in press as potential threat. So i'm going to trust my gut on this one and say i'm not wrong in forecasting this is an immediate emerging threat. I'm going to start compiling some work on this, let me know if you're interested.
If you disagree, could you please give an inkling of a reason, even just a word salad list of search terms that I can decipher is better than blind downvoting (note: this system is kind of terrible for learning and makes me uncomfortable to post earnest observations and ideas).
EDIT: just confirmed that FHI shut down as of April 16, 2024
It sounds like the Future of Humanity Institute may be permanently shut down.
Background: FHI went on a hiring freeze/pause back in 2021 with the majority of staff leaving (many left with the spin-off of the Centre for the Governance of AI) and moved to other EA organizations. Since then there has been no public communication regarding its future return, until now...
The Director, Nick Bostrom, updated the bio section on his website with the following commentary [bolding mine]:
This language suggests that FHI has officially closed. Can anyone at Trajan/Oxford confirm?
Also curious if there is any project in place to conduct a post mortem on the impact FHI has had on the many different fields and movements? I think it's important to ensure that FHI is remembered as a significant nexus point for many influential ideas and people who may impact the long term.
In other news, Bostrom's new book "Deep Utopia" is available for pre-order (coming March 27th).
Further evidence: The 80,000 Hours website footer no longer mentions FHI. Until February 2023, the footer contained the following statement:
By February 21, that statement was replaced with a paragraph simply stating that 80k is part of EV. The references to GPI, CEA and GWWC were also removed:
Yeah, it looks like the FHI website's news section hasn't been updated since 2021. Nor are there any publications since 2021.