Hi Abraham, I'm curious what you think about the difference between FTX and this situation is that FTX was disbursing hired grantmakers to do the work. My impression is that most Anthropic staff don't have the time or expertise to set this up themselves, even if it was a model like a giving circle, nor do they want to. 

It seems like a challenge here to recreate FTX's level of willingness to fund ambitious projects is that for Anthropic donors, either they'd need to want to spend the time setting up foundations individually, or someone with the right expertise would need to set up their own fund and join the fray on more speculative work. 

FWIW my vague impression (I have less visibility into other cause areas) is that as funds anticipate an influx of funding coming into the space, funding more ambitious and speculative bets seems to be  a part of the conversation (while hopefully reducing the downsides that came with FTX funding). 

Hi Nick, thanks for engaging. I agree that in writing this, there is a level of scrutiny I've opened myself up to. I'll respond to some of the main points:

1. I agree that everything I've said in this post conveniently aligns with my job. I also have said them not to gatekeep but because I think it is true and has signficant implications for the future of funding in EA.
2. I endeavour to provide services to Anthropic staff that sit at the intersection of valuable to them AND good for the world. For example, I've spent a fair bit of time advocating for recommended default splits across cause areas based on feedback from a few Anthropic staff. We've also developed resources on some of the main fund options in the animal advocacy space and run an event in SF to ask questions of the fund managers.
3. The default preference to defer to funds has come from Anthropic staff communicating that for most of them, that's their preference due to lacking the time or expertise. If individuals at Anthropic have wanted to donate to individual organisations, we've been happy to make introductions or specific recommendations.
4. I agree there is a collective action problem at the level of funds, and how that is navigated is important. I just think that it is a much smaller pool of pitches than at the organisation level. FWIW there have been ongoing efforts among the funders in FAW to coordinate to reduce the collective action problem. 

These posts need warnings that if you have any important work to do in the next hour not to click on them. Watching these videos is too damn tempting! Well done to the team as always! 

Makes sense. Also: great post.

Is the point here that you are still ultimately interested in outcomes, but that you think that the current focus on explicitly measuring and project planning hurts more than it helps, and that curiosity and a thriving intellectual scene where people are more willing to run experiments will achieve better outcomes than more explicit attempts to do so? 

Hi Nick, what else did you find compelling from the text? I personally didn't think boycotting chatGPT would have the potential to get the same public appeal as big historical successes, but maybe I'm just too cynical. 

This seems like a good time to remind everyone of @JamesÖz 🔸classic post why you can justify almost anything using historical social movements. This seems especially true when a single anecdote is referenced. Maybe Bregman has more evidence behind this claim but he certainly hasn't shared it in this post. 

Despite being the one who wrote the original post I did think in writing it that trying to figure out if one cause is being underfunded compared another cause is a really difficult question to answer. Part of my motivation to write this was to see if anyone had any insights as to whether my claims were right or not.

I agree that EA funds shouldn't be distributed democratically, nor that "EA leaders" or survey participants are necessarily the right allocators. Do you think that the current resource allocation is being made by experts with "judgment, track record, and depth of thinking about cause prioritization"? 

If I had to guess, I would say it is a combination of this, but also EA UHNW donor preferences, a cause's ability to attract funding from other sources, etc. 

Ideally we would survey some of the best grantmaking experts on cause prio, but I still found the EA survey and MCF survey to be a useful proxy, albeit flawed.

Ohh I like this. I think this articulates the pheomenon well. Thanks.