Thanks, Ethan! I agree. We even thought about making the private reviews / scores hidden from each other, but decided not to this round. Maybe in the future!
@robirahman this feature is now live - you can submit multiple applications from the same account, just go back to https://app.grantmaking.ai/apply/launch and it will say "Start another application"
You can only have one saved draft at a time though. So you have to submit application 2 before you start application 3
In my mind, you should just ask for the min funding it would take for you to quit your job. So if you have a research path or project idea, and you need $30k for 6 months to quit your job and make it happen, make that your application and funding ask.
Because if you set your min funding to $30k you will either not get funded or you get the $30k and can quit your job.
Does that make sense? Or did you have something else in mind?
If you or someone you know needs funding to get their AI safety research / career / project / think of the ground, apply for funding through the $1M AI x-risk grant round we just launched on grantmaking.ai
Thanks for sharing your perspective! The unpaid-signalling bottleneck you describe for generalists resonates a lot.
One idea I'm exploring is a lightweight service that connects skilled freelancers to AI safety orgs
If you want to launch a pilot (e.g., paid trial projects, standardized vetting, or a small marketplace/concierge), we're running a $1M Launch Round for small, early-stage AI-safety bets on grantmaking.ai - I encourage to you apply.
Do you mean downsides of building this platform at all? Like, making the ecosystem more legible could make it easier for people to help as well as attack?
Or more like "some orgs will not want to be listed in the database for particular reasons"
Because it seems fine that if an individual, org, or project wants to be excluded, we will keep them out.
I think one of the major bottlenecks in AI safety is that we don't have enough grantmakers to route resources (capital and compute), especially to smaller orgs / projects, so anything that helps that flow could be super high leverage.
I guess potential downsides include:
the reviews / signal in the database are low quality or actively harmful in a way that makes it more likely that net negative projects get funding
public criticism could harm people and projects (we haven't yet figured out how we want to handle negative comments / disendorsements. Seems like it could be good signal, but is somewhat risky. Probably pretty easy to set up an AI reviewer for comments, or make them semi-private, only shown to verified funders or something. Not sure yet, this is something we're going to think more about and maybe test out a few things.
incentivizes goodhearting / gaming the platform / popularity contests
These all seem manageable with effort and iteration, though.
I'm working with a few other people (including a funder) to build the infrastructure that can support new individual donors make smaller, quicker, and more decorrelated AI safety grantmaking bets.
I think it'd be great to chat to see what you're working towards - I saw this on your profile:
"I'm in the early stages of co-founding a donor advisory initiative focused on neglected areas within AI safety, and would appreciate connections with anyone in the grantmaking/fundraising space!"
Thanks, Ethan! I agree. We even thought about making the private reviews / scores hidden from each other, but decided not to this round. Maybe in the future!
@robirahman this feature is now live - you can submit multiple applications from the same account, just go back to https://app.grantmaking.ai/apply/launch and it will say "Start another application"
You can only have one saved draft at a time though. So you have to submit application 2 before you start application 3
Thanks for commenting!
In my mind, you should just ask for the min funding it would take for you to quit your job. So if you have a research path or project idea, and you need $30k for 6 months to quit your job and make it happen, make that your application and funding ask.
Because if you set your min funding to $30k you will either not get funded or you get the $30k and can quit your job.
Does that make sense? Or did you have something else in mind?
As of right now, there isn't
But let me check later today to see if it's easy to expand it, so people can submit multiple proposals from one account
If you or someone you know needs funding to get their AI safety research / career / project / think of the ground, apply for funding through the $1M AI x-risk grant round we just launched on grantmaking.ai
Apply by July 13 to guarantee a review: https://grantmaking.ai/apply/launch
Thanks for sharing your perspective! The unpaid-signalling bottleneck you describe for generalists resonates a lot.
If you want to launch a pilot (e.g., paid trial projects, standardized vetting, or a small marketplace/concierge), we're running a $1M Launch Round for small, early-stage AI-safety bets on grantmaking.ai - I encourage to you apply.
July 13 is the deadline to guarantee a review: https://grantmaking.ai/apply/launch
Hey Chris, thanks for commenting!
Do you mean downsides of building this platform at all? Like, making the ecosystem more legible could make it easier for people to help as well as attack?
Or more like "some orgs will not want to be listed in the database for particular reasons"
Because it seems fine that if an individual, org, or project wants to be excluded, we will keep them out.
I think one of the major bottlenecks in AI safety is that we don't have enough grantmakers to route resources (capital and compute), especially to smaller orgs / projects, so anything that helps that flow could be super high leverage.
I guess potential downsides include:
the reviews / signal in the database are low quality or actively harmful in a way that makes it more likely that net negative projects get funding
public criticism could harm people and projects (we haven't yet figured out how we want to handle negative comments / disendorsements. Seems like it could be good signal, but is somewhat risky. Probably pretty easy to set up an AI reviewer for comments, or make them semi-private, only shown to verified funders or something. Not sure yet, this is something we're going to think more about and maybe test out a few things.
incentivizes goodhearting / gaming the platform / popularity contests
These all seem manageable with effort and iteration, though.
Curious what you're thinking, though!
Hey Sophie, great post, I fully agree.
I'm working with a few other people (including a funder) to build the infrastructure that can support new individual donors make smaller, quicker, and more decorrelated AI safety grantmaking bets.
I think it'd be great to chat to see what you're working towards - I saw this on your profile: "I'm in the early stages of co-founding a donor advisory initiative focused on neglected areas within AI safety, and would appreciate connections with anyone in the grantmaking/fundraising space!"
oh good call out, I'll ping Niki to make sure he sees this comment
whoops, fixed!