I think the weighted views of the community should likely inform CEA's cause prioritization, though I think it should be one data point among many. I do continue to worry a bit about self-fulfilling prophecies. If EA organizations make it disproportionately easy for people prioritizing certain causes to engage (e.g. by providing events for those specific causes, or by heavily funding employment opportunities for those causes) then I think it becomes murkier how to account for weighted cause prioritization because cause prioritization is both an input and an output.
I think it's super reasonable for people to be confused about this. EV is a ridiculously confusing entity (or rather, set of entities), even without the name change and overlapping names.
I wouldn't consider Wytham to have ever been a part of the project that's currently known as CEA. A potential litmus test I'd use is "Was Wytham ever under the control of CEA's Executive Director?" To the best of my knowledge, the answer is no, though there's a chance I'm missing some historical context.
This comment also discusses this distinction further.
[T]hese seem to be exactly the same principles CEA has stated for years. If nothing about them is changing, then it doesn't give much reason to think that CEA will improve in areas it has been deficient to date. To quote probably-not-Albert-Einstein, āInsanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.ā
I really really wish 'transparency' would make the list again (am I crazy? I feel like it was on a CEA list in some form in the early days, and then was removed). I think there are multiple strong reasons for making transparency a core principle:
Thereās a distinction between what an organization wants to achieve and how it wants to achieve it. The principles described in the original post are related to the what. They help us identify a set of shared beliefs that define the community we want to cultivate.
I think thereās plenty of room for disagreement and variation over how we cultivate that community. Even as CEAās mission remains the same, I expect the approach weāll use to achieve that mission will vary. Itās possible to remain committed to these principles while also continuing to find ways to improve CEAās effectiveness.
I view transparency as part of the how, i.e. I believe transparency can be a tool to achieve goals informed by EA principles, but I donāt think itās a goal in itself. Looking at the spectrum of approaches EA organizations take to doing good, Iām glad that thereās room in our community for a diversity of approaches. I think transparency is a good example of a value where organizations can and should commit to it at different levels to achieve goals inspired by EA principles, and as a result I donāt think itās a principle that defines the community.
For example, I think itās highly valuable for GiveWell to have a commitment to transparency in order for them to be able to raise funds and increase trust in their charity evaluations, but I think transparency may cause active harm for impactful projects involving private political negotiations or infohazards in biosecurity. Transparency is also not costless, e.g. Open Philanthropy has repeatedly published pieces on the challenges of transparency. I think itās reasonable for different individuals and organizations in the EA community to have different standards for transparency, and Iām happy for CEA to support others in their approach to doing good at a variety of points along that transparency spectrum.
When it comes to CEA, I think CEA would ideally be more transparent and communicating with the community more, though I also donāt think it makes sense for us to have a universal commitment to transparency such that I would elevate it to a ācore principle.ā I think different parts of our work deserve different levels of transparency. For example:
I find the principles themselves quite handwavey, and more like applause lights than practical statements of intent. What does 'recognition of tradeoffs' involve doing? It sounds like something that will just happen rather than a principle one might apply. Isn't 'scope sensitivity' basically a subset of the concerns implied by 'impartiality'? Is something like 'do a counterfactually large amount of good' supposed to be implied by impartiality and scope sensitivity? If not, why is it not on the list? If so, why does 'scout mindset' need to be on the list, when 'thinking through stuff carefully and scrupulously' is a prerequisite to effective counterfactual actions? On reading this post, I'm genuinely confused about what any of this means in terms of practical expectations about CEA's activities.
I feel quite strongly that these principles go beyond applause lights and are substantively important to EA. Instead of going into depth on all of the principles, Iāll point out that many others have spent effort articulating the principles and their value, e.g. here, here, and here.
To briefly engage with some of the points in your comment and explain how I see these principles holding value:
'I view the community as CEAās team, not its customers' sounds like a way of avoiding ever answering criticisms from the EA community, and really doesn't gel with the actual focuses of CEA
I think itās important to view the quote from the original post in the context of the following sentence: āWhile we often strive to collaborate and to support people in their engagement with EA, our primary goal is having a positive impact on the world, not satisfying community members (though oftentimes the two are intertwined).ā I believe the goals of engaged community members and CEA are very frequently aligned, because I believe most community members strive to have a positive impact on the world. With that being said, if and when having a positive impact on the world and satisfying community members does come apart, we want to keep our focus on the broader mission.
I worry some from the comments in response to this post that people are concerned we wonāt listen to or communicate with the community. My take is that as āteammates,ā we actually want to listen quite closely to the community and have a two-way dialogue on how we can achieve these goals. With that being said, based on the confusion in the comments, I think it may be worth putting the analogy around āteammatesā and ācustomersā aside for the moment. Instead, let me say some concrete things about how CEA approaches engagement with the community:
I want to flag for Forum readers that I am aware of this post and the associated issues about FTX, EV/CEA, and EA. I have also reached out to Becca directly.
I started in my new role as CEAās CEO about six weeks ago, and as of the start of this week Iām taking a pre-planned six-week break after a year sprinting in my role as EV USās CEO[1]. These unusual circumstances mean our plans and timelines are a work in progress (although CEAās work continues and I continue to be involved in a reduced capacity).
Serious engagement with and communication about questions and concerns related to these issues is (and was already) something I want to prioritize, but I want to wait to publicly discuss my thoughts on these issues until I have the capacity to do so thoroughly and thoughtfully, rather than attempt to respond on the fly. I appreciate people may want more specific details, but I felt that Iād at least respond to let people know Iāve acknowledged the concerns rather than not responding at all in the short-term.
Itās unusual to take significant time off like this immediately after starting a new role, but this is functionally a substitute for me not taking an extended break between roles. For some banal logistical reasons, it made more sense for me to start and then take time off.
1. It's unclear what the legal status of EV will be at the end of the process. If it does exist, I expect it would be in a minimalist fashion and I wouldn't expect it to resemble what it has historically looked like (e.g. I don't expect it to be a fiscal sponsor for multiple projects).
2. No specific timeline. It's in a queue with other pieces of public communications I expect to do after I transition into a new role at CEA, and I'm not planning on it being the first piece.
I'm planning to publish some forum posts as I get up to speed in the role, and I think those will be the best pieces to read to get a sense of my views. If it's helpful for getting a rough sense of timing, I'm still working full-time on EV at the moment, but will transition into my CEA role in mid-February.
Cross posting from here
Thanks for flagging! New donations wonāt be used for this settlement. The funding for the settlements has already been secured, and none of EVās projects will need to allocate any additional funding. Besides funding that came from FTX, no funds that have previously been donated to a specific project will be used as part of this settlement.
As noted by Jason, the EV US settlement remains subject to court approval, and we wonāt be commenting on it further while the settlement process is still underway. With that being said, we didnāt want any misunderstandings to disrupt CEAās fundraising efforts in the meantime.
Also, as a minor correction, the motion to approve the settlement was not filed by EV US ā it was filed by the FTX debtors (this is standard practice for approval of settlements in bankruptcy cases).
Thanks for flagging! New donations wonāt be used for this settlement. The funding for the settlements has already been secured, and none of EVās projects will need to allocate any additional funding. Besides funding that came from FTX, no funds that have previously been donated to a specific project will be used as part of this settlement.
As noted by Jason, the EV US settlement remains subject to court approval, and we wonāt be commenting on it further while the settlement process is still underway. With that being said, we didnāt want any misunderstandings to disrupt CEAās fundraising efforts in the meantime.
I think it's possible our views are compatible here. I want expertise to be valued more on the margin because I found EV and many other EA orgs to tilt towards an extreme of prioritizing value alignment, but I certainly believe there are cases where value alignment and general intelligence matter most and also that there are cases where expertise matters more.
I think the key lies in trying to figure out which situations are which in advance.