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Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

openphilanthropy.org

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Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#181

Post by [deleted] »

idlewords wrote: post #161
dang wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I scrolled to the end and can see why someone would question that. But framing it as a personal grant is misleading. If we're going to keep telling users that on HN we want them to make substantive points thoughtfully and apply the principle of charity, it's only fair to say so here as well. We like pith, but fairness more. (In case anyone is curious, I don't know anything about the story; I just saw it on HN.)

I don't think the principle of charity applies when someone is making foundation grants to benefit their close relatives and roommates. The principle of shenanigans kicks in.

[deleted]

Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#182

Post by jaibot »

notahacker wrote: post #124
hawkice wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> strawmanning his position as nepotism So, you obviously feel strongly about this, but let me explain why your comments are less persuasive for those of us outside this subculture: The non-profit they donated to is (by any reading of their mission statement) an organization designed to create new technology that "will be the most significant technology ever created by humans" according to their own statements. It do…

Moreover, to add further context, the whole basis of Holden's effective altruism work has been around the idea that philanthropic dollars ought to be focused on charities with extremely rigorous proof behind how much they improve people's lives per dollar donated, and how much they need the money. That context makes advising a donor to direct an "unusually large" sum to an organisation with an extremely vague goal an…

> Moreover, to add further context, the whole basis of Holden's effective altruism work has been around the idea that philanthropic dollars ought to be focused on charities with extremely rigorous proof behind how much they improve people's lives per dollar donated, and how much they need the money.

This isn't quite true; SCI, a charity that treats parasitic disease in the third world, is the subject of massive uncertainty and conflicting reports of effectiveness. It might turn out that it has very little impact at all. But it's still a recommended EA charity because it looks like there's a decent chance they're doing a ton of good. GW has written extensively about this.

Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#183

Post by argonaut »

nbouscal wrote: post #128
argonaut wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You admit that you don't know what the actual probabilities are. Or you admit you have an extremely low confidence in your estimate of the probabilities.

Have you read any of the estimates? Basically every expert gives a huge confidence interval, as do most of the people actively working on AI risk.

Saying you are 95% confident AGI will come between 50-100 years (a "huge" confidence interval), is still far too confident.

Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#184

Post by nbouscal »

argonaut wrote: post #183
nbouscal wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read any of the estimates? Basically every expert gives a huge confidence interval, as do most of the people actively working on AI risk.

Saying you are 95% confident AGI will come between 50-100 years (a "huge" confidence interval), is still far too confident.

I don't recall seeing 95% confidence intervals that narrow. Even the 90% confidence intervals I see are usually like 5-150 or something. (Also it would be super weird to me if the lower bound of someone's 95%CI was 50.)

Re: Open Philanthropy Project awards a grant of $30M to OpenAI

#186

Post by engx »

rspeer wrote: post #162
engx wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems objectively better for some people to have access to money -- in this case the GiveWell founder. He's done great work there and now he's helping OpenAI all via a Facebook founder's billions.

"It seems objectively better for some people to have access to money" is classism in one sentence. And I won't give people a pass because of the thing they co-founded and then forked. I can appreciate Wikipedia and believe that Larry Sanger's fork of it was dumb. I can appreciate GiveWell and think that Open Philantropy is corrupt.

And your suggestion about classism is moral relativism.

Who is corrupt? The guy giving away $8 billion or the one who founded GiveWell? And one of their focuses is criminal justice reform and trying to improve prison conditions.

If you want to look at something truly corrupt, look at the criminal justice system in the U.S.

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