First off, thanks for putting so much time into writing this extensive list of questions and doubts you have about CEA. Unlike for-profit activities, we don’t have immediate feedback effects telling us when we’re doing well and when we’re doing badly, so criticism is an important countermeasure to make sure we do things as well as possible. We therefore really welcome people taking a critical eye to our activities.
As the person who wrote the original CEA material here on LessWrong, and the person who you mention above, I feel I should be the one to collate a response to your questions. However, because of other commitments (managing; fundraising; writing my first piece for a magazine column), it will be a few days before I can get this to you in a form I’d feel happy with. I hope that’s ok.
Before then I’ll just mention a few things in order to make things a bit clearer to the audience.
In what you wrote a couple of comments made it sound as if you’d had an in-depth conversation with me on these issues; whereas really the context of the only exchange we’ve had is my giving a short talk to a group of about 15 people, of very varied backgrounds. You asked a few questions and there was discussion afterwards, but this must have only taken up about 10-15 minutes of time. Though I would very much like to, I haven’t ever spoken with you or Alexey one-on-one.
Similarly, in your response to Luke you say that Adam works full-time at CEA. I think there’s some disagreement between the two of you on the extent to which he had signed off on the content. But, at any rate, it’s worth noting that Adam is an intern at CEA. This means he does contribute a full working week for CEA, but he is not an employee. He’s therefore not the person to go when it comes to high-level evaluation of CEA.
You mention an internal estimate of £1700 for the value of a new pledge. None of us are familiar with this figure, and we’re confused about where it could have come from.
You suggest that CEA has ~4000 people on its mailing lists. The correct figure is less than half that (unless you include TLYCS, which you might have been thinking of, which does have in excess of 4000 on its mailing list).
You estimate GWWC’s research capacity at 6 staff for last year. This is actually more than an order of magnitude higher than the true figure. In fact, the average number of paid employees (full-time equivalent) we have had working on all aspects of 80,000 Hours and Giving What We Can over the last six months is only 3.7.
As a more general point, I think we should also be careful to distinguish whether CEA has acted optimally in terms of utility-maximization (to which the answer is certainly not), and whether it gets a return on investment which is better than 1:1.
In my follow-up comment, I’ll talk about some of the many concerns you’ve raised that we share, and the issues over which we might be making big mistakes. I’ll also be able to give a bit more background about our activities, and I’ll be able to answer your questions. Thanks again for taking the time to comment.
I’m glad to hear that a general response is being collated; if there are things where CEA can improve it would seem like a good idea to do them, and if I’m wrong I would like to know that. Turning to the listed points:
I went into that conversation with a number of questions I sought answers to, and either asked them or saw the data coming up from other questions. I knew your time was valuable and mostly targeted at other people there.
Adam explicitly signed off on my comment to Luke. He saw the draft post, commented on it, recommended it be put here and received the original string of emails in the context of being a friend, and person I knew would have a closer perspective on the day to day running of CEA than myself.
£1700 came from Jacob (Trefethen), in conversation shortly after you were in Cambridge, and purporting to be from internal numbers. I had asked whether CEA has an internal price at which new pledges would be bought, on the basis that one should exist, and it would be important for valuing a full-time Cambridge position.
~4K is 1⁄3 of the Oxford undergrad population, which was the figure I had heard quoted in the discussion in Cambridge.
GWWC lists 8 people as a sample of past-and-present researchers, a research manager and a research director. I estimated that half of the former set would have moved on, and thus that 6 people were at least engaged in part time research for GWWC.
I am concerned both about utility-maximisation and the ROI. It seems easier to fix efficiency problems whilst institutions are still small, or create alternate more efficient institutions if need be; ideally groups akin to CEA’s projects are going to move budgets of O(10^9 / year), and I want to see that used as effectively as possible.
In terms of ROI, I don’t put large weight in the estimated returns absent a calculation or substantial trust in the instrumental rationality of the organisation making the claims. To take the canonical example, GiveWell provides some measure of each; CEA’s projects need to be at least as credible.
Thanks again for taking the critique in the spirit that was intended.
Hi Jonathan,
First off, thanks for putting so much time into writing this extensive list of questions and doubts you have about CEA. Unlike for-profit activities, we don’t have immediate feedback effects telling us when we’re doing well and when we’re doing badly, so criticism is an important countermeasure to make sure we do things as well as possible. We therefore really welcome people taking a critical eye to our activities.
As the person who wrote the original CEA material here on LessWrong, and the person who you mention above, I feel I should be the one to collate a response to your questions. However, because of other commitments (managing; fundraising; writing my first piece for a magazine column), it will be a few days before I can get this to you in a form I’d feel happy with. I hope that’s ok.
Before then I’ll just mention a few things in order to make things a bit clearer to the audience.
In what you wrote a couple of comments made it sound as if you’d had an in-depth conversation with me on these issues; whereas really the context of the only exchange we’ve had is my giving a short talk to a group of about 15 people, of very varied backgrounds. You asked a few questions and there was discussion afterwards, but this must have only taken up about 10-15 minutes of time. Though I would very much like to, I haven’t ever spoken with you or Alexey one-on-one.
Similarly, in your response to Luke you say that Adam works full-time at CEA. I think there’s some disagreement between the two of you on the extent to which he had signed off on the content. But, at any rate, it’s worth noting that Adam is an intern at CEA. This means he does contribute a full working week for CEA, but he is not an employee. He’s therefore not the person to go when it comes to high-level evaluation of CEA.
You mention an internal estimate of £1700 for the value of a new pledge. None of us are familiar with this figure, and we’re confused about where it could have come from.
You suggest that CEA has ~4000 people on its mailing lists. The correct figure is less than half that (unless you include TLYCS, which you might have been thinking of, which does have in excess of 4000 on its mailing list).
You estimate GWWC’s research capacity at 6 staff for last year. This is actually more than an order of magnitude higher than the true figure. In fact, the average number of paid employees (full-time equivalent) we have had working on all aspects of 80,000 Hours and Giving What We Can over the last six months is only 3.7.
As a more general point, I think we should also be careful to distinguish whether CEA has acted optimally in terms of utility-maximization (to which the answer is certainly not), and whether it gets a return on investment which is better than 1:1.
In my follow-up comment, I’ll talk about some of the many concerns you’ve raised that we share, and the issues over which we might be making big mistakes. I’ll also be able to give a bit more background about our activities, and I’ll be able to answer your questions. Thanks again for taking the time to comment.
Best Wishes,
Will
Hi Will,
I’m glad to hear that a general response is being collated; if there are things where CEA can improve it would seem like a good idea to do them, and if I’m wrong I would like to know that. Turning to the listed points:
I went into that conversation with a number of questions I sought answers to, and either asked them or saw the data coming up from other questions. I knew your time was valuable and mostly targeted at other people there.
Adam explicitly signed off on my comment to Luke. He saw the draft post, commented on it, recommended it be put here and received the original string of emails in the context of being a friend, and person I knew would have a closer perspective on the day to day running of CEA than myself.
£1700 came from Jacob (Trefethen), in conversation shortly after you were in Cambridge, and purporting to be from internal numbers. I had asked whether CEA has an internal price at which new pledges would be bought, on the basis that one should exist, and it would be important for valuing a full-time Cambridge position.
~4K is 1⁄3 of the Oxford undergrad population, which was the figure I had heard quoted in the discussion in Cambridge.
GWWC lists 8 people as a sample of past-and-present researchers, a research manager and a research director. I estimated that half of the former set would have moved on, and thus that 6 people were at least engaged in part time research for GWWC.
I am concerned both about utility-maximisation and the ROI. It seems easier to fix efficiency problems whilst institutions are still small, or create alternate more efficient institutions if need be; ideally groups akin to CEA’s projects are going to move budgets of O(10^9 / year), and I want to see that used as effectively as possible.
In terms of ROI, I don’t put large weight in the estimated returns absent a calculation or substantial trust in the instrumental rationality of the organisation making the claims. To take the canonical example, GiveWell provides some measure of each; CEA’s projects need to be at least as credible.
Thanks again for taking the critique in the spirit that was intended.
Best wishes,
Jonathan