a) GiveWell does publish cost-effectiveness estimates. I found them in a few clicks. So Ben’s claim is neither dishonest nor false.
While I agree that this is a sufficient rebuttal of Ray’s “dishonest and/or false” charge (Ben said that GiveWell publishes such numbers, and GiveWell does, in fact, publish such numbers), it seems worth acknowleding Ray’s point about context and reduced visibility: it’s not misleading to publish potentially-untrustworthy (but arguably better than nothing) numbers surrounded by appropriate caveats and qualifiers, even when it would be misleading to loudly trumpet the numbers as if they were fully trustworthy.
That said, however, Ray’s “GiveWell goes to great lengths to hide those numbers” claim seems false to me in light of an email I received from GiveWell today (the occasion of my posting this belated comment), which reads, in part:
GiveWell has made a lot of progress since your last recorded gift in 2015. Our current top charities continue to avert deaths and improve lives each day, and are the best giving opportunities we’re aware of today. To illustrate, right now we estimate that for every $2,400 donated to Malaria Consortium for its seasonal malaria chemoprevention program, the death of a child will be averted.
Further update on this. Givewell has since posted this blogpost. I haven’t yet reviewed this enough have a strong opinion on it, but I think it at least explains some of the difference in epistemic state I had at the time of this discussion.
A few years ago, we decided not to feature our cost-effectiveness estimates prominently on our website. We had seen people using our estimates to make claims about the precise cost to save a life that lost the nuances of our analysis; it seemed they were understandably misinterpreting concrete numbers as conveying more certainty than we have. After seeing this happen repeatedly, we chose to deemphasize these figures. We continued to publish them but did not feature them prominently.
Over the past few years, we have incorporated more factors into our cost-effectiveness model and increased the amount of weight we place on its outputs in our reviews (see the contrast between our 2014 cost-effectiveness model versus our latest one). We thus see our cost-effectiveness estimates as important and informative.
We also think they offer a compelling motivation to donate. We aim to share these estimates in such a way that it’s reasonably easy for anyone who wants to dig into the numbers to understand all of the nuances involved.
While I agree that this is a sufficient rebuttal of Ray’s “dishonest and/or false” charge (Ben said that GiveWell publishes such numbers, and GiveWell does, in fact, publish such numbers), it seems worth acknowleding Ray’s point about context and reduced visibility: it’s not misleading to publish potentially-untrustworthy (but arguably better than nothing) numbers surrounded by appropriate caveats and qualifiers, even when it would be misleading to loudly trumpet the numbers as if they were fully trustworthy.
That said, however, Ray’s “GiveWell goes to great lengths to hide those numbers” claim seems false to me in light of an email I received from GiveWell today (the occasion of my posting this belated comment), which reads, in part:
(Bolding mine.)
Further update on this. Givewell has since posted this blogpost. I haven’t yet reviewed this enough have a strong opinion on it, but I think it at least explains some of the difference in epistemic state I had at the time of this discussion.
Relevant bit:
A friend also recently mentioned getting this email to me, and yes, this does significantly change my outlook here.