[HN Gopher] EA and the Current Funding Situation
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EA and the Current Funding Situation
Author : kvee
Score : 49 points
Date : 2022-05-10 16:45 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (forum.effectivealtruism.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (forum.effectivealtruism.org)
| syngrog66 wrote:
| EA stands for Electronic Arts. in my planet's software field. for
| decades. was a weird shock to clickthrough on that article link.
| ;-)
|
| "Kids... get off my lawn!"
| quirkot wrote:
| Very disappointed at missing an AMAZING opportunity to say "shut
| up and multiply" about the funding
| drumhead wrote:
| I thought this was an article about Electronic Arts and a scoop
| about liquidity issues. Unfortuantely not the case...
| benbristow wrote:
| Especially as they've just lost the FIFA licence, renaming the
| next football (soccer) games to "EA FC" as FIFA were asking for
| a billion for the licence to use their name.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/may/10/electronic-art...
| Arrath wrote:
| I figured it was either that or Early Access and its impact on
| development schedules, milestones, feedback, etc.
| mdtrooper wrote:
| Yes, hahaha me too. I clicked happy because I thought "yes, EA
| a big devil company who no release any game for Linux in their
| history, thanks karma".
|
| But not.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Actually, EA released the source code and binary Linux
| version the original SimCity under GPL-3, which I ported to
| various Unix platforms including Linux and the OLPC.
|
| https://medium.com/@donhopkins/open-sourcing-
| simcity-58470a2...
|
| >Open Sourcing SimCity, by Chaim Gingold. Excerpt from page
| 289-293 of "Play Design", a dissertation submitted in partial
| satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in
| Philosophy in Computer Science by Chaim Gingold.
|
| Granted, EA's QA folks had never QA'ed a Linux game before,
| so I had to walk them through installing VMWare on Windows
| and gave them a Linux operating system image to test it with,
| but it did pass QA, and they released it in binary on the
| OLPC as well as in source code form.
|
| https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis
|
| Here's the contract with all the legal details:
|
| https://donhopkins.com/home/olpc-ea-contract.pdf
| Recursing wrote:
| @dang I would suggest editing the title, changing EA to
| "Effective Altruism"
|
| I'm also really curious about HN's view of Effective Altruism,
| and how do individuals here handle their charitable giving.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I really hope this serves as an inflection point for the
| Effective Altruism crowd to pivot away from some of the weirder
| things they embraced in the past.
|
| I love the idea of Effective Altruism and what they're trying to
| accomplish, but in practice it frequently turns into funding for
| intellectuals to sit around and pontificate about AI risk and
| other things, as opposed to actually going out into the world and
| doing altruistic acts.
|
| Some of their previous grants are downright laughable, like
| spending $30K to distribute copies of rationalist Harry Potter
| fanfiction ( _Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality_ )
| despite the fact that it's freely available online. (Source:
| https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g/...
| Ctrl+F "Harry Potter")
|
| The EA movement has become a bit of a joke in many circles after
| making too many moves like this, so hopefully this serves as a
| wake-up call for them to start getting more practical.
| SilasX wrote:
| You're saying that the existence of a book being freely
| available online means that it's always pointless to give out
| physical copies? Do you make the same criticism of eg Dolly
| Parton's program to give books to families for free, in cases
| where the copyright on the book has expired?
| casebash wrote:
| I guess the universe is allowed to be crazy.
|
| The universe is allowed to decide the Donald Trump will be
| president in 2016 despite all the reasons to think it was crazy
| that he would become president. The universe is allowed to
| decide that Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be elected president of
| Ukraine on the basis of having starring as the president in a
| comedy.
|
| And I guess the universe is allowed to decide that a piece of
| fanfic that is desperately in need of an editor will be
| successful at recruiting talent for the rationalist or AI
| Safety communities.
|
| I expect you are probably skeptical of AI Safety, but then your
| criticism would be a criticism of the final objective, not the
| method (distribution of HPMoR) used to achieve the objective.
| kvee wrote:
| For whatever it's worth, HPMOR introduced me to Effective
| Altruism and lesswrong, etc.
|
| Though I found it online and not from the $30K distributed, I
| have since as a result of being introduced to Effective
| Altruism there donated much more than $30K to highly effective
| charities and caused hundreds of other people to get into
| donating to highly effective charities too. I also started a
| company inspired by the EA concepts of working on "neglected
| problems" - https://80000hours.org/articles/problem-
| framework/#definitio...
|
| I might be wrong, but I suspect there's a decent chance there
| was at least 1 person like me of the people in that $30k
| distribution.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| > despite the fact that it's freely available online.
|
| The poor frequently do not have printers or significant access
| to consistently functional digital devices.
| defen wrote:
| They gave copies to the 650 people who advanced far enough in
| IMO and EGMO (International Math Olympiad / European Girls'
| Mathematical Olympiad) to be considered "medalists". It's
| very unlikely that those people don't have internet access.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > The poor frequently do not have printers or significant
| access to consistently functional digital devices.
|
| If a group of people is so poor that they don't have access
| to digital devices, maybe printing out rationalist Harry
| Potter fan fiction shouldn't be at the top of the priority
| list for a charity trying to spend money to improve their
| lives.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I think teaching rationalism with approachable and
| interesting materials is fine and reasonable.
|
| I suppose we could be equally upset that Sesame street uses
| puppets?
| stonogo wrote:
| In the US and most civilized nations they have public library
| access, which can easily be used to access Harry Potter
| fanfiction. It's not clear how they benefit from a printed
| copy of the Harry Potter fanfiction.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| And how do you get to the library?
| justinpombrio wrote:
| There are multiple EA groups, but I think the most common place
| to donate is GiveWell? Here's what its donation page looks
| like:
|
| https://secure.givewell.org/ Let GiveWell
| direct your donation GiveWell's Maximum Impact Fund
| Support GiveWell's top charities Malaria Consortium's
| seasonal malaria chemoprevention program Against
| Malaria Foundation Helen Keller International's
| vitamin A supplementation program SCI Foundation
| (Schistosomiasis Control Initiative) Sightsavers'
| deworming program New Incentives Evidence
| Action's Deworm the World Initiative END Fund's
| deworming program GiveDirectly
|
| The recent grants by their Maximum Impact Fund are listed here:
|
| https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund
|
| the largest of which was $7.8 million to "Sightsavers --
| Deworming in Nigeria and Cameroon (February 2022)"
|
| Please don't let the fact that some people are concerned about
| AI safety detract from EA's overarching goal of doing the most
| good per dollar donated.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Right! My point is that there _are_ good aspects to the
| Effective Altruism movement, but historically they 've done a
| disservice by also embracing some fringe stuff under the
| Effective Altruism banner.
|
| Like I said in my comment, I'm hoping this blog post is a
| signal that they're going to start maturing the organization
| a bit more and hopefully distance themselves from some of the
| weirdness that tries to ride the coattails of the Effective
| Altruism movement.
| justinpombrio wrote:
| Gotta distance themselves from those weirdos!
|
| Why aren't EA organizations allowed to be concerned about
| AI safety? Sure, there's nothing dangerous _yet_ , but
| surely the trend towards more capable AI has become fairly
| clear these past few years, and at some point it will get
| concerning even if only in the wrong hands, and it would be
| better to be prepared for that beforehand?
| chrischen wrote:
| > Some of their previous grants are downright laughable, like
| spending $30K to distribute copies of rationalist Harry Potter
| fanfiction (Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality)
| despite the fact that it's freely available online. (Source:
| https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g/...
| Ctrl+F "Harry Potter")
|
| Is this how money is laundered in non profits?
| [deleted]
| DrRobinson wrote:
| They're not allowed to make money from this Harry Potter fan-
| fiction IIRC, which this is (one that teaches effective
| altruism concepts and rationality), so I don't see how this
| would be a way to launder money.
|
| It's also worth noting that this was 28k out of 923k USD, so
| not a too big part of it (~2%). Of course the money should be
| used for other things if it's estimated to be more effective
| though.
|
| The reasoning is in the post you linked which I think gives a
| pretty good explanation. They're given to 650 math medalists
| (so ~43 USD/person) which they deemed to have good target
| audience for this.
| Veedrac wrote:
| Apologies if this is curt, but if you think one of the most
| impactful altruism movements in the world with major focuses in
| global health and long term outcomes is a joke because they do
| outreach in odd (but clearly effective) ways, you have missed
| the point of effective altruism altogether.
|
| You don't get brownie points for how steadfastly you stick to
| your Overton window. You get brownie points for saving lives.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > You don't get brownie points for how steadfastly you stick
| to your Overton window. You get brownie points for saving
| lives.
|
| ...by distributing copies of rationalist Harry Potter fan
| fiction?
|
| I agree that charities that save lives are doing good things.
| That's why I brought up the fact that some of their spending
| has historically been kind of ludicrously off base.
| Veedrac wrote:
| It sounds less stupid when you count the fraction of EA
| funding and activity that HPMOR was already in the causal
| chain of. It's not how I'd do outreach, but it's not like
| the choice was arbitrary.
| Recursing wrote:
| Honestly curious, how would you do outreach?
| Veedrac wrote:
| I don't know, sorry.
| rcoveson wrote:
| You know Maus[0]? It's a _comic book_ about _Disney
| animals_. Isn 't that just laughable? Wouldn't teaching
| such a thing in schools--with the aim of imparting serious
| lessons--be "ludicrously off base"?
|
| Derision for fan fiction and/or Harry Potter can't be the
| beginning and end of your argument for why HPMOR isn't a
| good book to introduce nerdy school kids to a handful of
| valuable ideas.
|
| 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus
| lucaparodi wrote:
| So you're literally basing your entire argument to
| disqualify a movement with clear and public data about the
| positive impact that has created on a single $30k grant?
| ineptech wrote:
| You left out that they were distributing the book to
| participants in math and science competitions, and that their
| reasoning was that they think the book is effective at teaching
| scientific reasoning. Donating science books to promising
| students sounds a lot better than distributing fanfiction.
|
| You may disagree that HPMOR is effective at teaching science,
| but at least they did it openly. That page has a detailed
| discussion of the pros and cons of this grant, including the
| possibility that it could cause "reputational risk" (i.e.
| people like you making fun of them for it). AFAICT they took
| that seriously, and decided to do it anyway because they really
| do believe that it's effective at teaching science.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Ah, but is it _the most effective_ book? In the absence of
| very real countervailing evidence, choosing that book would
| be a pretty clear-cut case of systematic bias.
| basedgod wrote:
| His blog post talks about the importance of optics and
| effective messaging. But the only thing that stood out to me
| that they're actually doing is researching the dangers of AI
| and other neckbeard concerns that have nothing to do with the
| problems and sufferings of actual human beings today.
|
| I have only a vague notion of what EA does (wasn't one of their
| initial proposals that deworming medications should be sent to
| rural Africa, for its disproportionate impact it could have?)
| and thought their org was centered around unsexy issues like
| this.
|
| My takeaway is that their main successes is raising huge
| amounts of money, and have nothing to show for it - at least,
| nothing they've even briefly mentioned in the blog post.
|
| from wikipedia: "One of the key events of the Google conference
| was a moderated panel on existential risk from artificial
| general intelligence.[6] Panel member Stuart Russell stated
| that AI research should be about "building intelligent systems
| that benefit the human race".[5] Vox writer Dylan Matthews,
| while praising some aspects of the conference, criticized its
| perceived focus on existential risk, potentially at the expense
| of more mainstream causes like fighting extreme poverty."
|
| And there's no mention of anything this org has actually done
| to help anyone, other than getting people to donate
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| _> they 're actually doing is researching the dangers of AI
| and other neckbeard concerns that have nothing to do with the
| problems and sufferings of actual human beings today._
|
| This is really the kind of comment I'd like not to see on HN.
|
| "Neckbeard concern" implies that... what, people worrying
| about AI risk are worrying for fun? Because they're socially
| awkward nerds disconnected from reality?
|
| This reminds me of https://xkcd.com/743/
|
| Worrying about the future consequences of incoming
| technological developments always looks like "neckbeard
| concerns" until it's too late to do anything about it.
|
| And thus he we are, worrying about climate change and supply
| chain sovereignty and corporate control of information and
| wondering why nobody took sensible measures 20 years ago.
|
| _> And there 's no mention of anything this org has actually
| done to help anyone, other than getting people to donate_
|
| Note that this is an internal post from an individual
| suggesting organizational changes, not an official public-
| facing communication.
|
| As sibling comments pointed out, they do have posts listing
| success stories.
| lkbm wrote:
| > wasn't one of their initial proposals that deworming
| medications should be sent to rural Africa
|
| Yes, and it's heavily funded by EA givers (yours truly
| included). People like to harp on the weird edge-cases, but
| Givewell.org is directing hundreds of millions of dollars per
| year[0], and it's pretty much entirely things deworming,
| malaria prevention, etc.[1]
|
| If you visit effectivealtruism.org you'll see it's not a
| bunch of articles about AI research. It's about convincing
| people to donate in ways that have the most positive impact,
| and includes a big "What has the effective altruism community
| done?" section that's mostly the standard "ensure everyone
| has food, water, basic healthcare, etc." The key is that
| there's an emphasis on making sure you're _actually
| improving_ those metrics as much as possible, rather than
| whatever has the flashiest marketing.
|
| There are a bunch of people talking about AI safety and other
| weirder things, but we mostly just look at research to figure
| out what improves lives and do that.
|
| [0] https://www.givewell.org/about/impact
|
| [1] https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
| DrRobinson wrote:
| > other than getting people to donate
|
| If that's the most effective way of helping people, why would
| they not do that? They do more than that though, they fund
| projects of many different kinds. They also coach people to
| go into fields where they can have a positive impact for
| example.
|
| > wasn't one of their initial proposals that deworming
| medications should be sent to rural Africa, for its
| disproportionate impact it could have?
|
| They have different funds:
|
| - Global Health and Development Fund [0]
|
| - Animal Welfare Fund [1]
|
| - Long-Term Future Fund[2]
|
| - Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund[3]
|
| Deworming would go under "Global health and development" (if
| it's estimated to be the most effective) and AI under "Long-
| term future fund".
|
| ---
|
| 0. https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/funds/global-
| development
|
| 1. https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/funds/animal-welfare
|
| 2. https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/funds/far-future
|
| 3. https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/funds/ea-community
| zozbot234 wrote:
| It's amusing that people still complain about AI ethics and
| debiasing (aka "alignment") being an early focus of EA's long
| after it's become an increasingly relevant research field, even
| with controversy regularly making the tech news. If anything,
| that AI focus counts as a success story for effective altruism,
| as much as the similar case of pandemic preparedness.
| btrettel wrote:
| One thing I've wondered is when Effective Altruists are going
| to stop calling AI ethics _neglected_. AI ethics as a field
| is now mainstream, in my view, yet people still keep calling
| it neglected. I personally think Effective Altruists should
| focus less on AI ethics now as it has gained mainstream
| attention and focus more on other currently neglected topics.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| By all available evidence it's horribly neglected at Big
| Tech firms, we keep seeing examples of AI researchers there
| not being taken seriously despite the quality of their
| work.
| btrettel wrote:
| > we keep seeing examples of AI researchers there not
| being taken seriously despite the quality of their work
|
| This phenomena is not unique to AI safety. It often is
| driven by management incentives.
|
| I agree that AI safety is not a solved problem in
| practice, but that doesn't mean it's _neglected_. AI
| safety gets a lot of attention, and it is important, but
| it 's not "neglected" in the sense that _too few_ people
| work on it or that there isn 't enough money in it [0]. I
| think the marginal impact of a new person in AI safety is
| roughly zero, all else equal. AI safety folks would
| probably do best to change their priorities away from
| "ivory tower" sort of issues towards the practical issues
| you bring up.
|
| [0] EAs typically use people or money to measure
| neglectedness. https://80000hours.org/articles/problem-
| framework/#how-to-as...
| Recursing wrote:
| What do you think are currently neglected topics?
| btrettel wrote:
| To give just one example, I think Effective Altruists
| focus far too little on meta-science. Much of what they
| want to do depends on meta-science, and in science it's
| quite difficult to fund that sort of work, so it seems
| odd to me that it's not considered a top priority on
| 80,000 Hours.
|
| I'm sure there are other areas, but I haven't put an
| effort into listing them. Global priorities work is
| pretty hard.
|
| Also, apparently 80,000 Hours now considers AI safety
| only "somewhat neglected", so perhaps they EAs agree with
| me more than I thought. https://80000hours.org/problem-
| profiles/positively-shaping-a...
| [deleted]
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