This is an online portal with information on donations that were announced publicly (or have been shared with permission) that were of interest to Vipul Naik. The git repository with the code for this portal, as well as all the underlying data, is available on GitHub. All payment amounts are in current United States dollars (USD). The repository of donations is being seeded with an initial collation by Issa Rice as well as continued contributions from him (see his commits and the contract work page listing all financially compensated contributions to the site) but all responsibility for errors and inaccuracies belongs to Vipul Naik. Current data is preliminary and has not been completely vetted and normalized; if sharing a link to this site or any page on this site, please include the caveat that the data is preliminary (if you want to share without including caveats, please check with Vipul Naik). We expect to have completed the first round of development by the end of March 2023. See the about page for more details. Also of interest: pageview data on analytics.vipulnaik.com, tutorial in README, request for feedback to EA Forum.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Affiliated organizations (current or former; restricted to potential donees or others relevant to donation decisions) | Centre for the Study of Existential Risk |
| Wikipedia page | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaan_Tallinn |
| Best overview URL | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/ |
| Facebook username | jaan.tallinn |
| Website | https://jaan.online/ |
| Donations URL | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/ |
| LessWrong username | jaan |
| Regularity with which donor updates donations data | annual refresh |
| Regularity with which Donations List Website updates donations data (after donor update) | irregular |
| Lag with which donor updates donations data | months |
| Lag with which Donations List Website updates donations data (after donor update) | months |
| Data entry method on Donations List Website | Manual (no scripts used) |
| Org Watch page | https://orgwatch.issarice.com/?person=Jaan+Tallinn |
Brief history: Tallinn is a co-founder of Skype and Kazaa and one of the earlier wealthy supporters of organizations working in AI safety, along with Peter Thiel. In 2011, he had a conversation with Holden Karnofsky sharing his thoughts on AI safetyand in particular the work of the Singularity Institute (SI), the former name of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. See https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/givewell/conversations/topics/287 and https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6SGqkCgHuNr7d4yJm/thoughts-on-the-singularity-institute-si (GW, IR) for details. Tallinn played a significant role in financing the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (BERI)'s grantmaking operations, and later funding the Survival and Flourising Fund (SFF). In 2020, Tallinn prepared a philanthropy pledge https://jaan.online/philanthropy/ for his grantmaking for the next five years, and also indicated a plan to switch more to making direct grants using SFF's S-process, rather than giving funds to organizations such as BERI and SFF.
Brief notes on broad donor philosophy and major focus areas: https://jaan.online/philanthropy/ says: "the primary purpose of my philanthropy is to reduce existential risks to humanity from advanced technologies, such as AI. i currently believe that this cause scores the highest according to the framework used in effective altruism: (1) importance [...] (2) tractability [...] (3) neglectedness. [...] i'm likely to pass on all other opportunities — especially popular ones, like supporting education, healthcare, arts, and various social causes. [...] i'm considering (as of 2020) a few exceptions — eg, donating to more neglected climate interventions [...] i should also mention that i'm especially fond of software projects as philanthropic targets [...]"
Notes on grant decision logistics: Tallinn plans to use the Survival and Flourishing Fund (SFF)'s S-process (simulation process) to direct most of his grantmaking, as described e.g. at http://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2019-q4-recommendations and other grant rounds. He may also make one-off direct grants (at most $100,000 per grant) for funding needs that are time-sensitive but encourages grantees to also apply for the next SFF grant round. Tallinn has historically donated money to BERI and SFF for regranting, but does not expect to make similar donations for regranting in the future. Tallinn may also engage in small amounts of individual regranting and individual gifts.
Notes on grant financing: Tallinn donates his own money, but not always directly; in most cases (particularly when donating to US-based nonprofits) he donates money via (donor-advised funds managed by) Founders Pledge or Silicon Valley Community Foundation. He has also made direct gifts in cryptocurrency when not donating to US nonprofits.
| Cause area | Count | Median | Mean | Minimum | 10th percentile | 20th percentile | 30th percentile | 40th percentile | 50th percentile | 60th percentile | 70th percentile | 80th percentile | 90th percentile | Maximum |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 72 | 134,000 | 366,479 | 10,000 | 30,000 | 50,000 | 74,000 | 100,000 | 134,000 | 200,000 | 291,000 | 500,000 | 979,000 | 5,000,000 |
| Global catastrophic risks | 20 | 134,000 | 287,200 | 10,000 | 13,000 | 30,000 | 48,000 | 98,000 | 134,000 | 175,000 | 247,000 | 347,000 | 979,000 | 1,218,000 |
| AI safety | 22 | 103,000 | 487,023 | 20,000 | 34,000 | 60,500 | 80,000 | 100,000 | 103,000 | 155,000 | 248,000 | 485,000 | 799,000 | 5,000,000 |
| Gobal catastrophic risks | 1 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 |
| Effective altruism | 5 | 61,000 | 100,400 | 30,000 | 30,000 | 30,000 | 50,000 | 50,000 | 61,000 | 61,000 | 70,000 | 70,000 | 291,000 | 291,000 |
| Rationality improvement | 7 | 200,000 | 434,429 | 39,000 | 39,000 | 50,000 | 110,000 | 110,000 | 200,000 | 380,000 | 380,000 | 1,055,000 | 1,207,000 | 1,207,000 |
| 10 | 150,000 | 316,700 | 50,000 | 50,000 | 60,000 | 80,000 | 100,000 | 150,000 | 151,000 | 450,000 | 542,000 | 699,000 | 885,000 | |
| Cause prioritization | 1 | 57,000 | 57,000 | 57,000 | 57,000 | 57,000 | 57,000 | 57,000 | 57,000 | 57,000 | 57,000 | 57,000 | 57,000 | 57,000 |
| Alternate governance | 1 | 137,000 | 137,000 | 137,000 | 137,000 | 137,000 | 137,000 | 137,000 | 137,000 | 137,000 | 137,000 | 137,000 | 137,000 | 137,000 |
| Scientific research | 2 | 147,000 | 323,500 | 147,000 | 147,000 | 147,000 | 147,000 | 147,000 | 147,000 | 500,000 | 500,000 | 500,000 | 500,000 | 500,000 |
| Longtermism | 3 | 675,000 | 785,667 | 265,000 | 265,000 | 265,000 | 265,000 | 675,000 | 675,000 | 675,000 | 1,417,000 | 1,417,000 | 1,417,000 | 1,417,000 |
If you hover over a cell for a given cause area and year, you will get a tooltip with the number of donees and the number of donations.
Note: Cause area classification used here may not match that used by donor for all cases.
Graph of spending by cause area and year (incremental, not cumulative)
Graph of spending by cause area and year (cumulative)
If you hover over a cell for a given subcause area and year, you will get a tooltip with the number of donees and the number of donations.
For the meaning of “classified” and “unclassified”, see the page clarifying this.
| Subcause area | Number of donations | Number of donees | Total | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2017 | 2016 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI safety | 22 | 8 | 10,714,500.00 | 2,123,000.00 | 957,000.00 | 30,000.00 | 7,060,500.00 | 80,000.00 | 100,000.00 | 100,000.00 | 264,000.00 |
| Global catastrophic risks | 20 | 9 | 5,744,000.00 | 4,895,000.00 | 829,000.00 | 20,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Rationality improvement | 7 | 3 | 3,041,000.00 | 2,842,000.00 | 149,000.00 | 50,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Longtermism | 3 | 2 | 2,357,000.00 | 2,357,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Scientific research | 2 | 1 | 647,000.00 | 647,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Effective altruism/movement growth | 1 | 1 | 291,000.00 | 291,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Alternate governance/charter cities | 1 | 1 | 137,000.00 | 137,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Effective altruism/housing | 2 | 1 | 111,000.00 | 61,000.00 | 50,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Effective altruism/movement growth/career counseling | 2 | 1 | 100,000.00 | 0.00 | 30,000.00 | 70,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Cause prioritization | 1 | 1 | 57,000.00 | 0.00 | 57,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Gobal catastrophic risks | 1 | 1 | 20,000.00 | 0.00 | 20,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Classified total | 62 | 26 | 23,219,500.00 | 13,353,000.00 | 2,092,000.00 | 170,000.00 | 7,060,500.00 | 80,000.00 | 100,000.00 | 100,000.00 | 264,000.00 |
| Unclassified total | 10 | 6 | 3,167,000.00 | 2,576,000.00 | 441,000.00 | 150,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Total | 72 | 32 | 26,386,500.00 | 15,929,000.00 | 2,533,000.00 | 320,000.00 | 7,060,500.00 | 80,000.00 | 100,000.00 | 100,000.00 | 264,000.00 |
Graph of spending by subcause area and year (incremental, not cumulative)
Graph of spending by subcause area and year (cumulative)
| Donee | Cause area | Metadata | Total | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2017 | 2016 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (filter this donor) | AI safety/other global catastrophic risks | Site TW | 8,363,000.00 | 1,343,000.00 | 20,000.00 | 0.00 | 7,000,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Effective Altruism Funds: Long-Term Future Fund (filter this donor) | 2,092,000.00 | 2,092,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Lightcone Infrastructure (filter this donor) | Rationality improvement | FB WP Site | 1,545,000.00 | 1,435,000.00 | 110,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Machine Intelligence Research Institute (filter this donor) | AI safety | FB Tw WP Site CN GS TW | 1,447,500.00 | 0.00 | 843,000.00 | 0.00 | 60,500.00 | 80,000.00 | 100,000.00 | 100,000.00 | 264,000.00 |
| Center for Applied Rationality (filter this donor) | Rationality | FB Tw WP Site TW | 1,296,000.00 | 1,207,000.00 | 39,000.00 | 50,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Center on Long-Term Risk (filter this donor) | 1,218,000.00 | 1,218,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (filter this donor) | 1,154,000.00 | 1,154,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Centre for Long-Term Resilience (filter this donor) | 1,013,000.00 | 1,013,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| The Centre for Long-Term Resilience (filter this donor) | 885,000.00 | 885,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Center for Human-Compatible AI (filter this donor) | AI safety | WP Site TW | 819,000.00 | 819,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Topos Institute (filter this donor) | 751,000.00 | 450,000.00 | 301,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Effective Altruism Funds: Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund (filter this donor) | 699,000.00 | 699,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| New Science Research (filter this donor) | 647,000.00 | 647,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Ought (filter this donor) | AI safety | Site | 542,000.00 | 542,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| AI Objectives Institute (filter this donor) | 485,000.00 | 485,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Future of Life Institute (filter this donor) | AI safety/other global catastrophic risks | FB Tw WP Site | 377,000.00 | 0.00 | 377,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (filter this donor) | Global catastrophic risks | FB Tw Site | 347,000.00 | 257,000.00 | 90,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (filter this donor) | 299,000.00 | 145,000.00 | 134,000.00 | 20,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| AI Impacts (filter this donor) | AI safety | Site | 291,000.00 | 221,000.00 | 40,000.00 | 30,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Generation Pledge (filter this donor) | 291,000.00 | 291,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Legal Priorities Project (filter this donor) | 265,000.00 | 265,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Leverage Research (filter this donor) | 230,000.00 | 0.00 | 80,000.00 | 150,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Median Group (filter this donor) | 218,000.00 | 0.00 | 218,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| AI Safety Support (filter this donor) | 200,000.00 | 200,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Convergence Analysis (filter this donor) | 160,000.00 | 150,000.00 | 10,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Modeling Cooperation (filter this donor) | 157,000.00 | 83,000.00 | 74,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Charter Cities Institute (filter this donor) | 137,000.00 | 137,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| AI Safety Camp (filter this donor) | 130,000.00 | 130,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research (filter this donor) | Effective altruism/housing | Site | 111,000.00 | 61,000.00 | 50,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 80,000 Hours (filter this donor) | Career coaching/life guidance | FB Tw WP Site | 100,000.00 | 0.00 | 30,000.00 | 70,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Quantified Uncertainty Research Institute (filter this donor) | 60,000.00 | 0.00 | 60,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| Rethink Priorities (filter this donor) | Cause prioritization | Site | 57,000.00 | 0.00 | 57,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Total | -- | -- | 26,386,500.00 | 15,929,000.00 | 2,533,000.00 | 320,000.00 | 7,060,500.00 | 80,000.00 | 100,000.00 | 100,000.00 | 264,000.00 |
Graph of spending by donee and year (incremental, not cumulative)
Graph of spending by donee and year (cumulative)
If you hover over a cell for a given influencer and year, you will get a tooltip with the number of donees and the number of donations.
For the meaning of “classified” and “unclassified”, see the page clarifying this.
| Influencer | Number of donations | Number of donees | Total | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Survival and Flourishing Fund|Beth Barnes|Oliver Habryka|Zvi Mowshowitz | 14 | 14 | 8,050,000.00 | 8,050,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Survival and Flourishing Fund|Ben Hoskin|Katja Grace|Oliver Habryka|Adam Marblestone | 19 | 16 | 6,604,000.00 | 6,604,000.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Survival and Flourishing Fund|Oliver Habryka|Eric Rogstad | 8 | 8 | 1,982,000.00 | 1,255,000.00 | 727,000.00 | 0.00 |
| Survival and Flourishing Fund|Alex Zhu|Andrew Critch|Jed McCaleb|Oliver Habryka | 10 | 10 | 750,000.00 | 0.00 | 750,000.00 | 0.00 |
| Oliver Habryka|Eric Rogstad | 2 | 2 | 602,000.00 | 0.00 | 602,000.00 | 0.00 |
| Survival and Flourishing Fund|Alex Flint|Alex Zhu|Andrew Critch|Eric Rogstad|Oliver Habryka | 6 | 6 | 440,000.00 | 0.00 | 270,000.00 | 170,000.00 |
| Classified total | 59 | 32 | 18,428,000.00 | 15,909,000.00 | 2,349,000.00 | 170,000.00 |
| Unclassified total | 13 | 6 | 7,958,500.00 | 20,000.00 | 184,000.00 | 150,000.00 |
| Total | 72 | 32 | 26,386,500.00 | 15,929,000.00 | 2,533,000.00 | 320,000.00 |
Graph of spending by influencer and year (incremental, not cumulative)
Graph of spending by influencer and year (cumulative)
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| Title (URL linked) | Publication date | Author | Publisher | Affected donors | Affected donees | Affected influencers | Document scope | Cause area | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EA Infrastructure Fund: May–August 2021 grant recommendations (GW, IR) | 2021-12-24 | Max Daniel Buck Shlegeris Chi Nguyen Michael Aird | Effective Altruism Forum | Effective Altruism Funds: Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund Jaan Tallinn Open Philanthropy | Effective Altruism Funds: Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund | Periodic donation list documentation | Effective altruism | In this cross-post of https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/funds/payouts/may-august-2021-ea-infrastructure-fund-grants the EA Infrastructure Fund managers document grants made from May 2021 to August 2021, and also provide general updates about the fund's current state of operations, including estimates of grantmaking and funds received in 2021 as well as acceptance rate. It also mentions grants to the fund from Jaan Tallinn (based on the Survival and Flourishing Fund process) and Open Philanthropy. Ozzie Gooen offers a "quick take" in the comments. | |
| Zvi’s Thoughts on the Survival and Flourishing Fund (SFF) (GW, IR) | 2021-12-14 | Zvi Mowshowitz | LessWrong | Survival and Flourishing Fund Jaan Tallinn Jed McCaleb The Casey and Family Foundation | Effective Altruism Funds:Long-Term Future Fund Center on Long-Term Risk Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters The Centre for Long-Term Resilience Lightcone Infrastructure Effective Altruism Funds: Infrastructure Fund Centre for the Governance of AI Ought New Science Research Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative AI Objectives Institute Topos Institute Emergent Ventures India European Biostasis Foundation Laboratory for Social Minds PrivateARPA Charter Cities Institute | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Miscellaneous commentary | Longtermism|AI safety|Global catastrophic risks | In this lengthy post, Zvi Mowshowitz, who was one of the recommenders for the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grant round based on the S-process, describes his experience with the process, his impressions of several of the grantees, and implications for what kinds of grant applications are most likely to succeed. Zvi says that the grant round suffered from the problem of Too Much Money (TMM); there was way more money than any individual recommender felt comfortable granting, and just about enough money for the combined preferences of all recommenders, which meant that any recommender could unilaterally push a particular grantee through. The post has several other observations and attracts several comments. |
| S-process funding | 2021-11-19 | Andrew Critch | Protocol Labs | Survival and Flourishing Fund Jaan Tallinn Jed McCaleb The Casey and Family Foundation | Survival and Flourishing Fund | Reasoning supplement | Longtermism|AI safety|Global catastrophic risks | In this presentation moderated by Karola Kirsanow of Protocol Labs (as part of the Funding the Commons summit), Andrew Critch presents in detail the S-process (simulation process) used by the Survival and Flourishing Fund for its own grantmaking (back when it had some funds of its own) and for recommending grants to other donors, including Jaan Tallinn, Jed McCaleb, and The Casey and Family Foundation (represented by David Marble). Critch talks about the following key ideas in the S-process: marginal value functions (for each potential grantee), the use of a "hold" option for not granting funds now, recorded meetings between recommenders that funders can review to decide how much weight to give each recommender, a simulation where funders assign small portions of their funding to avoid perverse incentives created based on the order in which funders go, and funder flexibility to use or not use the recommended allocation. | |
| The Future of Grant-making Funded by Jaan Tallinn at BERI | 2019-08-25 | Board of Directors | Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative | Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative Jaan Tallinn | Broad donor strategy | In the blog post, BERI announces that it is no longer going to be handling grantmaking for Jaan Tallinn. The grantmaking is being handed to "one or more other teams and/or processes that are separate from BERI." Andrew Critch will be working on the handoff. BERI will complete administration of grants already committed to. |
Graph of top 10 donees by amount, showing the timeframe of donations
| Donee | Amount (current USD) | Amount rank (out of 72) | Donation date | Cause area | URL | Influencer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Effective Altruism Funds: Long-Term Future Fund | 1,417,000.00 | 3 | Longtermism | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a table of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts. [...] [The] system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) explains the process from a recommender's perspective. Intended use of funds (category): Regranting Donor reason for selecting the donee: Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommmenders in this grant round, writes in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) "They have some clear wins on their book (e.g. John Wentworth) and my notes indicate I thought the bulk of their targets seemed reasonable, although on reflection that makes me worry about the extent to which ‘seem reasonable’ was an optimization target. It’s another case of ‘find individuals and other places to put small amounts in ways that seem plausibly good and do it’ and it seems like something like SFF should be able to do better but if the applicant pool is this shallow maybe we can’t. As an isolated thing, almost all small grants of these types that are issued without forcing people to apply first seem like they’re net good, but they also end up warping the space and culture around the seeking of such grants, whether or not formal applications have to be involved. Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the second one with a grant to the grantee. Other notes: Jaan Tallinn's philanthropy goals as described in https://jaan.online/philanthropy/ set targets in terms of the total amount of endpoint grants, i.e., grants spent on actual grantees and not for regranting. It is not clear how grants to the Long-Term Future Fund are counted, but since the LTFF tends to spend most of its balance in its grant rounds, Tallinn likely expects that the bulk of the money will become endpoint grants shortly. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 16.00%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
|
| Effective Altruism Funds: Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund | 699,000.00 | 11 | -- | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a table of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts. [...] [The] system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) explains the process from a recommender's perspective. Intended use of funds (category): Regranting Donor reason for selecting the donee: Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders, says in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) "I don’t think we should have been anything like this eager to give money to the EA Infrastructure Fund. [..] That’s not to say I think the fund shouldn’t exist or have money, and especially that if we believe Buck in particular is very good at finding good small targets and small things to do that Buck shouldn’t have the ability to go do that, but this felt very much like overkill and a kind of giving up, especially given the goal of ‘infrastructure.’" Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the first one with a grant to the grantee. Other notes: Jaan Tallinn's philanthropy goals as described in https://jaan.online/philanthropy/ set targets in terms of the total amount of endpoint grants, i.e., grants spent on actual grantees and not for regranting. It is not clear how grants to the Infrastructure Fund are counted, but since the Infrastructure Fund tends to spend most of its balance in its grant rounds, Tallinn likely expects that the bulk of the money will become endpoint grants shortly. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 7.89%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| Lightcone Infrastructure | 380,000.00 | 19 | Rationality improvement | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a table of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts. [...] [The] system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) explains the process from a recommender's perspective. Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for selecting the donee: Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders in the grant round, writes in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff#Lightcone_Infrastructure (GW, IR) "We decided I had a conflict of interest here, so I didn’t have the option to fund them, but if I’d had that option I would have happily done that." He then describes more of this thinking around how Lightcone Infrastructure, through its work on LessWrong and other projects, helps remove trivial inconveniences to people doing the right thing. Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the fourth one with a grant to this grantee. Other notes: The grant round also includes a $500,000 grant to the grantee from the Casey and Family Foundation, that is participating as a funder in the SFF process for the first time. Although Jed McCaleb also participates as a funder in this round, and has previously granted money to Lightcone Infrastructure, he does not make any grants to Lightcone Infrastructure in this round. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 4.29%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters | 979,000.00 | 8 | Global catastrophic risks | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a table of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts. [...] [The] system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) explains the process from a recommender's perspective. Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for selecting the donee: Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders, writes in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) "ALLFED noticed something few others had noticed or done much about, that being ready could make a huge difference if the nukes did fly in terms of people not starving to death and civilization holding together, and that almost no effort was being made to get ready. [...] ALLFED is especially interested in very cheap, practical solutions that aren’t going to be fun for anyone, but would promise to get the calories into people, and be able to be implemented at scale when the time comes. I bought the case that the cause was super neglected and in danger of not getting funding, and could have a huge impact even if that was with small probabilities multiplied together. When I did Fermi calculations, this was a very good investment." Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the third one with a grant to the grantee. Other notes: Grant made via the Players Philanthropy Fund. The other two funders in this SFF grant round (Jed McCaleb and The Casey and Family Foundation) do not make grants to ALLFED. Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders, writes in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) in more detail about the concerns raised: "(1) Capacity. Could ALLFED scale? Could it remain effective, hire and manage well, and so on? Was it mostly the one person who produced value? (2) Amateurism. Basically a ‘yes, thank you, you founded the space, but now we should leave this to the professionals no?’ kind of vibe thing. (3) Feasibility. Are their ideas good? I had this too, as noted above. (4) Honesty. There were concerns, especially around impact calculations." He then goes into details about his thoughts on each of the concerns, in particular on the honesty and ALLFED's previous calculations of its own impact. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 11.05%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| Center on Long-Term Risk | 1,218,000.00 | 4 | Global catastrophic risks | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a table of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts. [...] [The] system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) explains the process from a recommender's perspective. Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for selecting the donee: Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders, writes in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) "I was excited by the detailed contents of what they are working on, relative to the baseline the applications set for excitement, but their focus on s-risks was concerning to me. I don’t want to have the debate on this, but I consider concerns about s-risks a bigger thing to be concerned about right now than actual s-risks. They do have a reasonable plan to mitigate the risk of concern about s-risk, and are saying many of the right things when asked, so I came around to it being worth proceeding." Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the first one with a grant to the grantee. Other notes: The other two funders in this SFF grant round (Jed McCaleb and The Casey and Family Foundation) do not make grants to the Center on Long-Term Risk. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 13.75%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| The Centre for Long-Term Resilience | 885,000.00 | 9 | -- | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a table of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts. [...] [The] system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) explains the process from a recommender's perspective. Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for selecting the donee: Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders, writes in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) "They had a solid case that they were successfully getting meaningful access for people who would use that access in ways that matter. This was kind of the best case scenario for this sort of thing, where there was relatively less danger of corruption or wasted money compared to the potential for tangible benefit. The bar for such efforts should be quite high. I still think we overfunded because there are others out there and I think SFF overpaid versus its ‘fair share’ here, but that’s not the biggest mistake. I wish we knew how to do such things ‘safely’ in terms of keeping ourselves intact in the process. Until then, I’ll continue to be deeply uncomfortable in such waters." Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the second one with a grant to the grantee. Other notes: The SFF website lists the grantee as Alpenglow Group Limited; this is the business name of the Centre for Long-Term Resilience. The other two funders in this SFF grant round (Jed McCaleb and The Casey and Family Foundation) do not make grants to the Centre for Long-Term Resilience. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 9.99%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| Ought | 542,000.00 | 14 | -- | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a table of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts. [...] [The] system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) explains the process from a recommender's perspective. Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for selecting the donee: Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders, writes in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) "Ought was a weird case, where I had the strong initial instinct that Ought, as I understood it, was doing a net harmful thing. [...] A lot of others positivity seemed to reflect knowing the people involved, whereas I don’t know them at all. A lot of support seemed to come down to People Doing Thing being present, and faith that those people would look for net positive things and to avoid net bad things generally, and that they had an active eye towards AI Safety. [...] I wouldn’t be surprised to learn this was net harmful, but there was enough disagreement and upside in various ways that I concluded that my expectation was positive, so I no longer felt the need to actively try to stop others from funding." Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the second one with a grant to the grantee. Other notes: The other two funders in this SFF grant round (Jed McCaleb and The Casey and Family Foundation) do not make grants to Ought. In https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders in the grant round, writes about his evaluation of Ought's agenda: "They are using GPT-3 to assist in research, to do things like generate questions to ask, or classify data, or do whatever else GPT-3 can do. The goal is to make research easier. However, because it’s good at the things GPT-3 is good at, this is going to be a much bigger deal for those looking to do performative science or publish papers or keep dumping more compute into the same systems over and over again, than it will help those trying to do something genuinely new and valuable. The hard part where one actually thinks isn’t being sped up, while the rest of the process is. Oh no. [...] I read a comment on LessWrong by Jessica Taylor questioning why one of MIRI’s latest plans wasn’t strictly worse than Ought [...] This frames the whole thing on a meta-level as a way to test a theory of how to build an aligned AI. As per Paul’s theory as I understand it, if you can (1) break up a given task into subcomponents and then (2) solve each subcomponent while (3) ensuring each subcomponent is aligned then that could solve the alignment problem with regard to the larger task, so testing to see what types of things can usefully be split into machine tasks, and whether those tasks can be solved, would be some sort of exploration in that direction under some theories. I notice I have both the ‘yeah sure I guess maybe’ instinct here and the mostly-integrated inner-Eliezer-style reaction that very strongly thinks that this represents fundamental confusion and is wrong. In any case, it’s another perspective, and Paul specifically is excited by this path.". Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 6.12%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| AI Safety Camp | 130,000.00 | 38 | AI safety | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a table of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts. [...] [The] system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) explains the process from a recommender's perspective. Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: It is likely (though not explicitly stated) that the grant funds the upcoming six-month virtual AI Safety Camp from January to June 2022. Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the first one with a grant to the grantee. Intended funding timeframe in months: 6 Other notes: The grant is made via Rethink Charity. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 1.47%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| New Science Research | 500,000.00 | 15 | Scientific research | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for selecting the donee: Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders, writes in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff#Innovation_Station (GW, IR) "If one could reinvigorate science for real, that seems clearly on the good side, so to the extent that I saw promising such attempts I was excited. There were several proposals in this category looking to directly reinvigorate or enable science of a sort: NewScience, PrivateARPA, SocialMinds@CMU and Ought. NewScience, SocialMinds and PrivateARPA seemed like they were good ideas if we were optimistic about execution. I was able to get there on NewScience, but not on PrivateARPA or SocialMinds." Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the second with a grant to this grantee. Other notes: Jed McCaleb and The Casey and Family Foundation, who also participate as funders in this grant round, do not make any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 5.64%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| Topos Institute | 450,000.00 | 18 | -- | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a table of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts. [...] [The] system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) explains the process from a recommender's perspective. Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for selecting the donee: Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders in this grant round, writes in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff#AI_Safety_Paper_Production (GW, IR) "Thus, I was excited to fund late applicant Topos Institute. As far as I could tell, they’re people with strong mathematical chops working on difficult math problems that they think are most important to solve, along the lines they think might actually work. I wouldn’t have chosen many of the details of their focus and approach, and they don’t even buy the concerns over AGI the same way I or Jaan do, but I want them to do what they think is the right thing to do here, and I’m thrilled for any and all efforts of this type, by as many people as possible, so long as they both have the chops and are aligned with us in the sense that they have their eyes on the prize. All sources I asked confirmed that they count." Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders in this grant round, writes in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff#AI_Safety_Paper_Production (GW, IR) "On reflection I regret not giving them more than I did, and I believe this was due to the S-process default curves and them only asking for a reasonable amount of money." Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 5.08% Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the third one with grants to the grantee. Other notes: Although Jed McCaleb and The Casey and Family Foundation also participate as funders in this grant round, they do not make any grants to Topos Institute in this round. Announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| Modeling Cooperation | 83,000.00 | 48 | AI safety | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a table of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts. [...] [The] system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) explains the process from a recommender's perspective. Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the third one with grants to the grantee. Other notes: Grant made via Convergence Analysis. Although Jed McCaleb and The Casey and Family Foundation also participate as funders in this grant round, they do not make any grants to Modeling Cooperation in this round. Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders in the grant round, writes a post https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) about the round that does not seem to mention this grant. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 0.94%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| AI Objectives Institute | 485,000.00 | 16 | AI safety | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a table of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts. [...] [The] system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) explains the process from a recommender's perspective. Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the first one with grants to the grantee. Other notes: Grant made via Foresight Institute. Although Jed McCaleb and The Casey and Family Foundation also participate as funders in this grant round, they do not make any grants to AI Objectives Institute in this round. In https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff#AI_Safety_Paper_Production (GW, IR) Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders in the grant round, expresses his reservations: "Then there’s the people who think the ‘AI Safety’ risk is that things will be insufficiently ‘democratic,’ too ‘capitalist’ or ‘biased’ or otherwise not advance their particular agendas. They care about, in Eliezer’s terminology from Twitter, which monkey gets the poisoned banana first. To the extent that they redirect attention, that’s harmful. [...] I do feel the need to mention one organization here, AIObjectives@Foresight, because they’re the only organization that got funding that I view as an active negative. I strongly objected to the decision to fund them, and would have used my veto on an endorsement if I’d retained the right to veto. I do see that they are doing some amount of worthwhile research into ‘how to make AIs do what humans actually want’ but given what else is on their agenda, I view their efforts as strongly net-harmful, and I’m quite sad that they got money. Some others seemed to view this concern more as a potential ‘poisoning the well’ concern that the cause area would become associated with such political focus, whereas I was object-level concerned about the agenda, and in giving leverage over important things to people who are that wrong about very important things and focused on making the world match their wrong views.". Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 5.48%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| Convergence Analysis | 34,000.00 | 64 | AI safety | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a table of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts. [...] [The] system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) explains the process from a recommender's perspective. Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant to support "Research on AI & International Relations" Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the third one with grants to the grantee. Other notes: Although Jed McCaleb and The Casey and Family Foundation also participate as funders in this grant round, they do not make any grants to the grantee. Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders in the grant round, writes a post https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) about the round that does not seem to mention this grant. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 3.84%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (Earmark: Center for Human-Compatible AI) | 248,000.00 | 25 | AI safety | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Beth Barnes Oliver Habryka Zvi Mowshowitz | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a table of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts. [...] [The] system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund." https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff (GW, IR) explains the process from a recommender's perspective. Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant to support the BERI-CHAI collaboration, This is BERI's collaboration with the Center for Human-Compatible AI (CHAI). See https://existence.org/collaborations/ for BERI's full list of collaborations. Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's sixth grant round and the fourth with grants to the grantee. It is the first round with a grant specifically for this collaboration. Other notes: Jed McCaleb makes a $250,000 grant to BERI in this grant round for the same collaboration (BERI-CHAI). The Casey and Family Foundation, that also participates as a funder in this grant round, does not make any grants to BERI. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 2.80%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| Effective Altruism Funds: Long-Term Future Fund | 675,000.00 | 12 | Longtermism | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Regranting Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the first wit a round to this grantee. Donor retrospective of the donation: In the next grant round, Tallinn would make an even bigger grant of $1,417,000 to the grantee, suggesting continued satisfaction with the strategy of donating money to the Long-Term Future Fund for regranting. Other notes: As explained at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nLxpFeEs6kAdgjRWz/the-long-term-future-fund-has-room-for-more-funding-right?commentId=9cBRWH9L6BDhd5TCF (GW, IR) the grantee is applying because the total volume of quality applications it would like to fund exceeds its own funds available. Although Jed McCaleb also participates as a funder in this grant round, he does not make any grants to this grantee (Center for Applied Rationality). Jaan Tallinn's philanthropy goals as described in https://jaan.online/philanthropy/ set targets in terms of the total amount of endpoint grants, i.e., grants spent on actual grantees and not for regranting. It is not clear how grants to the Long-Term Future Fund are counted, but since the LTFF tends to spend most of its balance in its grant rounds, Tallinn likely expects that the bulk of the money will become endpoint grants short. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 7.10%. |
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| Center for Applied Rationality | 1,207,000.00 | 5 | Rationality improvement | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round. Grants to CFAR had been made in the first, second, and fourth grant round not the third one. Other notes: Although Jed McCaleb also participates as a funder in this grant round, he does not make any grants to this grantee (Center for Applied Rationality). Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 12.69%. |
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| AI Impacts | 221,000.00 | 27 | AI safety | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round. Grants to AI Impacts had been made in the second and third grant rounds. Other notes: The grant round also includes a grant from Jed McCaleb ($82,000) to the same grantee (AI Impacts). Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 2.32%. |
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| Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research | 61,000.00 | 53 | Effective altruism/housing | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the first one with a grant to this grantee. Other notes: The grant round includes a grant by Jed McCaleb ($21,000) to the same grantee (CEEALAR). Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 0.64%. |
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| Lightcone Infrastructure | 1,055,000.00 | 6 | Rationality improvement | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the third one with a grant to this grantee. Donor retrospective of the donation: Followup grants in the next grant round https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations from both Jaan Tallinn and the Casey and Family Foundation, suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee, though the grant amounts ($380,000 and $500,000 respectively) total to less than this grant. Other notes: At the time, the grantee is known as LessWrong, and listed as such in the grants database. Although Jed McCaleb also participates in this grant round as a funder, he does not make any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 11.09%. |
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| Centre for the Study of Existential Risk | 145,000.00 | 35 | Global catastrophic risks | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the third one with a grant to the grantee. Tallinn had also made a grant to the grantee directly (outside of the SFF's process) in 2020. Other notes: Although Jed McCaleb also participates in this grant round as a funder, he does not make any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 1.52%. |
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| Global Catastrophic Risk Institute | 48,000.00 | 60 | Global catastrophic risks | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round; all previous grant rounds included grants to this grantee. Other notes: Although Jed McCaleb also participates in this grant round as a funder, he does not make any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 0.50%. |
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| Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters | 175,000.00 | 30 | Global catastrophic risks | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round. In a previous grant round (2019 Q4), SFF had made a grant to the grantee, but Tallinn had not made any direct grants. Other notes: Although Jed McCaleb also participates in this grant round as a funder, he does not make any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 1.84%. |
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| Centre for Long-Term Resilience | 1,013,000.00 | 7 | Global catastrophic risks | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the first with a grant to the grantee. Other notes: The SFF website lists the grantee as Alpenglow Group Limited; this is the business name of the Centre for Long-Term Resilience. Although Jed McCaleb also participates in this grant round as a funder, he does not make any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 10.65%. |
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| Charter Cities Institute | 137,000.00 | 36 | Alternate governance/charter cities | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round. In a previous grant round (2019 Q4), SFF had made a grant to the grantee, but Tallinn had not made any direct grants. Donor retrospective of the donation: Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders participating in SFF's next grant round (2021 H2) writes in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff#Orthogonal_Applications (GW, IR) shedding light on why he considered the Charter Cities Institute's application orthogonal to SFF's grantmaking goals: "I talked to them hoping it would be aligned with the mission. [...] What I was looking for on that call was the ability to do things you can’t do in First World countries. In particular, challenge trials seemed like a strong litmus test. If your charter city allows the world to do challenge trials, then it’s super valuable. If it doesn’t, then you might be helping the particular people, but you’re not mostly doing the thing I care about. [...] To fight the blight." Other notes: Although Jed McCaleb also participates in this grant round as a funder, he does not make any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 1.44%. |
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| New Science Research | 147,000.00 | 34 | Scientific research | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the first with a grant to this grantee. Other notes: Jed McCaleb, the other funder participating in the grant round, grants $51,000 to the grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 1.55%. |
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| Generation Pledge | 291,000.00 | 22 | Effective altruism/movement growth | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the first with a grant to this grantee. Donor retrospective of the donation: For the 2021 H2 grants, Zvi Mowshowitz's blog post about the grantmaking process, though not naming Generation Pledge, talks about an applicant doing something similar to Generation Pledge, and his concerns about the applicant: "These seemed deeply terrible. If you think the best use of funds, in a world in which we already have billions available, is to go trying to convince others to give away their money in the future, and then hoping it can be steered to the right places [...]. My expectation is that these people are seeking money and power, largely for themselves, via attempting to hijack that of others, especially for the one targeting heirs [...] it looked like there was willingness [among other recommenders] to be what I would view as the villain in the play, but that the calculations said that for our purposes this type of strategy didn’t pay even if you discount such concerns, and so the strategy was not funded, whatever anyone would have chosen to call it." Other notes: Jed McCaleb, the other funder participating in the grant round, does not make any grant to the grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 3.06%. |
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| AI Safety Support | 200,000.00 | 29 | Rationality improvement | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the first with a grant to the grantee. Other notes: Although Jed McCaleb also participates as a funder in this grant round, he does not make any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 2.10%. |
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| Convergence Analysis | 103,000.00 | 42 | AI safety | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant to support "Convergence: Project AI Clarity" Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the second with a grant to the grantee. Other notes: The grant round also includes a $13,000 grant to Convergence Analysis for Convergence. Although Jed McCaleb also participates as a funder in this grant round, he does not make any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 10.83%. |
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| Convergence Analysis | 13,000.00 | 71 | Global catastrophic risks | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant to support "Convergence" Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the second with a grant to the grantee. Other notes: The grant round also includes a $103,000 grant to Convergence Analysis for Convergence: Project AI Clarity. Although Jed McCaleb also participates as a funder in this grant round, he does not make any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 1.37%. |
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| Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (Earmark: Future of Humanity Institute) | 478,000.00 | 17 | Global catastrophic risks | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant to support the BERI-FHI collaboration, This is BERI's collaboration with the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI). See https://existence.org/collaborations/ for BERI's full list of collaborations. Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the third with grants to the grantee. It is the first round with a grant specifically for this collaboration. Other notes: The grant round includes grants from Tallinn for two other BERI collaborations (with SERI and CSER) as well as grants from Jed McCaleb for the collaborations with FHI and SERI. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 5.02%. |
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| Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (Earmark: Stanford Existential Risk Initiative) | 333,000.00 | 21 | Global catastrophic risks | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant to support the BERI-SERI collaboration, This is BERI's collaboration with the Stanford Existential Risk Institute (SERI). See https://existence.org/collaborations/ for BERI's full list of collaborations. Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the third with grants to the grantee. It is the first round with a grant specifically for this collaboration. Other notes: The grant round includes grants from Tallinn for two other BERI collaborations (with FHI and CSER) as well as grants from Jed McCaleb for the collaborations with FHI and SERI. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 3.50%. |
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| Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (Earmark: Centre for the Study of Existential Risk) | 37,000.00 | 63 | Global catastrophic risks | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant to support the BERI-CSER collaboration, This is BERI's collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER). See https://existence.org/collaborations/ for BERI's full list of collaborations. Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the third with grants to the grantee. It is the second round with a grant specifically for this collaboration. Other notes: The grant round includes grants from Tallinn for two other BERI collaborations (with FHI and SERI) as well as grants from Jed McCaleb for the collaborations with FHI and SERI. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 0.39%. |
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| Legal Priorities Project | 265,000.00 | 24 | Longtermism | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Ben Hoskin Katja Grace Oliver Habryka Adam Marblestone | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H1 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fifth grant round and the first with a grant to this grantee. Other notes: Although Jed McCaleb also participates in this grant round as a funder, he does not make any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 2.79%. |
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| Center for Human-Compatible AI | 20,000.00 | 68 | AI safety | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | -- | Donation process: Although most of Jaan Tallinn's public grantmaking during this period is through the Survival and Flourishing Fund's process (with https://survivalandflourishing.fund/ having the details), this particular grant is not made through the SFF process. However, it is made shortly after a much larger 2020 H2 grant through the SFF process, so it may simply be a top-up of that grant. Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support |
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| Global Catastrophic Risk Institute | 209,000.00 | 28 | Global catastrophic risks | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Oliver Habryka Eric Rogstad | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H2 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h2-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fourth grant round; each of the grant rounds has included grants to the grantee. Other notes: Although the Survival and Flourishing Fund and Jed McCaleb also participate as funders in this grant round as funders, neither of them makes any grants to this grantee. The grant is made via Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 12.83%. |
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| Center for Human-Compatible AI | 799,000.00 | 10 | AI safety | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Oliver Habryka Eric Rogstad | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H2 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h2-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The amout recommended by the S-process is $779,000, but the actual grant amount is $799,000 ($20,000 higher). Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fourth grant round and the first with grants to this grantee. Other notes: Although the Survival and Flourishing Fund and Jed McCaleb also participate in this grant round as funders, neither of them makes any grants to this grantee. |
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| Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative | 247,000.00 | 26 | Global catastrophic risks | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Oliver Habryka Eric Rogstad | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H2 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h2-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fourth grant round and the second with grants to this grantee. Other notes: Although the Survival and Flourishing Fund and Jed McCaleb also participate in this grant round as funders, neither of them makes any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 2.74%. |
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| Median Group | 98,000.00 | 46 | Global catastrophic risks | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Oliver Habryka Eric Rogstad | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H2 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h2-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fourth grant round and the second with grants to this grantee. Other notes: Although the Survival and Flourishing Fund and Jed McCaleb also participate in this grant round as funders, neither of them makes any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 3.62%. |
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| Rethink Priorities | 57,000.00 | 56 | Cause prioritization | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Oliver Habryka Eric Rogstad | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H2 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h2-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fourth grant round and the first with a grant to the grantee. Other notes: Although the Survival and Flourishing Fund and Jed McCaleb also participate as funders in this grant round as funders, neither of them makes any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 0.21%. |
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| Machine Intelligence Research Institute | 563,000.00 | 13 | AI safety | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Oliver Habryka Eric Rogstad | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H2 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h2-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." The recommended grant amount was $543,000 but the actual grant made was for $563,000. Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The amount recommended by the S-process is $543,0000, but the actual grant amount is $563,000 ($20,000 higher). Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fourth grant round. Grants to MIRI had also been made in the third round (2020 H1). Other notes: Although the Survival and Flourishing Fund and Jed McCaleb also participate as donors in this round, neither of them makes a grant to MIRI. |
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| Center for Applied Rationality | 39,000.00 | 62 | Rationality improvement | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Oliver Habryka Eric Rogstad | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H2 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h2-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." The amount recommended by the S-process ($19,000) was less than the amount finally granted ($39,000). Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating that amount (rather than a bigger or smaller amount): The S-process came with a recommendation for a grant amount of $19,000 but the amount finally granted was $39,000. Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fourth grant round. Grants to CFAR had been made in the first two grant rounds but not the third one. Donor retrospective of the donation: Continued grants in future grant rounds (such as https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations in 2021 H1) suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee. Other notes: The grant round also includes grants from the Survival and Flourishing Fund ($212,000) and Jed McCaleb ($23,000) to the same grantee (Center for Applied Rationality). |
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| Modeling Cooperation | 74,000.00 | 51 | AI safety | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Oliver Habryka Eric Rogstad | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H2 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h2-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fourth grant round and the second with grants to this grantee. Other notes: Grant made via Convergence Analysis. Although the Survival and Flourishing Fund and Jed McCaleb also participate in this grant round as funders, neither of them makes any grants to this grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 2.74%. |
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| Future of Life Institute | 347,000.00 | 20 | Global catastrophic risks | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Oliver Habryka Eric Rogstad | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H2 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h2-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fourth grant round. Grants to the grantee had been made in the first and third grant round. Other notes: The grant round also includes a grant from the Survival and Flourishing Fund of $347,000 to the same grantee (FLI). Although Jed McCaleb also participates as a funder in the round, he does not make any grants to this grantee in this round. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 12.83%. |
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| Topos Institute | 151,000.00 | 32 | -- | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h2-recommendations | Survival and Flourishing Fund Oliver Habryka Eric Rogstad | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H2 grants based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Recommenders specified marginal utility functions for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different utility functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Conditional support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this is SFF's fourth grant round and the second with grants to the grantee. Other notes: The support offered by the grant is conditional, as administered by Owen Cotton-Barratt. The entire grant amount does not appear to be granted in the donation logs at https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html -- only $78,000 appears to be granted on 2021-03-24. The grant round also includes a $144,000 grant from Jed McCaleb to Topos Institute. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 5.32%. |
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| Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research | 50,000.00 | 57 | Effective altruism/housing | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | -- | Donation process: Although most of Jaan Tallinn's public grantmaking during this period is through the Survival and Flourishing Fund's process (with https://survivalandflourishing.fund/ having the details), this particular grant is not made through the SFF process. Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Intended use of funds: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Trs4FeTN3eYuPs3P9/updates-from-the-centre-for-enabling-ea-learning-and#Fundraising_ (GW, IR) says: "Recently we were fortunate to receive a generous donation of $50,000 from Jaan Tallinn. This was nominally for 6 months of operating expenses. However, with our reduced resident numbers, we expect it to last considerably longer." Donor retrospective of the donation: Continued support from Jaan Tallinn for the donee in 2021, this time via the Survival and Flourishing Fund's S-process (see https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations for the 2021 H1 grant) suggests continued satisafction with the grantee. Other notes: The exact month the grant was made was confirmed through private communication. The public announcement did not include the month. Intended funding timeframe in months: 6; announced: 2020-11-27. |
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| Centre for the Study of Existential Risk | 134,000.00 | 37 | Global catastrophic risks | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | -- | Donation process: Unlike the bulk of Tallinn's philanthropy, this grant is not made through the Survival and Flourishing Fund's S-process. Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor retrospective of the donation: A later grant in 2021 based on the Survival and Flourishing Fund's S-process suggests continued satisfaction with the grantee. |
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| Future of Life Institute | 30,000.00 | 65 | Global catastrophic risks | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Jed McCaleb Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H1 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h1-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process). A request for grants was made at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wQk3nrGTJZHfsPHb6/survival-and-flourishing-grant-applications-open-until-march (GW, IR) and open till 2020-03-07. The S-process "involves allowing the recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn, Jed McCaleb, and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this 2020 H1 round of grants is SFF's third round; the grantee had also received a grant in the first round. Donor retrospective of the donation: Continued grants in future grant rounds such as https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h2-recommendations (2020 H2) suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee. Other notes: The grant round also includes grants from the Survival and Flourishing Fund ($100,000) and Jed McCaleb ($10,000) to the same grantee (FLI). Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 3.26%. |
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| Quantified Uncertainty Research Institute | 60,000.00 | 55 | -- | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Jed McCaleb Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H1 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h1-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process). A request for grants was made at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wQk3nrGTJZHfsPHb6/survival-and-flourishing-grant-applications-open-until-march (GW, IR) and open till 2020-03-07. The S-process "involves allowing the recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn, Jed McCaleb, and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this 2020 H1 round of grants is SFF's third round and the first with a grant to the grantee. Other notes: The grant round also includes grants from the Survival and Flourishing Fund ($120,000) and Jed McCaleb ($20,000) to the same grantee (QURI). Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 6.52%. |
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| Convergence Analysis | 10,000.00 | 72 | Global catastrophic risks | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Jed McCaleb Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H1 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h1-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process). A request for grants was made at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wQk3nrGTJZHfsPHb6/survival-and-flourishing-grant-applications-open-until-march (GW, IR) and open till 2020-03-07. The S-process "involves allowing the recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn, Jed McCaleb, and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this 2020 H1 round of grants is SFF's third round and the first with a grant to the grantee. However, a previous grant to Modeling Cooperation had been made via the grantee (Convergence Analysis). Other notes: Although the Survival and Flourishing Fund and Jed McCaleb also participate as funders in this grant round, neither of them makes a grant to the grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 1.09%. |
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| Leverage Research | 80,000.00 | 49 | -- | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Jed McCaleb Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H1 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h1-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process). A request for grants was made at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wQk3nrGTJZHfsPHb6/survival-and-flourishing-grant-applications-open-until-march (GW, IR) and open till 2020-03-07. The S-process "involves allowing the recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn, Jed McCaleb, and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this 2020 H1 round of grants is SFF's third round and the first with a (publicly documented) grant to the grantee; however, Jaan Tallinn made grants to the grantee in 2019. Other notes: Although the Survival and Flourishing Fund and Jed McCaleb also participate as funders in this grant round, neither of them makes a grant to the grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 8.66%. |
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| 80,000 Hours | 30,000.00 | 65 | Effective altruism/movement growth/career counseling | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Jed McCaleb Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H1 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h1-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process). A request for grants was made at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wQk3nrGTJZHfsPHb6/survival-and-flourishing-grant-applications-open-until-march (GW, IR) and open till 2020-03-07. The S-process "involves allowing the recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn, Jed McCaleb, and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this November 2019 round of grants is SFF's third round. SFF made a grant to 80,000 Hours in the previous two rounds as well Other notes: The grant round also includes grants from Survival and Flourishing Fund ($120,000) and Jed McCaleb ($30,000) to the same grantee (80,000 Hours). Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 3.26%. |
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| AI Impacts | 40,000.00 | 61 | AI safety | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Jed McCaleb Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H1 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h1-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process). A request for grants was made at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wQk3nrGTJZHfsPHb6/survival-and-flourishing-grant-applications-open-until-march (GW, IR) and open till 2020-03-07. The S-process "involves allowing the recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn, Jed McCaleb, and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this 2020 H1 round of grants is SFF's third round; grants to AI Impacts had also been made in the second round in 2019 Q4. Other notes: The grant round also includes a grant from Jed McCaleb ($20,000) to the same grantee (AI Impacts). Although the Survival and Flourishing Fund also participates as a funder in the round, it had no direct grants to AI Impacts in the round. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 4.35%. |
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| Lightcone Infrastructure | 110,000.00 | 40 | Rationality improvement | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Jed McCaleb Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H1 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h1-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process). A request for grants was made at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wQk3nrGTJZHfsPHb6/survival-and-flourishing-grant-applications-open-until-march (GW, IR) and open till 2020-03-07. The S-process "involves allowing the recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn, Jed McCaleb, and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this 2020 H1 round of grants is SFF's third round; the grantee had also received a grant in the first round. Donor retrospective of the donation: A further grant of a much larger amount ($1,055,000) as part of a later grant round https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations (2021 H1) suggests continued satisfaction with the grantee. Other notes: At the time, the grantee is known as LessWrong, and listed as such in the grants database. The grant round also includes grants from the Survival and Flourishing Fund ($290,000) and Jed McCaleb ($30,000) to the grantee. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 11.96%. |
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| Machine Intelligence Research Institute | 280,000.00 | 23 | AI safety | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Jed McCaleb Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H1 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h1-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process). A request for grants was made at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wQk3nrGTJZHfsPHb6/survival-and-flourishing-grant-applications-open-until-march (GW, IR) and open till 2020-03-07. The S-process "involves allowing the recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn, Jed McCaleb, and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this 2020 H1 round of grants is SFF's third round and the first with grants to MIRI. Donor retrospective of the donation: A further grant from Jaan Tallinn to MIRI (see https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h2-recommendations in 2020 H2) suggests continued satisfaction with the grantee. Other notes: The grant round also includes grants from the Survival and Flourishing Fund ($20,000) and Jed McCaleb ($40,000) to the same grantee (MIRI). Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 30.43%. |
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| Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (Earmark: Centre for the Study of Existential Risk) | 20,000.00 | 68 | Gobal catastrophic risks | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Jed McCaleb Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H1 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h1-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process). A request for grants was made at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wQk3nrGTJZHfsPHb6/survival-and-flourishing-grant-applications-open-until-march (GW, IR) and open till 2020-03-07. The S-process "involves allowing the recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn, Jed McCaleb, and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses Intended use of funds: Grant to support the BERI-CSER collaboration, This is BERI's collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER). See https://existence.org/collaborations/ for BERI's full list of collaborations. Donor reason for selecting the donee: Zvi Mowshowitz, one of the recommenders in the grant round, writes in https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kuDKtwwbsksAW4BG2/zvi-s-thoughts-on-the-survival-and-flourishing-fund-sff#AI_Safety_Paper_Production (GW, IR) "I consider AI Safety and related existential risks to be by far the most important ‘cause area,’ that’s even more true given the focus of SFF, and I am confident Jaan feels the same way. [...] It’s hard to find things that might possibly work in the AI Safety space, as opposed to plans to look around for something that might possibly work. [...] CHAI@BERI also seemed clearly worthwhile, and they got a large grant as well." Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this 2020 H1 round of grants is SFF's third round and the first with a grant to BERI. Other notes: Although the Survival and Flourishing Fund and Jed McCaleb also participate as funders in this grant round, neither of them makes a grant to the grantee. SFF itself is a descendant of BERI's now-ended grantmaking, which is distinct from BERI's academic collaboration work that is still ongoing and being funded by this grant. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 2.18%. |
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| Global Catastrophic Risk Institute | 90,000.00 | 47 | Global catastrophic risks | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Jed McCaleb Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H1 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h1-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process). A request for grants was made at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wQk3nrGTJZHfsPHb6/survival-and-flourishing-grant-applications-open-until-march (GW, IR) and open till 2020-03-07. The S-process "involves allowing the recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn, Jed McCaleb, and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this 2020 H1 round of grants is SFF's third round; the grantee had also received grants in the first two rounds but from SFF (not from Tallinn). Other notes: The grant round also includes a grant from Jed McCaleb of $50,000. The Survival and Flourishing Fund also participates as a funder in this round but does not make a grant to the grantee. The grant is made via Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 9.78%. |
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| Median Group | 120,000.00 | 39 | Global catastrophic risks | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Flint Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Eric Rogstad Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2019 Q4 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2019-q4-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different Recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this November 2019 round of grants is SFF's second round and the first with grants to the grantee. Other notes: This grant is made via the Median Foundation. The Survival and Flourishing Fund makes a $50,000 grant to Median Group in this grant round. Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 11.01%; announced: 2019-12-15. |
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| Topos Institute | 150,000.00 | 33 | -- | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Flint Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Eric Rogstad Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2019 Q4 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2019-q4-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different Recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this November 2019 round of grants is SFF's second round. Donor retrospective of the donation: Grants in several future grant rounds suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee. Other notes: Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 13.76%; announced: 2019-12-15. |
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| Centre for the Study of Existential Risk | 20,000.00 | 68 | Global catastrophic risks | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Flint Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Eric Rogstad Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2019 Q4 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2019-q4-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different Recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this November 2019 round of grants is SFF's second round. Donor retrospective of the donation: The future grant https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h1-recommendations (2021 H1) suggests continued satisfaction with the grantee. Other notes: The grant round also includes a grant from the Survival and Flourishing Fund of $40,000 to the same grantee (CSER). Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 1.83%; announced: 2019-12-15. |
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| 80,000 Hours | 70,000.00 | 52 | Effective altruism/movement growth/career counseling | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Flint Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Eric Rogstad Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2019 Q4 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2019-q4-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different Recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this November 2019 round of grants is SFF's second round and the first one with grants made directly by Jaan Tallinn. SFF made a grant to 80,000 Hours in the previous round as well. Donor retrospective of the donation: Continued grants in future grant rounds (such as https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h1-recommendations in 2020 H1) suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee. Other notes: The grant round also includes a $40,000 grant directly from the Survival and Flourishing Fund to the same grantee (80,000 Hours). Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 6.42%; announced: 2019-12-15. |
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| Center for Applied Rationality | 50,000.00 | 57 | Rationality improvement | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Flint Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Eric Rogstad Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2019 Q4 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2019-q4-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different Recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this November 2019 round of grants is SFF's second round and the first one with grants made directly by Jaan Tallinn. SFF made a grant to CFAR in the previous round as well. Donor retrospective of the donation: Continued grants in future grant rounds (such as https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h2-recommendations in 2020 H2) suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee. Other notes: The grant round also includes a $150,000 grant from the Survival and Flourishing Fund to the same grantee (Center for Applied Rationality). Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 4.59%; announced: 2019-12-15. |
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| AI Impacts | 30,000.00 | 65 | AI safety | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Survival and Flourishing Fund Alex Flint Alex Zhu Andrew Critch Eric Rogstad Oliver Habryka | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2019 Q4 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2019-q4-recommendations based on the S-process (simulation process) that "involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal utility functions. Funders were free to assign different weights to different Recommenders in the process; the weights were determined by marginal utility functions specified by the funders (Jaan Tallinn and SFF). In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts." Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor reason for donating at this time (rather than earlier or later): Timing determined by timing of grant round; this November 2019 round of grants is SFF's second round. Donor retrospective of the donation: Continued grants (such as https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2020-h1-recommendations in 2020 H1) suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee. Other notes: The grant round also includes a grant from the Survival and Flourishing Fund ($70,000) to the same grantee (AI Impacts). Percentage of total donor spend in the corresponding batch of donations: 2.76%; announced: 2019-12-15. |
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| Leverage Research | 50,000.00 | 57 | -- | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | -- | Donation process: This grant was made after the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2019 Q4 S-process-based grant recommendations https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2019-q4-recommendations and its timing coincides with the timing of several grants made based on those recommendations. This grant is not listed among SFF's grant recommendations, but that grant round's page says: "each Recommender in the round had the unilateral ability to veto the group’s official endorsement of any particular grant. Grants not officially endorsed in this way will not appear on the list below." Given the general concerns about Leverage Research in the communities that recommenders are drawn from, it's plausible that Leverage Research was recommended through the process and vetoed. Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor retrospective of the donation: A followup grant of $80,000 on 2020-06-15 (this one recommended by the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H1 S-proocess) suggests continued satisfaction with the grantee. |
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| Leverage Research | 100,000.00 | 43 | -- | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | -- | Intended use of funds (category): Organizational general support Donor retrospective of the donation: A followup grant of $50,000 on 2019-12-04 and then another of of $80,000 on 2020-06-15 (this one recommended by the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2020 H1 S-proocess) suggest continued satisfaction with the grantee. |
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| Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative | 5,000,000.00 | 1 | AI safety | http://existence.org/2018/01/11/activity-update-december-2017.html | -- | Donation amount approximate. | |
| Machine Intelligence Research Institute | 60,500.00 | 54 | AI safety | https://web.archive.org/web/20170204024838/https://intelligence.org/topdonors/ | -- | ||
| Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative | 2,000,000.00 | 2 | AI safety | http://existence.org/grants | -- | ||
| Machine Intelligence Research Institute | 80,000.00 | 49 | AI safety | https://web.archive.org/web/20160115172820/https://intelligence.org/donortools/topdonors.php | -- | ||
| Machine Intelligence Research Institute | 100,000.00 | 43 | AI safety | http://archive.today/2014.10.10-021359/http://intelligence.org/topdonors/ | -- | ||
| Machine Intelligence Research Institute | 100,000.00 | 43 | AI safety | http://archive.today/2013.10.21-235551/http://intelligence.org/topdonors/ | -- | ||
| Machine Intelligence Research Institute | 109,000.00 | 41 | AI safety | https://web.archive.org/web/20120918094656/http://singularity.org:80/topdonors/ | -- | ||
| Machine Intelligence Research Institute | 155,000.00 | 31 | AI safety | https://web.archive.org/web/20120719220051/http://singularity.org:80/topdonors/ | -- |
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