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.
We do not have any donor information for the donor Machine Intelligence Research Institute in our system.
| 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 | 1 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 |
| AI safety | 1 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 | 3,793 |
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.
| Cause area | Number of donations | Number of donees | Total | 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI safety (filter this donor) | 1 | 1 | 3,793.15 | 3,793.15 |
| Total | 1 | 1 | 3,793.15 | 3,793.15 |
Skipping spending graph as there is fewer than one year’s worth of donations.
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 | 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI safety | 1 | 1 | 3,793.15 | 3,793.15 |
| Classified total | 1 | 1 | 3,793.15 | 3,793.15 |
| Unclassified total | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Total | 1 | 1 | 3,793.15 | 3,793.15 |
Skipping spending graph as there is fewer than one year’s worth of donations.
| Donee | Cause area | Metadata | Total | 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI Safety Camp (filter this donor) | 3,793.15 | 3,793.15 | ||
| Total | -- | -- | 3,793.15 | 3,793.15 |
Skipping spending graph as there is fewer than one year’s worth of donations.
Sorry, we couldn't find any influencer information.
Sorry, we couldn't find any disclosures information.
Sorry, we couldn't find any country information.
| Title (URL linked) | Publication date | Author | Publisher | Affected donors | Affected donees | Document scope | Cause area | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Our all-time largest donation, and major crypto support from Vitalik Buterin | 2021-05-13 | Colm Ó Riain | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Anonymous Vitalik Buterin | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee periodic update | AI safety | MIRI announces two major donations: one (MIRI's largest donation to date) from an anonymous donor donating $15.6 million ($2.5 million per year from 2021 to 2024 and an additional $5.6 million in 2025), and 1050 ETH ($4,378,159) from Vitalik Buterin. |
| 2020 Updates and Strategy | 2020-12-21 | Malo Bourgon | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee periodic update | AI safety | MIRI provides a general update and includes thoughts on strategy. On the strategy front, MIRI says that it is moving away from the strategy it announced in its 2017 post https://intelligence.org/2017/04/30/2017-updates-and-strategy/ that involved “seeking entirely new low-level foundations for optimization,” “endeavoring to figure out parts of cognition that can be very transparent as cognition,” and “experimenting with some specific alignment problems.” MIRI also provides updated thoughts on remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic and the possibility of relocating its office from Berkeley. | |
| Our 2019 Fundraiser Review | 2020-02-13 | Colm Ó Riain | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee periodic update | AI safety | MIRI gives an update on its 2019 fundraiser. It goes into several reasons for the total amout of money raised in the fundraiser ($601,120) being less than the amounts raised in 2017 and 2018. Reasons listed include: (1) lower value of cryptocurrency than in 2017, (2) nondisclosed-by-default policy making it harder for potential donors to evaluate research, (3) changes to US tax law in 2018 that may encourage donation bunching, (4) fewer counterfactual matching opportunities for donations, (4) possible donor perception of diminishing returns on marginal donations, (5) variation driven by fluctuation in amounts from larger donors, (6) former earning-to-give donors moving to direct work, (7) urgent needs for funds expressed by MIRI to donors in previous years, causing a front-loading of donations in those years. The post ends by saying that although the fundraiser raised less than expected, MIRI appreciates the donor support and that they will be able to pursue the majority of their growth plans. | |
| MIRI’s 2019 Fundraiser | 2019-12-02 | Malo Bourgon | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee donation case | AI safety | MIRI announces its 2019 fundraiser, with a target of $1 million for fundraising. The blog post describes MIRI's projected budget, and provides more details on MIRI's activities in 2019, including (1) workshops and scaling up, and (2) research and write-ups. Regarding research, the blog post reaffirms continuation of the nondisclosure-by-default policy announced in 2018 at https://intelligence.org/2018/11/22/2018-update-our-new-research-directions/ The post is link-posted to the Effective Altruism Forum at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LCApwxbdX4njYzgdr/miri-s-2019-fundraiser (GW, IR) | |
| New grants from the Open Philanthropy Project and BERI | 2019-04-01 | Rob Bensinger | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Open Philanthropy Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee periodic update | AI safety | MIRI announces two grants to it: a two-year grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/global-catastrophic-risks/potential-risks-advanced-artificial-intelligence/machine-intelligence-research-institute-general-support-2019 totaling $2,112,500 from the Open Philanthropy Project, with half of it disbursed in 2019 and the other half disbursed in 2020. The amount disbursed in 2019 (of a little over $1.06 million) is on top of the $1.25 million already committed by the Open Philanthropy Project as part of the 3-year $3.75 million grant https://intelligence.org/2017/11/08/major-grant-open-phil/ The $1.06 million in 2020 may be supplemented by further grants from the Open Philanthropy Project. The grant size from the Open Philanthropy Project was determined by the Committee for Effective Altruism Support. The post also notes that the Open Philanthropy Project plans to determine future grant sizes using the Committee. MIRI expects the grant money to play an important role in decision-making as it executes on growing its research team as described in its 2018 strategy update post https://intelligence.org/2018/11/22/2018-update-our-new-research-directions/ and fundraiser post https://intelligence.org/2018/11/26/miris-2018-fundraiser/ |
| Our 2018 Fundraiser Review | 2019-02-11 | Colm Ó Riain | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee periodic update | AI safety | MIRI gives an update on its 2018 fundraiser. Key topics discussed include four types of donation matching programs that MIRI benefited from: (1) WeTrust Spring's ETH-matching event, (2) Facebook's Giving Tuesday event with https://donations.fb.com/giving-tuesday/ linked to, (3) Double Up Drive challenge, (4) Corporate matching. | |
| MIRI’s 2018 Fundraiser | 2018-11-26 | Malo Bourgon | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Dan Smith Aaron Merchak Matt Ashton Stephen Chidwick | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee donation case | AI safety | MIRI announces its 2018 end-of-year fundraising, with Target 1 of $500,000 and Target 2 of $1,200,000. It provides an overview of its 2019 budget and plans to explain the values it has worked out for Target 1 and Target 2. The post also mentions a matching opportunity sponsored by professional poker players Dan Smith, Aaron Merchak, Matt Ashton, and Stephen Chidwick, in partnership with Raising for Effective Giving (REG), which provides matching for donations to MIRI and REG up to $20,000. The post is referenced by Effective Altruism Funds in their grant write-up for a $40,000 grant to MIRI, at https://app.effectivealtruism.org/funds/far-future/payouts/3JnNTzhJQsu4yQAYcKceSi |
| 2018 Update: Our New Research Directions | 2018-11-22 | Nate Soares | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee periodic update | AI safety | MIRI executive director Nate Soares explains the new research directions being followed by MIRI, and how they differ from the original Agent Foundations agenda. The post also talks about how MIRI is being cautious in terms of sharing technical details of its research, until there is greater internal clarity on what findings need to be developed further, and what findings should be shared with what group. The post ends with guidance for people interested in joining the MIRI team to further the technical agenda. The post is referenced by Effective Altruism Funds in their grant write-up for a $40,000 grant to MIRI, at https://app.effectivealtruism.org/funds/far-future/payouts/3JnNTzhJQsu4yQAYcKceSi The nondisclosure-by-default section of the post is also referenced by Ben Hoskin in https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BznrRBgiDdcTwWWsB/2018-ai-alignment-literature-review-and-charity-comparison#MIRI__The_Machine_Intelligence_Research_Institute (GW, IR) and also cited by him as one of the reasons he is not donating to MIRI this year (general considerations related to this are described at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BznrRBgiDdcTwWWsB/2018-ai-alignment-literature-review-and-charity-comparison#Openness (GW, IR) in the same post). Issa Rice also references these concerns in his donation decision write-up for 2018 at https://issarice.com/donation-history#section-3 but nonetheless decides to allocate $500 to MIRI. | |
| Fundraising success! | 2018-01-10 | Malo Bourgon | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee periodic update | AI safety | MIRI announces the success of its fundraiser, providing information on its top doonors, and thanking everybody who contributed. | |
| MIRI 2017 Fundraiser and Strategy Update (GW, IR) | 2017-12-15 | Malo Bourgon | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee donation case | AI safety | MIRI provides an update on its fundraiser and its strategy in a general-interest forum for people interested in effective altruism. They say the fundraiser is already going quite well, but believe they can still use marginal funds well to expand more. | |
| End-of-the-year matching challenge! | 2017-12-14 | Rob Bensinger | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Christian Calderon Marius van Voorden | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee donation case | AI safety | MIRI gives an update on how its fundraising efforts are going, noting that it has met its first fundraising target, listing two major donations (Christian Calderon: $367,574 and Marius van Voorden: $59K), and highlighting the 2017 charity drive where donations up to $1 million to a list of charities including MIRI will be matched. |
| MIRI’s 2017 Fundraiser | 2017-12-01 | Malo Bourgon | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee donation case | AI safety | Document provides cumulative target amounts for 2017 fundraiser ($625,000 Target 1, $850,000 Target 2, $1,250,000 Target 3) along with what MIRI expects to accomplish at each target level. Funds raised from the Open Philanthropy Project and an anonymous cryptocurrency donor (see https://intelligence.org/2017/07/04/updates-to-the-research-team-and-a-major-donation/ for more) are identified as reasons for the greater financial security and more long-term and ambitious planning. | |
| A major grant from the Open Philanthropy Project | 2017-09-08 | Malo Bourgon | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Open Philanthropy | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee periodic update | AI safety | MIRI announces that it has received a three-year grant at $1.25 million per year from the Open Philanthropy Project, and links to the announcement from Open Phil at https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/global-catastrophic-risks/potential-risks-advanced-artificial-intelligence/machine-intelligence-research-institute-general-support-2017 and notes "The Open Philanthropy Project has expressed openness to potentially increasing their support if MIRI is in a position to usefully spend more than our conservative estimate, if they believe that this increase in spending is sufficiently high-value, and if we are able to secure additional outside support to ensure that the Open Philanthropy Project isn’t providing more than half of our total funding." |
| Updates to the research team, and a major donation | 2017-07-04 | Malo Bourgon | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee periodic update | AI safety | MIRI announces a surprise $1.01 million donation from an Ethereum cryptocurrency investor (2017-05-30) as well as updates related to team and fundraising. | |
| 2017 Updates and Strategy | 2017-04-30 | Rob Bensinger | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee periodic update | AI safety | MIRI provides updates on its progress as an organization and outlines its strategy and budget for the coming year. Key update is that recent developments in AI have made them increase the probability of AGI before 2035 by a little bit. MIRI has also been in touch with researchers at FAIR, DeepMind, and OpenAI. | |
| Ask MIRI Anything (AMA) (GW, IR) | 2016-10-11 | Rob Bensinger | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee AMA | AI safety | Rob Bensinger, the Research Communications Manager at MIRI, hosts an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on the Effective Altruism Forum during the October 2016 Fundraiser. | |
| MIRI’s 2016 Fundraiser | 2016-09-16 | Nate Soares | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee donation case | AI safety | MIRI announces its single 2016 fundraiser (as opposed to previous years when it conducted two fundraisers, it is conducting just one this time, in the Fall). | |
| MIRI Fundraiser: Why now matters (GW, IR) | 2015-07-24 | Nate Soares | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee donation case | AI safety | Cross-posted at LessWrong and on the MIRI blog at https://intelligence.org/2015/07/20/why-now-matters/ -- this post occurs just two months after Soares takes over as MIRI Executive Director. It is a followup to https://intelligence.org/2015/07/17/miris-2015-summer-fundraiser/ | |
| MIRI’s 2015 Summer Fundraiser! | 2015-07-17 | Nate Soares | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | Donee donation case | AI safety | MIRI announces its summer fundraiser and links to a number of documents to help donors evaluate it. This is the first fundraiser under new Executive Director Nate Soares, just a couple months after he assumed office. |
Graph of top 10 donees by amount, showing the timeframe of donations
| Donee | Amount (current USD) | Amount rank (out of 1) | Donation date | Cause area | URL | Influencer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI Safety Camp | 3,793.15 | 1 | AI safety | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KerENNLyiqQ5ew7Kz/the-first-ai-safety-camp-and-onwards (GW, IR) | -- | The actual donation probably happened sometime between February and June 2018. Currency info: donation given as 3,223.00 EUR (conversion done on 2018-06-08 via Bloomberg). |
Sorry, we couldn't find any similar donors.