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 July 2024. 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.
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| Donor | Donee | Amount (current USD) | Donation date | Cause area | URL | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jaan Tallinn | Lightcone Infrastructure | 380,000.00 | Epistemic institutions | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-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 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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| Jaan Tallinn | Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters | 979,000.00 | Global catastrophic risks | https://jaan.online/philanthropy/donations.html | Donation process: Part of the Survival and Flourishing Fund's 2021 H2 grants https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-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 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. Donor retrospective of the donation: The grant recommendation in the future grant round https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2022-h2-recommendations suggests continued satisfaction with the grantee. Other notes: Grant made via the Players Philanthropy Fund ($100,000) and The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County ($879,000). 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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| Jaan Tallinn | Effective Altruism Funds: Long-Term Future Fund | 1,417,000.00 | Longtermism | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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. |
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| Jaan Tallinn | Effective Altruism Funds: Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund | 699,000.00 | -- | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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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| The Casey and Family Foundation | Lightcone Infrastructure | 500,000.00 | Epistemic institutions | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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. The Casey and Family Foundation is participating in SFF's process for the first time, and this is its only grant in this round. Other notes: The grant round also includes a $380,000 grant to the grantee from Jaan Tallinn, who has participated in earlier grant rounds and funded Lightcone Infrastructure in several of them. 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: 100.00%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
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| Jaan Tallinn | Center on Long-Term Risk | 1,218,000.00 | Global catastrophic risks | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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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| Jaan Tallinn | The Centre for Long-Term Resilience | 885,000.00 | -- | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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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| Jaan Tallinn | Ought | 542,000.00 | -- | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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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| Jaan Tallinn | AI Safety Camp | 130,000.00 | AI safety | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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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| Jaan Tallinn | New Science Research | 500,000.00 | Scientific research | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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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| Jaan Tallinn | Topos Institute | 450,000.00 | -- | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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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| Jaan Tallinn | Modeling Cooperation | 83,000.00 | AI safety | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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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| Jaan Tallinn | AI Objectives Institute | 485,000.00 | AI safety | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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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| Jaan Tallinn | Convergence Analysis | 34,000.00 | AI safety | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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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| Jaan Tallinn | Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative | 248,000.00 | AI safety | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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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| Jed McCaleb | Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative | 250,000.00 | AI safety | https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2021-h2-recommendations | 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: Jaan Tallinn makes a $248,00 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: 100.00%; announced: 2021-11-20. |
Skipping spending graph as there is at most one year’s worth of donations.
Skipping spending graph as there is at most one year’s worth of donations.