I believe that at present GiveWell’s top ranked charities VillageReach and StopTB are better choices than SIAI, even for donors like utilitymonster who take astronomical waste seriously and believe in the ideas expressed in the cluster of blog posts linked under Shut Up and multiply.
The invocation of VillageReach in addressing those aggregative utilitarians concerned about astronomical waste here seems baffling to me. Consider these three possibilities:
1) SIAI at the margin has a negative expected impact on our chances of avoiding existential risks, so shouldn’t be donated to. VillageReach is irrelevant and adds nothing to the argument, you could have said “aggregative utilitarians would do better to burn their cash.” Why even distract would-be efficient philanthropists with this rather than some actual existential-risk-focused endeavour, e.g. FHI, or a donor-advised fund for existential risk, or funding a GiveWell existential risk program, or conditioning donations based on some transparency milestones?
2) SIAI at the margin has significant positive expected impact on our chances of avoiding existential risks. VillageReach may very slightly and indirectly reduce existential risk by saving the lives of some of the global poor, increasing the population of poor countries, or making effective charity more prestigious, but this would be quite small in comparison and the recommendation wrong.
3) SIAI at the margin has a positive impact on the existential risk situation in the tiny region between zero and the impact of donations to VillageReach. This is a very unlikely scenario.
Now, if you were arguing against taking into account future generations, or for other values on which existential risk reduction is less important than current poverty and disease relief, VillageReach could be relevant, but in this context the quoted text is very peculiar.
The invocation of VillageReach in addressing those aggregative utilitarians concerned about astronomical waste here seems baffling to me. Consider these three possibilities:
1) SIAI at the margin has a negative expected impact on our chances of avoiding existential risks, so shouldn’t be donated to. VillageReach is irrelevant and adds nothing to the argument, you could have said “aggregative utilitarians would do better to burn their cash.” Why even distract would-be efficient philanthropists with this rather than some actual existential-risk-focused endeavour, e.g. FHI, or a donor-advised fund for existential risk, or funding a GiveWell existential risk program, or conditioning donations based on some transparency milestones?
2) SIAI at the margin has significant positive expected impact on our chances of avoiding existential risks. VillageReach may very slightly and indirectly reduce existential risk by saving the lives of some of the global poor, increasing the population of poor countries, or making effective charity more prestigious, but this would be quite small in comparison and the recommendation wrong.
3) SIAI at the margin has a positive impact on the existential risk situation in the tiny region between zero and the impact of donations to VillageReach. This is a very unlikely scenario.
Now, if you were arguing against taking into account future generations, or for other values on which existential risk reduction is less important than current poverty and disease relief, VillageReach could be relevant, but in this context the quoted text is very peculiar.
Your points are fair, I have edited the top level post accordingly to eliminate reference to VillageReach and StopTB.