From the article, my semi-guess is that the SIAI has a number of things they’d like to fund, one of which is hiring Luke. If you think that hiring Luke is more important than other things the SIAI could be doing with immediate income right now, then you can specify that in your donation and make it happen.
Which brings up a question: what are the other things the SIAI would be spending new money on other than hiring Luke? Nothing against Luke, who is clearly awesome, but it’s hard to build an ordered list of preferences if every choice but one is labelled ”???”.
There are a number of ways by which I could imagine SIAI choosing between the things they’d like to fund. A popular vote where only one of the options is specified isn’t one of them.
I’d guess this is an attempt to get more donations, plus an experiment on the effectiveness of such an approach.
From the article, my semi-guess is that the SIAI has a number of things they’d like to fund, one of which is hiring Luke. If you think that hiring Luke is more important than other things the SIAI could be doing with immediate income right now, then you can specify that in your donation and make it happen.
Which brings up a question: what are the other things the SIAI would be spending new money on other than hiring Luke? Nothing against Luke, who is clearly awesome, but it’s hard to build an ordered list of preferences if every choice but one is labelled ”???”.
There are a number of ways by which I could imagine SIAI choosing between the things they’d like to fund. A popular vote where only one of the options is specified isn’t one of them.
I’d guess this is an attempt to get more donations, plus an experiment on the effectiveness of such an approach.
I was going to make the exact point you mention in your second paragraph after reading your first, and then you beat me to it...