That is ~$185k/month and ~$2.22m/year. I wonder if the cost has anything to do with the decision? There may be a tendency to say “an action is either extremely good or extremely bad because it either reduces x-risk or increases x-risk, so if I think it’s net positive I should be willing to spend huge amounts of money.”
I don’t think cost had that much to do with the decision, I expect that Open Philanthropy thought it was worth the money and would have been willing to continue funding at this price point.
In general I think the correct response to uncertainty is not half-speed. In my opinion it was the right call to spend this amount of funding on the office for the last ~6 months of its existence even when we thought we’d likely do something quite different afterwards, because it was still marginally worth doing it and the cost-effectiveness calculations for the use of billions of dollars of x-risk money on the current margin are typically quite extreme.
These are group houses for members of the EA/AI Alignment/Rationality ecosystem, correct?
Not quite. They were houses where people could book to visit for up to 3 weeks at a time, commonly used by people visiting the office or in town for a bit for another event/conference/retreat. Much more like AirBnbs than group houses.
I’m confused about the detailed cause-and-effect analysis of how the offices will contribute to SBF-style catastrophes—is the idea that “people will talk in the offices and then get stupid ideas, and they won’t get equally stupid ideas without the offices?”
I think the most similar story is “A smart, competent, charismatic, person with horrible ethics will enter the office because they’ve managed to get good standing in the EA/longtermist ecosystem, cause a bunch of other very smart and competent people to work for them on the basis of expecting to do good in the world, and then do something corrupting and evil with them instead.”
I don’t think cost had that much to do with the decision, I expect that Open Philanthropy thought it was worth the money and would have been willing to continue funding at this price point.
In general I think the correct response to uncertainty is not half-speed. In my opinion it was the right call to spend this amount of funding on the office for the last ~6 months of its existence even when we thought we’d likely do something quite different afterwards, because it was still marginally worth doing it and the cost-effectiveness calculations for the use of billions of dollars of x-risk money on the current margin are typically quite extreme.
You’re probably not the one to rant to about funding but I guess while the conversation is open I could use additional feedback and some reasons for why OpenPhil wouldn’t be irresponsible in spending the money that way. (I only talk about OpenPhil and not particularly Lightcone, maybe you couldn’t think of better ways to spend the money and didn’t have other options)
Cost effectiveness calculations for reducing x-risk kinda always favor x-risk reduction so looking at it in the absolute isn’t relevant. Currently AI x-risk reduction work is limited because of severe funding restrictions (there are many useful things to do that no one is doing for lack of money) which should warrant carefully done triage (and in particular considering the counterfactual).
I assume the average Lightcone office resident would be doing the same work with slightly reduced productivity (let’s say 1⁄3) if they didn’t have that office space (notably because many are rich enough to get other shared office space from their own pocket). Assuming 30 full time workers in the office, that’s 10 man months per month of extra x-risk reduction work.
For contrast, on the same time period, $185k/month could provide for salary, lodging and office space for 50 people in Europe, all who counterfactually would not be doing that work otherwise, for which I claim 50 man months per month of extra x-risk reduction work. The biggest difference I see is incubation time would be longer than for the Lightcone offices, but if I start now with $20k/month I’d find 5 people and scale it up to 50 by the end of the year.
For contrast, on the same time period, $185k/month could provide for salary, lodging and office space for 50 people in Europe, all who counterfactually would not be doing that work otherwise, for which I claim 50 man months per month of extra x-risk reduction work.
The default outcome of giving people money, is either nothing, noise, or the resources getting captured by existing incentive gradients. In my experience, if you give people free money, they will take it, and they will nominally try to please you with it, so it’s not that surprising if you can find 50 people to take your free money, but causing such people to do specific and hard things is a much higher level of challenge.
I had some hope that “just write good LessWrong posts” is sufficient incentive to get people to do useful stuff, but the SERI MATS scholars have tried this and only a few have produced great LessWrong posts, and otherwise there was a lot of noise. Perhaps it’s worth it in expected value but my guess is that you could do much more selection and save a lot of the money and still get 80% of the value.
I think free office spaces of the sort we offered are only worthwhile inside an ecosystem where there are teams already working on good projects, and already good incentive gradients to climb, such that pouring in resources get invested well even with little discernment from those providing them. In contrast, simply creating free resources and having people come for those with the label of your goal on them, sounds like a way to get all the benefits of goodharting and none of the benefits of the void.
In my opinion it was the right call to spend this amount of funding on the office for the last ~6 months of its existence even when we thought we’d likely do something quite different afterwards
This is confusing to me. Why not do “something quite different” from the start?
I’m trying to point at opportunity costs more than “gee, that’s a lot of money, the outcome had better be good!” There are many other uses for that money besides the Lightcone offices.
A smart, competent, charismatic, person with horrible ethics will enter the office because they’ve managed to get good standing in the EA/longtermist ecosystem
My current understanding is that Sam gained good standing as a result of having lots of money for EA causes, not as a result of being charismatic in EA spaces? My sense is that the person you mentioned would struggle to gain good standing in the Lightcone offices without any preexisting money or other power.
My current understanding is that Sam gained good standing as a result of having lots of money for EA causes, not as a result of being charismatic in EA spaces? My sense is that the person you mentioned would struggle to gain good standing in the Lightcone offices without any preexisting money or other power.
No, he gained good standing from being around the EA community for so many years and having sophisticated ethical views (veganism, a form of utilitarianism, etc) and convincing well-respected EAs to work with him and fund him, as well as from having a lot of money and donating it to these spaces. Had the Lightcone Offices existed 5 years ago I expect he would have been invited to work from there (had he asked to), and that was at the start of Alameda.
Sorry if I wrote unclearly. For most of the time (even in the last 6 months) I thought it was worth continuing to support the ecosystem, and certainly to support the people in the office, even if I was planning later to move on. I wanted to move on primarily because of the opportunity cost — I thought we could do something greater. But I believe Habryka wanted to separate from the whole ecosystem and question whether the resources we were providing were actually improving the world at all, and at that point it’s not simply a question of opportunity cost but of whether you’re helping or hurting. If you’re worried that you’re not even helping but just making the problem worse, then it’s a much stronger reason to stop.
You seem to think it wasn’t worth it because of opportunity costs alone? I have been used to the world for a while now where there are two multi-billion dollar funders who are interested in funding x-risk work who don’t have enough things to spend their money on, so I didn’t feel like this was really competing with much else. Just because Lightcone was spending that money didn’t mean another project didn’t get money, none of the major funders were (or are) spending close to their maximum burn rate.
A few replies:
I don’t think cost had that much to do with the decision, I expect that Open Philanthropy thought it was worth the money and would have been willing to continue funding at this price point.
In general I think the correct response to uncertainty is not half-speed. In my opinion it was the right call to spend this amount of funding on the office for the last ~6 months of its existence even when we thought we’d likely do something quite different afterwards, because it was still marginally worth doing it and the cost-effectiveness calculations for the use of billions of dollars of x-risk money on the current margin are typically quite extreme.
Not quite. They were houses where people could book to visit for up to 3 weeks at a time, commonly used by people visiting the office or in town for a bit for another event/conference/retreat. Much more like AirBnbs than group houses.
I think the most similar story is “A smart, competent, charismatic, person with horrible ethics will enter the office because they’ve managed to get good standing in the EA/longtermist ecosystem, cause a bunch of other very smart and competent people to work for them on the basis of expecting to do good in the world, and then do something corrupting and evil with them instead.”
There are other stories too.
You’re probably not the one to rant to about funding but I guess while the conversation is open I could use additional feedback and some reasons for why OpenPhil wouldn’t be irresponsible in spending the money that way. (I only talk about OpenPhil and not particularly Lightcone, maybe you couldn’t think of better ways to spend the money and didn’t have other options)
Cost effectiveness calculations for reducing x-risk kinda always favor x-risk reduction so looking at it in the absolute isn’t relevant. Currently AI x-risk reduction work is limited because of severe funding restrictions (there are many useful things to do that no one is doing for lack of money) which should warrant carefully done triage (and in particular considering the counterfactual).
I assume the average Lightcone office resident would be doing the same work with slightly reduced productivity (let’s say 1⁄3) if they didn’t have that office space (notably because many are rich enough to get other shared office space from their own pocket). Assuming 30 full time workers in the office, that’s 10 man months per month of extra x-risk reduction work.
For contrast, on the same time period, $185k/month could provide for salary, lodging and office space for 50 people in Europe, all who counterfactually would not be doing that work otherwise, for which I claim 50 man months per month of extra x-risk reduction work. The biggest difference I see is incubation time would be longer than for the Lightcone offices, but if I start now with $20k/month I’d find 5 people and scale it up to 50 by the end of the year.
The default outcome of giving people money, is either nothing, noise, or the resources getting captured by existing incentive gradients. In my experience, if you give people free money, they will take it, and they will nominally try to please you with it, so it’s not that surprising if you can find 50 people to take your free money, but causing such people to do specific and hard things is a much higher level of challenge.
I had some hope that “just write good LessWrong posts” is sufficient incentive to get people to do useful stuff, but the SERI MATS scholars have tried this and only a few have produced great LessWrong posts, and otherwise there was a lot of noise. Perhaps it’s worth it in expected value but my guess is that you could do much more selection and save a lot of the money and still get 80% of the value.
I think free office spaces of the sort we offered are only worthwhile inside an ecosystem where there are teams already working on good projects, and already good incentive gradients to climb, such that pouring in resources get invested well even with little discernment from those providing them. In contrast, simply creating free resources and having people come for those with the label of your goal on them, sounds like a way to get all the benefits of goodharting and none of the benefits of the void.
This is confusing to me. Why not do “something quite different” from the start?
I’m trying to point at opportunity costs more than “gee, that’s a lot of money, the outcome had better be good!” There are many other uses for that money besides the Lightcone offices.
My current understanding is that Sam gained good standing as a result of having lots of money for EA causes, not as a result of being charismatic in EA spaces? My sense is that the person you mentioned would struggle to gain good standing in the Lightcone offices without any preexisting money or other power.
No, he gained good standing from being around the EA community for so many years and having sophisticated ethical views (veganism, a form of utilitarianism, etc) and convincing well-respected EAs to work with him and fund him, as well as from having a lot of money and donating it to these spaces. Had the Lightcone Offices existed 5 years ago I expect he would have been invited to work from there (had he asked to), and that was at the start of Alameda.
Sorry if I wrote unclearly. For most of the time (even in the last 6 months) I thought it was worth continuing to support the ecosystem, and certainly to support the people in the office, even if I was planning later to move on. I wanted to move on primarily because of the opportunity cost — I thought we could do something greater. But I believe Habryka wanted to separate from the whole ecosystem and question whether the resources we were providing were actually improving the world at all, and at that point it’s not simply a question of opportunity cost but of whether you’re helping or hurting. If you’re worried that you’re not even helping but just making the problem worse, then it’s a much stronger reason to stop.
You seem to think it wasn’t worth it because of opportunity costs alone? I have been used to the world for a while now where there are two multi-billion dollar funders who are interested in funding x-risk work who don’t have enough things to spend their money on, so I didn’t feel like this was really competing with much else. Just because Lightcone was spending that money didn’t mean another project didn’t get money, none of the major funders were (or are) spending close to their maximum burn rate.