I work at Open Philanthropy, and I recently let Gavin know that Open Phil is planning to recommend a grant of $5k to Arb for the second project on your list: Overview of AI Safety in 2024 (they had already raised ~$10k by the time we came across it). Thanks for writing this post Austin — it brought the funding opportunity to our attention.
Like other commenters on Manifund, I believe this kind of overview is a valuable reference for the field, especially for newcomers.
I wanted to flag that this project would have been eligible for our RFP for work that builds capacity to address risks from transformative AI. I worry that not all potential applicants are aware of the RFP or its scope, so I’ll take this opportunity to mention that this RFP’s scope is quite broad, including funding for:
Training and mentorship programs
Events
Groups
Resources, media, and communications
Almost any other type of project that builds capacity for advanced AI risks (in the sense of increasing the number of careers devoted to these problems, supporting people doing this work, and sharing knowledge related to this work).
More details at the link above. People might also find this page helpful, which lists all currently open application programs at Open Phil.
Thanks for the feedback! I’ll forward it to our team.
I think I basically agree with you that from reading the RFP page, this project doesn’t seem like a central example of the projects we’re describing (and indeed, many of the projects we do fund through this RFP are more like the examples given on the RFP page).
Some quick reactions:
FWIW, our team generally makes a lot of grants that are <$100k (much more so than other Open Phil teams).
I agree the application would probably take most people longer than the description that Gavin gave on Manifund. That said, I think it’s still relatively lean considering the distribution of projects we fund, though I agree it’s slightly long for projects as small as this one (but I think Gavin could have filled it out in <<2 days). For reference, this is our form.
Regarding turnaround time, my guess is for this project, we would have taken significantly less than 3 months, especially if they had indicated that receiving a decision was time-sensitive. For reference, the form currently says:
For $500k+ projects, I think a 3-month turnaround time is more defensible, though I do personally wish we generally had faster response times.