Yes. Your first line
I have difficulty taking this seriously. Someone else can respond to it.
was devoid of explicit information. It was purely negative.
Implicitly, I assume you meant that existential risk reduction is so important that no other 'normal' charity can compare in cost effectiveness (utility bought per dollar). While I agree that existential risk reduction is insanely important, it doesn't follow that SIAI is a good charity to donate to. SIAI may actually be hurting the cause (in one way, by hurting public opinion), and this is one of multi's points. Your implicit statement seems to me to be a rebuke of this point sans evidence, amounting to simply saying nuh-uh.
You say
you don't make clear what constitutes a sufficient level of transparency and accountability
which is a good point. But then go on to say
though of course you will now carefully look over all of SIAI's activities directed at transparency and accountability, and decide that the needed level is somewhere above that.
essentially accusing multi of a crime in rationality before he commits it. On a site devoted to rationality that is a serious accusation. It's understood on this site that there are a million ways to fail in rationality, and that we all will fail, at one point or another, hence we rely on each other to point out failures and even potential future failures. Your accusation goes beyond giving a friendly warning to prevent a bias. It's an attack.
Your comment about taking bets and putting money on the line is a common theme around here and OB and other similar forums/blogs. It's neutral in tone to me (although I suspect negative in tone to some outside the community), but I find it distracting in the midst of a serious reply to serious objections. I want a debate, not a parlor trick to see if someone is really committed to an idea they are proposing. This is minor, it mostly extends the tone of the rest of the reply. In a different, friendlier context, I wouldn't take note of it.
Finally,
I have to say that my overall impression here is of someone who manages to talk mostly LW language most of the time, but when his argument requires a step that just completely fails to make sense, like "And this is why if you're trying to minimize existential risk, you should support a charity that tries to stop tuberculosis" or "And this is where we're going to assume the worst possible case instead of the expected case and actually act that way", he'll just blithely keep going.
wedrifid has already commented on this point in this thread. What really jumps out at me here is the first part
my overall impression here is of someone who manages to talk mostly LW language most of the time
This just seems so utterly cliquey. "Hey, you almost fit in around here, you almost talk like we talk, but not quite. I can see the difference, and it's exactly that little difference that sets you apart from us and makes you wrong." The word "manages" seems especially negative in this context.
Thank you for your specifications, and I'll try to keep them in mind!
[Added 02/24/14: After writing this post, I discovered that I had miscommunicated owing to not spelling out my thinking in sufficient detail, and also realized that it carried unnecessary negative connotations (despite conscious effort on my part to avoid them). See Reflections on a Personal Public Relations Failure: A Lesson in Communication. SIAI (now MIRI) has evolved substantially since 2010 when I wrote this post, and the criticisms made in the post don't apply to MIRI as presently constituted.]
Follow-up to: Existential Risk and Public Relations, Other Existential Risks, The Importance of Self-Doubt
Over the last few days I've made a string of posts levying strong criticisms against SIAI. This activity is not one that comes naturally to me. In The Trouble With Physics Lee Smolin writes
My feelings about and criticisms of SIAI are very much analogous to Smolin's feelings about and criticisms of string theory. Criticism hurts feelings and I feel squeamish about hurting feelings. I've found the process of presenting my criticisms of SIAI emotionally taxing and exhausting. I fear that if I persist for too long I'll move into the region of negative returns. For this reason I've decided to cut my planned sequence of posts short and explain what my goal has been in posting in the way that I have.
Edit: Removed irrelevant references to VillageReach and StopTB, modifying post accordingly.
As Robin Hanson never ceases to emphasize, there's a disconnect between what humans say that what they're trying to do and what their revealed goals are. Yvain has written about this topic recently under his posting Conflicts Between Mental Subagents: Expanding Wei Dai's Master-Slave Model. This problem becomes especially acute in the domain of philanthropy. Three quotes on this point:
(1) In Public Choice and the Altruist's Burden Roko says:
(2) In My Donation for 2009 (guest post from Dario Amodei) Dario says:
(3) In private correspondence about career choice, Holden Karnofsky said:
I believe that the points that Robin, Yvain, Roko, Dario and Holden have made provide a compelling case for the idea that charities should strive toward transparency and accountability. As Richard Feynman has said:
Because it's harder to fool others than it is to fool oneself, I think that the case for making charities transparent and accountable is very strong.
SIAI does not presently exhibit high levels of transparency and accountability. I agree with what I interpret to be Dario's point above: that in evaluating charities which are not transparent and accountable, we should assume the worst. For this reason together with the concerns which I express about Existential Risk and Public Relations, I believe that saving money in a donor-advised-fund with a view toward donating to a transparent and accountable future existential risk organization has higher expected value than donating to SIAI now does.
Because I take astronomical waste seriously and believe in shutting up and multiplying, I believe that reducing existential risk is ultimately more important than developing world aid. I would very much like it if there were a highly credible existential risk charity. At present, I do not feel that SIAI is a credible existential risk charity. One LW poster sent me a private message saying:
I do not believe that Eliezer is consciously attempting to engage in a scam to live off of the donations but I believe that (like all humans) he is subject to subconscious influences which may lead him to act as though he were consciously running a scam to live off of the donations of nonconformists. In light of Hanson's points, it would not be surprising if this were the case. The very fact that I received such a message is a sign that SIAI has public relations problems.
I encourage LW posters who find this post compelling to visit and read the materials available at GiveWell which is, as far as I know, the only charity evaluator which places high emphasis on impact, transparency and accountability. I encourage LW posters who are interested in existential risk to contact GiveWell expressing interest in GiveWell evaluating existential risk charities. I would note that it may be useful for LW posters who are interested in finding transparent and accountable organizations to donate to GiveWell's recommended charities to signal seriousness to the GiveWell staff.
I encourage SIAI to strive toward greater transparency and accountability. For starters, I would encourage SIAI to follow the example set by GiveWell and put a page on its website called "Mistakes" publically acknowledging its past errors. I'll also note that GiveWell incentivizes charities to disclose failures by granting them a 1-star rating. As Elie Hassenfeld explains
I believe that the fate of humanity depends on the existence of transparent and accountable organizations. This is both because I believe that transparent and accountable organizations are more effective and because I believe that people are more willing to give to them. As Holden says:
I believe that at present the most effective way to reduce existential risk is to work toward the existence of a transparent and accountable existential risk organization.
Added 08/23: