Perhaps other employers should also employ everyone half-time so that they get more information about their employees' market value?
If SIAI were paying Eliezer to be a "generic" programmer, then I suppose they could get a reasonable idea of whether he's a good one in the way you describe. Or they could just fire him and hire some other guy for the same salary: that's not a bad way of getting (where SIAI is) a middling-competent programmer for hire.
But it doesn't seem to me even slightly credible that that's what they're paying Eliezer for. They might want him writing AI software -- or not, since he's well known to think that writing an AI system is immensely dangerous -- in which case sending him out to work half-time for some random software company isn't going to give much idea of how good he is at that. Or they might want him Thinking Deep Thoughts about rationality and friendly AI and machine ethics and so forth, in which case (1) his "market value" would need to be assessed by comparing with professional philosophers and (2) presumably SIAI sees the value of his work in terms of things like reducing existential risk, which the philosophy-professor market is likely to be ... not very responsive to.
What sending Eliezer out to work half-time commercially demonstrably won't do is to measure his "effectiveness" at anything that seems at all likely to be what SIAI thinks it's worth paying him $100k/year for.
The most likely effects seem to me some combination of: (1) Eliezer spends less time on SIAI stuff and is less useful to SIAI. (2) Eliezer spends all his time on SIAI stuff and gets fired from his other job. (3) Eliezer finds that he can make a lot more money outside SIAI and jumps ship or demands a big pay rise from SIAI. (4) Eliezer decides that an organization that would do something so obviously silly is not fit to (as he sees it) try to decide the fate of the universe, quits SIAI, and goes to do his AI-related work elsewhere.
No combination of these seems like a very good outcome. What's the possible benefit for SIAI here? That with some (not very large) probability Eliezer turns out not to be a very good programmer, doesn't get paid very well by the commercial half-time gig, accepts a lower salary from SIAI on the grounds that he obviously isn't so good at what he does after all, but doesn't simultaneously get so demoralized as to reduce his effectiveness at what he does for SIAI? Well, I suppose it's barely possible, but it doesn't seem like something worth aiming for.
What am I missing here? What halfway plausible way is there for this to work out well?
I think it's entirely possible for people within corporations to build cozy empires and argue that they should be paid well, and for those same people to in fact be incompetent at value creation - that is, they could be zero-sum internal-politics specialists. The corporation would benefit from enforcing a policy against this sort of "employee lock-in", just like corporations now have policies against "supplier lock-in".
This would entail, among other things, everyone within the corporation having a job description that is sufficiently g...
Please refer to the updated documented here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/5il/siai_an_examination/
This version is an old draft.
NOTE: Analysis here will be updated as people point out errors! I've tried to be accurate, but this is my first time looking at these (somewhat hairy) non-profit tax documents. Errors will be corrected as soon as I know of them! Please double check and criticize this work that it might improve.
Document History:
Todo:
Disclaimer:
Acting on gwern's suggestion in his Girl Scout Cookie analysis, here is a first pass at looking at SIAI funding, suggestions for a funding task-force, etc.
The SIAI's Form 990's are available at GuideStar and Foundation Center. You must register in order to access the files at GuideStar.
Overview
Analysis:
Revenue
Analysis:
Expenses
Analysis:
Big Donors
Analysis
Officer Compensation
Prior to doing this investigation, I had some expectation that the Singularity Summit was a money losing operation. I had an expectation that Eliezer probably made around $70k (programmer money discounted for being paid by a non-profit). I figured the SIAI had a broader donor base. I was off base on all counts.* I am not currently an SIAI supporter. My findings have greatly increased the probability that I will donate in the future.
Overall, the allocation of funds strikes me as highly efficient. I don't know exactly how much the SIAI is spending on food and fancy tablecloths at the Singularity Summit, but I don't think I care: it's growing and it's nearly breaking even. An attendee can have a very confident expectation that their fee covers their cost to the organization. If you go and contribute you add pure value by your attendance.
At the same time, the organization has been able to expand services without draining the coffers. A donor can hold a strong expectation that the bulk of their donation will go toward actual work in the form of salaries for working personnel or events like the Visiting Fellows Program.
Eliezer's compensation is slightly more than I thought. I'm not sure what upper bound I would have balked at or would balk at. I do have some concern about the cost of recruiting additional Research Fellows. The cost of additional RFs has to be weighed against new programs like Visiting Fellows.
The organization appears to be managing its cash reserves well. It would be good to see the SIAI build up some asset reserves so that it could operate comfortably in years were public support dips or so that it could take advantage of unexpected opportunities.
The organization has a heavy reliance on major donor support. I would expect the 2010 filing to reveal a broadening of revenue and continued expansion of services, but I do not expect the organization to have become independent of big donor support. Things are much improved from 2006 and without the initial support from Peter Thiel the SIAI would not be able to provide the services it has, but it would still be good to see the SIAI operating capacity be larger than any one donor's annual contribution. It is important for Less Wrong to begin a discussion of broadening SIAI revenue sources.
Where to Start?
There is low hanging fruit to be found. The SIAI's annual revenue is well within the range of our ability to effect significant impact. These suggestions aren't all equal in their promise, they are just things that come to my mind.