GiveWell.org interviews SIAI

Paul Crowley

Holden Karnofsky of GiveWell.org interviewed Jasen Murray of SIAI and published his notes (Edit: PDF, thanks lukeprog!), with updates from later conversations. Lots of stuff to take an interest in there - thanks to jsalvatier for drawing our attention to it. One new bit of information stands out in particular:

Michael Vassar is working on an idea he calls the "Persistent Problems Group" or PPG. The idea is to assemble a blue-ribbon panel of recognizable experts to make sense of the academic literature on very applicable, popular, but poorly understood topics such as diet/nutrition. This would have obvious benefits for helping people understand what the literature has and hasn't established on important topics; it would also be a demonstration that there is such a thing as "skill at making sense of the world."

Michael Vassar is working on an idea he calls the "Persistent Problems Group" or PPG. The idea is to assemble a blue-ribbon panel of recognizable experts to make sense of the academic literature on very applicable, popular, but poorly understood topics such as diet/nutrition. This would have obvious benefits for helping people understand what the literature has and hasn't established on important topics; it would also be a demonstration that there is such a thing as "skill at making sense of the world."

I'm surprised that no one has addressed Karnofsky's main point: even if we accept all of the premises on which SIAI was founded, it doesn't look like SIAI is doing anything particularly impressive (from an Outside View). Jasen's reply seemed to consist mostly of "we're working on it." What does the community think about this?

I was also rather disappointed that SIAI doesn't have a definitive plan for what they would do with more money. This might end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy that works against them, because GiveWell may decrease SIAI's rating based on the fact that SIAI apparently haven't planned out how they would scale up their operation. (But I think this is definitely a smaller concern than the previous one.)

That's been one of the reasons I've not donated either (apart from one £10 donation made for odd reasons). Unfortunately, the SIAI seem to have made a decision that they need to keep what work they're doing secret. That's understandable, but it means we have absolutely no idea what the actual effect of donation is.

3curiousepic15y

I don't know how formal this interview was, but quite honestly the interviewee seemed unprepared to give thorough answers for these questions.

3syllogism15y

Honesty is important, and the truth is that it's about the people. They need to have enough funding to snap up the right people as they come along, but they can't just "scale up" the way you can scale up, say, a health intervention in the third world.

38

GiveWell.org interviews SIAI

38

38

38

GiveWell.org interviews SIAI

38

38