CarlShulman comments on Another Critique of Effective Altruism - Less Wrong

19 Post author: jsteinhardt 05 January 2014 09:51AM

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Comment author: peter_hurford 06 January 2014 02:31:29AM 2 points [-]

I'll speak up on this one. I am a booster of more such estimates, detailed enough to make assumptions and reasoning explicit.

I generally agree. But I think there's a large difference between "here's a first-pass attempt at a cost-effectiveness estimate purely so we can compare numbers" and "this is how much it costs to save a life". Another problem is that I don't think people take much into account when comparing figures (e.g., comparing veg ads to GiveWell) is the differences in epistemic strength behind each number, so that could cause a concern.

~

I think that on some of these questions there is also real variation in opinion that should not simply be summarized as a clear "mainstream" position.

I don't know how much variation there is. I don't claim to know a representative sample of EAs. But I do think there's not much variation among the wisdom of EA orgs on these issues of which I proclaim mainstream.

Which positions are you thinking of?

Comment author: CarlShulman 06 January 2014 05:44:43AM *  9 points [-]

But I think there's a large difference between "here's a first-pass attempt at a cost-effectiveness estimate purely so we can compare numbers" and "this is how much it costs to save a life".

You still have to answer questions like:

  • "I can get employer matching for charity A, but not B, is the expected effectiveness of B at least twice as great as that for A, so that I should donate to B?"
  • "I have an absolute advantage in field X, but I think that field Y is at least somewhat more important: which field should I enter?"
  • "By lobbying this organization to increase funds to C, I will reduce support for D: is it worth it?"

Those choices imply judgments about expected value. Being evasive and vague doesn't eliminate the need to make such choices, and tacitly quantify the relative value of options.

Being vague can conceal one's ignorance and avoid sticking one's neck out far enough to be cut off, and it can help guard against being misquoted and PR damage, but you should still ultimately be more-or-less assigning cardinal scores in light of the many choices that tacitly rely on them.

It's still important to be clear on how noisy different inputs to one's judgments are, to give confidence intervals and track records to put one's analysis in context rather than just an expected value, but I would say the basic point stands, that we need to make cardinal comparisons and being vague doesn't help.

Comment author: peter_hurford 06 January 2014 03:14:05PM *  1 point [-]

Like I said to Ishaan:

I agree magnitude is important, for more than just a PR perspective. But it's possible to compare magnitudes without using figures like "$3400.47". I think people go a lot less funny in the head when thinking about "approximately ten times better".

Though I think I agree with [you] that producing figures like "$3400.47" is important for calibration, I don't think our goal should be to equate the lowest estimated figure with the highest impact cause or even automatically assume that a lower estimated figure is a better cause (not that [you] would say that, of course).

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