SFF-2020-H2 S-Process Recommendations Announcement
In the second half of this year (2020-H2), six people participated as “Recommenders” in a single round of a grant-recommendation process for funders Jaan Tallinn (independent), Jed McCaleb (independent) and the Survival and Flourishing Fund (SFF). The following Recommenders in this round agreed to have their identities made public:
- Oliver Habryka
- Eric Rogstad
How final grant amounts were determined: The “S-Process”
We call the recommendation process used in this grant round the “S-Process”, for “Simulation Process”, because it involves allowing the Recommenders and funders to simulate a large number of counterfactual delegation scenarios using a spreadsheet of marginal value functions. Recommenders specified a marginal value function for funding each application, and adjusted those functions through discussions with each other as the round progressed. Similarly, funders specified and adjusted different value functions for deferring to each Recommender. In this round, the process also allowed the funders to make some final adjustments to decide on their final intended grant amounts.
The S-Process spreadsheet system is still being developed for broader use.
Final recommendations
Most of the final endorsed recommendations of this round of the S-Process are listed below. These numbers have resulted from numerical inputs from both funders and Recommenders, which represented estimates of the marginal utility of granting to each organization. Note that:
- Some of the grants below might not happen if they are logistically difficult or time-consuming for the funders (Jaan Tallinn, Jed McCaleb, SFF) to finalize for some reason.
- Some additional grants might also appear on this list later as more details about them become clear.
- Some grants might be made as a result of the information shared in this S-Process round that will not be counted as fully endorsed by the round, because each Recommender in the round had the unilateral ability to veto the group’s official endorsement of any particular grant. Grants not officially endorsed in this way will not appear on the list below.
| Source | Organization | Amount | Receiving Charity | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SFF | Future of Life Institute | $23,000 | Future of Life Institute | General support |
| SFF | Center for Applied Rationality | $212,000 | Center for Applied Rationality | General support |
| SFF | Future of Humanity Institute, Research Scholars Programme | $218,000 | University of Oxford | General support of the Research Scholars Programme at Future of Humanity Institute |
| SFF | Center for Innovative Governance Research | $58,000 | Center for Innovative Governance Research | General support |
| SFF | The Center for Election Science | $44,000 | The Center for Election Science | General support |
| SFF | The Future Society, Inc. | $37,000 | The Future Society, Inc. | General support |
| SFF | Generation Pledge | $37,000 | Centre for Effective Altruism | General support of Generation Pledge at the Centre for Effective Altruism |
| SFF | Center for Applied Utilitarianism | $21,000 | Centre for Effective Altruism | General support of Center for Applied Utilitarianism |
| Jed McCaleb | Topos Institute | $144,000 | Topos Institute | Conditional support |
| Jed McCaleb | Center for Applied Rationality | $23,000 | Center for Applied Rationality | General support |
| Jed McCaleb | Stanford Existential Risks Initiative | $56,000 | Stanford University | General support of Stanford Existential Risks Initiative |
| Jed McCaleb | RadicalxChange Foundation Ltd. | $13,000 | RadicalxChange Foundation Ltd. | General support |
| Jed McCaleb | The Roots of Progress | $14,000 | Mercatus Center Inc | General support of The Roots of Progress |
| Jaan Tallinn | Center for Human-Compatible AI | $779,000 | UC Berkeley Foundation | General support of Center for Human-Compatible AI |
| Jaan Tallinn | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | $543,000 | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | General support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Future of Life Institute | $347,000 | Future of Life Institute | General support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Topos Institute | $151,000 | Topos Institute | Conditional support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Center for Applied Rationality | $19,000 | Center for Applied Rationality | General support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Future of Humanity Institute: Research Scholars Programme | $30,000 | University of Oxford | General support of the Research Scholars Programme at Future of Humanity Institute |
| Jaan Tallinn | Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative | $247,000 | Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative | General support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Global Catastrophic Risk Institute | $209,000 | Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs | General support of Global Catastrophic Risk Institute |
| Jaan Tallinn | Stanford Existential Risks Initiative | $69,000 | Stanford University | General support of Stanford Existential Risks Initiative |
| Jaan Tallinn | Median Group | $98,000 | Median Foundation | General support of Median Group |
| Jaan Tallinn | Modeling Cooperation | $74,000 | Convergence Analysis | General support of Modeling Cooperation |
| Jaan Tallinn | Rethink Priorities | $57,000 | Rethink Priorities | General support |
| Jaan Tallinn | RadicalxChange Foundation Ltd. | $26,000 | RadicalxChange Foundation Ltd. | General support |
| Jaan Tallinn | The Roots of Progress | $21,000 | Mercatus Center Inc | General support of The Roots of Progress |
| Jaan Tallinn | AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Society | $20,000 | Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence | General support of AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence |
| Jaan Tallinn | Effective Thesis | $15,000 | N/A | General Support |
Note that the S-Process system is designed to generally favor funding things that at least one recommender is excited to fund, rather than things that every recommender is excited to fund. As such, the grant recommendations above do not especially represent the “average” opinion of the group in any sense. On the other hand, as described above, each Recommender participating in this round of the S-Process had the unilateral ability to veto any organization from appearing in the final endorsed outputs of the process appearing here. As such, there in principle could be organizations that one or more Recommenders were excited to fund, and that one or more funders decided to fund as a result of this round, but that do not appear on this list because public endorsement of the grant by the S-Process was vetoed.
SFF specifically will still continue making all of the grants it makes eventually publicly visible on its homepage, but if some of those grants are not endorsed by an S-Process round, they will not be listed as an S-Process grant.
Freedoms compatible with the S-Process
The S-Process is designed to allow a lot of freedom and autonomy for the Recommenders and the funders. Funders retain the right and freedom to make and/or recommend grants that the S-Process, as a whole, did not endorse, based on information the funders learn from the S-Process. As well, the Recommenders and funders are free to communicate with each other as much as they want outside of the S-Process structure. As such, while the S-Process might be useful in helping the funders to learn about grant-making opportunities and opinions, the funders need not be limited by the outputs of the S-Process in order for it to function.
Private sharing of input documents
Each Recommender’s own input documents (both initial and final versions) are free for that Recommender to share privately or publicly in any form and for any use-case, as long as they anonymize any other Recommenders who have requested anonymity, and respect the privacy of the organizations who applied to the round. In particular, the S-Process does not require Recommenders to avoid sharing their own (appropriately anonymized) input documents, even when sharing some documents might make it somewhat easier in principle for an adversary to reverse-engineer the inputs of other Recommenders. The spirit of the S-Process is, however, to discourage this sort of intentionally adversarial de-anonymization, as it is disrespectful of the Recommenders who volunteered their time and effort under the conditions of anonymity.