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SFF-2022-H2 S-Process Recommendations Announcement
In the second half of this year (2022-H2), six people participated as “Recommenders” in a single round of a grant-recommendation process for funder Jaan Tallinn. The following Recommenders in this round agreed to have their identities made public:
- Nick Hay
- Alyssa Vance
- Scott Garrabrant
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 table 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 app 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 funder to finalize for some reason.
- Some additional grants might also appear on this list later as more details about them become clear.
| Source | Organization | Amount | Receiving Charity | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jaan Tallinn | AI Impacts | $546,000 | Machine Intelligence Research Institute | General Support of AI Impacts |
| Jaan Tallinn | Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED) | $427,000 | Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED) | General Support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Technical Alignment Impossibility Proofs | $170,000 | Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship Incorporated | General Support of Technical Alignment Impossibility Proofs |
| Jaan Tallinn | Alignment Research Center | $2,179,000 | Alignment Research Center | General Support |
| Jaan Tallinn | BERI-ALL Collaboration | $150,000 | Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative | General Support of BERI-ALL Collaboration |
| Jaan Tallinn | BERI-CHAI collaboration | $168,000 | Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative | General Support of BERI-CHAI collaboration |
| Jaan Tallinn | Constructive Dialogue Institute (formerly called OpenMind Platform) | $196,000 | Constructive Dialogue Institute Inc. | General Support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research (CEEALAR) [formerly the EA Hotel] | $224,000 | Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research | General Support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) | $450,000 | Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) | General Support |
| Jaan Tallinn | The Center for Election Science | $437,000 ($50,000)† | The Center for Election Science | General Support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Fund for Alignment Research (FAR) | $524,000 | FAR AI, Inc. | General Support |
| Jaan Tallinn | The Future Society | $84,000 | The Future Society | General Support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Legal Priorities Project | $115,000 | Legal Priorities Inc. | General Support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Lightcone Infrastructure | $1,000,000 ($400,000)† | Center for Applied Rationality | General Support of Lightcone Infrastructure |
| Jaan Tallinn | Longview Philanthropy | $200,000 | Effective Ventures Foundation | General Support of Effective Ventures Foundation |
| Jaan Tallinn | Elizabeth Van Nostrand c/o Lightcone | $25,000 ($13,680)† | Center for Applied Rationality | General Support of Elizabeth Van Nostrand c/o Lightcone |
| Jaan Tallinn | Modeling Cooperation | $83,000 | Convergence Analysis | General Support of Modeling Cooperation |
| Jaan Tallinn | Oxford China Policy Lab | $10,000 ($13,645)† | Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative | General Support of Oxford China Policy Lab |
| Jaan Tallinn | PARPA, Inc. | $200,000 | PARPA, Inc. | General Support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Pronatalist.org | $482,000 (50,000)† | Pragmatist Foundation | General Support of Pronatalist.org |
| Jaan Tallinn | Rationality Meetups | $140,000 ($140,000)† | Center for Applied Rationality | General Support of Rationality Meetups |
| Jaan Tallinn | SaferAI | $214,000 | SaferAI | General Support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Scholarship Workshop | $100,000 | Players Philanthropy Fund (PPF) | General Support of Scholarship Workshop |
| Jaan Tallinn | The Society Library | $50,000 | The Benjamin Franklin Society Library Inc. | General Support of The Society Library |
| Jaan Tallinn | Topos Institute | $653,000 | Topos Institute | General Support |
| Jaan Tallinn | University of Wisconsin - Madison | $309,000 | University of Wisconsin Foundation | General Support of University of Wisconsin - Madison |
| Jaan Tallinn | Unite America Institute | $68,000 | Unite America Institute Inc. | General Support |
| Jaan Tallinn | Whylome, Inc. | $345,000 | Whylome, Inc | General Support |
† Parentheses indicate speculation grant awarded to certain grantees, prior to the completion of the S-process round. If the speculation grant amount was higher than the S-process recommendation, it subsumed the S-process recommendation, so only the speculation grant amount is meant to be granted. If the speculation grant was less, it was deducted from the S-process recommendation, so the total granted is meant to be the amount of the S-process recommendation.
“*” Asterisks demarcate grants that were “controversial” in that one or more recommenders wished to publically disendorse the grant. Multiple asterisks correspond to multiple disendorsements. (There were no asterisks this round.)
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.
Also note that additional grants may appear on this announcement as SFF continues to confirm their details.
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 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.
Sharing of recommender input documents
Each Recommender’s own inputs to the process (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) inputs, 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 contributed their time and effort under the conditions of anonymity.