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EA and Global Poverty: Let's Gather Evidence - EA Forum
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Nathan Young
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A 2022 EA Forum discussion post probing cause prioritization tensions within EA; relevant for understanding how AI safety's rise affected community norms around global poverty focus.
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42
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eaforum
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CommunityBuilding effective altruismCriticism of effective altruism
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Summary
Nathan Young investigates whether global poverty has been deprioritized within EA relative to AI safety and animal welfare, presenting survey and funding data suggesting it remains highly valued while theorizing that elite EA discourse may underrepresent it. He argues for global poverty's importance both intrinsically and as a coalition-building tool, while acknowledging that short AI timelines could rationally shift priorities.
Key Points
- •2020 EA survey data showed global poverty rated as the highest-priority cause area, and it receives the most funding from Open Philanthropy and Giving What We Can.
- •Elite EA discourse (forum posts, 80k episodes, tweets) may discuss global poverty less than AI safety or animal welfare, even if funding data tells a different story.
- •Global poverty work may have become overly concentrated around GiveWell's recommendations, potentially limiting innovation and risk-taking in the space.
- •Short AI timelines could rationally justify deprioritizing global development if AI poses greater QALYs-at-risk to the global poor than malnutrition or disease.
- •Young frames longtermists and global development EAs as natural coalition partners rather than adversaries, emphasizing shared values over cause-area divisions.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| EA Global | Organization | 38.0 |
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EA and Global Poverty. Let's Gather Evidence — EA Forum
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by Nathan Young Apr 5 2022 2 min read 35 42
Community Building effective altruism Criticism of effective altruism Frontpage EA and Global Poverty. Let's Gather Evidence What is the priority of Global poverty within EA, compared to where it ought to be? What do you think? What are the facts about this? 36 comments There was a recent discussion on twitter about whether global development had been deprioritised within EA. This struck a chord with some (*edit* despite the claim in the twitter thread being false). So:
What is the priority of Global poverty within EA, compared to where it ought to be?
I am going to post some data and some theories. I'd like if people in the comments falsified them and then we'd know the answer.
Some people seem to think that global development is lower priority than it should be within EA. Is this view actually widespread?
Global poverty was held in very high esteem in 2020. Without further evidence we should assume it still is. In the 2020 survey , no cause area had a higher average rating (I'm eyeballing this graph) or a higher % of near top + top priority ratings. In 2020, global development was considered the highest priority by EAs in general.
Global poverty gets the most money by cause area from Open Phil & GWWC according to https://www.effectivealtruismdata.com/
The FTX future fund lists economic growth as one of its areas of interest ( https://ftxfuturefund.org/area-of-interest/ )
Theory: Elite EA conversation discusses global poverty less than AI or animal welfare. What is the share of cause areas among forum posts, 80k episodes or EA tweets? I'm sure some of this information is trivial for one of you to find. Is this theory wrong?
Theory: Global poverty work has ossified around GiveWell and their top charities. Jeff Mason and Yudkowsky both made variations of this point. Yudkowsky's reasoning was that risktakers hadn't been in global poverty research anyway - it attracted a more conservative kind of person. I don't know how to operationalise thoughts against this, but maybe one of you can.
Personally, I think that many people find global poverty uniquely compelling. It's unarguably good. You can test it. It has quick feedback loops (compared to many other cause areas). I think it's good to be in coalition with the most effective area of an altruistic space that vibes with so many people. I like global poverty as a key concern (even though it's not my key concern) because I like good coalitional partners. And Longtermist and global development EAs seem to me to be natural allies.
I can also believe that if we care about the lives of people currently alive in the developing
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