Talking to biosecurity researchers has made me significantly update as to how much a single funder (in this case Open Phil) can influence the direction and focus of a research field. How much should we expect this to be a bad thing?
The link is for an article by Filippa Lenzos (a well-established biosecurity researcher at King's College London) that is skeptical of Open Phil's impacts. It doesn't outline a lot of concrete negatives, but says:
Heavy investments in one area of biosecurity risks may irreversibly transform the field’s collective thinking, scope of inquiry, and policy responses... The speed with which Open Phil has emerged as a significant power-player in international biosecurity policy has, by and large, outrun academic scrutiny of its impacts.
This makes me wonder if it would be valuable for Open Phil to fund some outside analysis of their current and expected impact in biosecurity. In general, people established in a field offering critiques of new EA/philanthropic entrants seems like a very useful thing.
I would break down Dr. Lenzos' concerns (and underlying assumptions) as:
- Open Phil is funding a narrow set of concerns (GCBRs), causing many researchers to redirect their focus to those concerns (and a diversity of perspectives and research focuses is good for the field)
- Open Phil is offering large grants to a few carefully-selected parties, giving them outsize impact (and a diversity of perspectives and research focuses is good the the field)
- Open Phil is a large actor entering the international bio/health security space that is not accountable to state governments (who are at least nominally accountable to their citizens) (and independence of international organizations (like the BWC and WHO) from concerns other than those of state governments is important)
- Open Phil has become able to influence biosecurity research and policy more quickly than people have been able to produce analysis of their priorities (and it's doubtful that analysis would show that Open Phil's priorities are a good overall focus for biosecurity research and policy)
I'd have liked to see more argument in favour of those assumptions, but I suspect Dr. Lenzos' goal may just be to establish common knowledge that it's possible to criticize Open Phil without negative repercussions.
I'd be interested in what people on this forum think:
- Does the critique seem reasonable?
- How important is a diversity of research focuses in biosecurity? What might be lost by directing more attention to GCBRs?
- Is it important for international organizations to be accountable to state governments? Should the bioweapons convention accept philanthropic donations to cover its implementation costs?
- Should we generally be skeptical of large funders (such as Open Phil) steering the direction of an already-established research field?
- Should EAs interested in biosecurity take any different actions as a result of this article?
Really interesting read, a few thoughts below. Only skim read article so mostly responding to your prompts. I should also note I advise philanthropists for a living and so am inherently biased!
I’ve found Open Phil’s reasoning to be rigorous and thorough, far more so than virtually all of their peers. I also have deep intellectual trust for, so far without exception, everyone I’ve met that works there.
from a skim read the OPs arguments feel pretty zero sum. Perhaps the argument should instead be “should open Phil also fund non-GCBR bio work as well”.
It doesn’t seem even handed to both portray these researchers as easily swayed by flashy deep pocketed philanthropists as well as lamenting the loss of highly intelligent research talent. If they’re highly intelligent and also updated their actions based on open phils reasoning (albeit also including cash), the OP should probably be humble themselves about the likelihood of being right.
the OP seems to present philanthropy as this potentially negative steering force. Even if the field is zero sum (gov funds less as a result / too little talent to use extra funds wel), are we to believe that altnerate funding sources apply no directional pressure?
whilst voting keeps governments relatively aligned with the populace’s needs, it has only a small alignment with global needs and global public goods. The short time frame (4 years) also seems to result in shorter-term thinking. Future generations can’t vote. Philanthropy seems uniquely well positioned to be reasoning and funding in areas poorly tended to by the democratic system and markets.
a bunch of the arguments wouldn’t seem intuitive if re-applied to other more familiar causes like climate change or global poverty, reasons for difference should be highlighted and then the extent of the OPs arguments capped respectively.
What do you mean by zero-sum in this case?