How different is that from ranking the results from RP's cross-cause cost-effectiveness model (CCM)? I collected this estimates in a comment 2 years ago.

Similar to the answer about pain intensities, we’re trialing this in our cost-effectiveness models (though we are using the full range of the RP welfare capacity placeholder estimates, not just the median).

Note Rethink Priorities (RP) now only stands behind what is in Bob Fischer's book about comparing welfare across species, and its welfare ranges are different from the ones RP initially presented.

Sure!

Thanks, Aaron!

My intuitions around how to think about these animals currently seem to generally align with Bob Fischer’s thoughts.

You may be interested in my discussion of the above with Bob.

the animal movement needs to be thought about as an ecosystem, rather than a single org

I very much agree not all resources should go to the organisation with the current highest marginal cost-effectiveness, as this decreases with funding. However, my worry is not just that the best interventions are underfunded. It is that the current ecosystem is pursuing interventions which can easily be better or worse than, for example, burning money, or buying beef. I do not know about any interventions which robustly increase animal welfare due to potentially dominant uncertain effects on soil animals. I believe the ecosystem should optimise much more to decrease uncertainty about interspecies hedonistic welfare comparisons, and effects on soil animals and microorganisms.

Thanks for sharing!

What you would do to decrease the uncertainty about interspecies comparisons of expected hedonistic welfare as much as possible with 1 k, 10 k, 100 k, 1 M, and 10 M$? The picks should account not only for the outcomes of the research which was directly funded, but also for any additional research that is done to decrease the uncertainty further (supported by other funds).

I think Ambitious Impact (AIM), Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE), and the Animal Welfare Fund (AWF) use the welfare ranges initially presented by Rethink Priorities (RP), or the ones in Bob's book as if they are within a factor of 10 of the right estimates (such that these could 10 % to 10 times as large). However, I believe the differences could be much larger. For example, the estimate in Bob's book for the welfare range of shrimps is 8.0 % that of humans, but I would say it would be quite reasonable for someone to have a best guess of 10^-6, the ratio between the number of neurons of shrimps and humans.

Thanks for the post, Jeff!

At a floated $300B valuation and many EAs among their early employees, the amount of additional funding could be in the billions. [...]

One way to get a sense of the impact of donating sooner is to imagine that others will donate $1M to my preferred charity this year, and $10M next year.

EA-related funding is around 900 M$/year. So thinking about donations to one's top organisationg becoming 10 (= 10*10^6/(1*10^6)) times as large would make sense for expected EA-related funding in 2026 of 9 billion $ (= 10*900*10^6), 3 % (= 9*10^9/(300*10^9)) of the valuation you mention above.

Ideally, the largest funders, mainly Coefficient Giving (CG) and GiveWell, would have moved money from the years with the lowest marginal cost-effectiveness to the ones with the highest until there were no significant changes in marginal cost-effectiveness across time. I can see their predictions about the funding from Anthropic's employees not having been accurate. However, it would be a bit surprising if they were completely off to the point of marginal cost-effectiveness significantly decreasing from 2025 to 2026.

Thanks for the relevant post, Nathan!

Come on folks, what are we doing? How is our wannabe philanthropist meant to know whether they ought to donate to AI, shrimp welfare or GiveWell. Vibes? ^[2]

I am in the process of building such a thing, but this seems like an oversight. 

Feel free to get in touch if you think I may be able to help with something.

Hi Elliot and Nathan. 

I [Nathan] think that shrimp QALYs and human QALYs have some exchange rate, we just don't have a good handle on it yet.

I think being able to compare the welfare of shrimps and humans is far from enough. I do not know about any interventions which robustly increase welfare in expectation due to dominant uncertain effects on soil animals. I would be curious to know your thoughts on these.

Oh, this [the point from Nathan quoted above] is nice to read as I agree that we might be able to get some reasonable enough answers about Shrimp Welfare Project vs AMF (e.g. RP's moral weights project). 

I believe there is a very long way to robust results from Rethink Priorities' (RP's) moral weight project, and Bob Fischer's book about comparing welfare across species, which contains what RP stands behind now. For example, the estimate in Bob's book for the welfare range of shrimps is 8.0 % that of humans, but I would say it would be quite reasonable for someone to have a best guess of 10^-6, the ratio between the number of neurons of shrimps and humans.

Thanks for asking, JD! It is also good to know Nick played a role in your interest!

I would like to see more research informing how to i) increase the welfare of soil animals, and ii) compare hedonistic welfare across species. Rethink Priorities (RP) has a research agenda covering the latter.

I am planning to donate 3 k$ over the next few months to a project on the welfare of springtails, mites, or nematodes. It is not public, but it will most likely start next year. I hope there will be more related projects in the future. People interested in funding research informing how to increase the welfare of soil animals are welcome to fill this very short form.

My last substantial donations went to the Arthropoda Foundation. Here is their case for funding them. As I commented there, I would like them to focus more on soil animals. They have so far only made grants targeting farmed arthropods. However, I still think funding Arthropoda is the best publicly available opportunity to increase the welfare of soil animals.

Agreed, titotal! As I commented, "technological development requires coordination, and coordination often requires technological develoment, so they cannot be analysed separately".