Effective Altruism as a Philanthropic Force
Peter Unger and Peter Singer developed an argument that the rich are morally obligated to donate their wealth to the poor, or they are contributing to the deaths of the less fortunate. Effective altruism began as a movement by philosophy students at Oxford in 2011, combining Unger and Singer's work with the idea that donating to particular causes over others can be more or less efficient. If the rich are obligated to donate to the poor, they also have an obligation to get the most cost-effectiveness out of their donations. This wedding of ideas came from Toby Ord, Jason Matheny, and a few other Oxford colleagues.
Others shared Ord's philosophy and goals. GiveWell focused on outreach to undeveloped countries so they could save more lives. They found that even the poorest in the United States generally had a higher standard of living than the developing-world poor. Ord's group and GiveWell founders Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld were soon in the discussion, comparing their ideas on cost-effectiveness. The groups made more connections, like the crypto marketplace FTX, Cari Tuna, and Dustin Moskovitz's Open Philanthropy. This brought the EA community immense capital.
Because effective altruism's core philosophy is to make the most cost-effective decision on where to donate, the nearly $46 billion at the movement's disposal is rather stagnant. Only one percent of that total was spent a year. The money on hand is far more than the original grassroots members could think of. The initial scope was those with modest salaries who donated much of it, workers who chose lucrative jobs with the intention of donating their wealth, or individuals that donated organs selflessly. Now, tech giants and billionaires command fortunes and unprecedented political power.
Within the desire to enact great change with cost-effectiveness, the movement to politics was an expected one. Rather than donating to a single school, lobbyists can bring change to an entire state or nation. In the interest of "longtermists," preventing nuclear war or protecting democracy might receive a chunk of grants and donations. Donating politically or sponsoring candidates is also a nightmare of optics. With the deep pockets of EA donors, it is easy to misconstrue a donation as a billionaire's attempt to line their own pockets. But cost-effectiveness in politics can consider how many votes-per-dollar will be generated by an ad or operation. Within the world of effective altruism, political donations are sensical and the embodiment of the movement. But from the outside, these donations are easy to criticize.
The money behind EA backers is also volatile. The crypto market determines how much FTX owner Sam Bankman-Fried has on command. Consternation on the philosophy of where to donate continues to halt proceedings as Bankman-Fried's worth fluctuates. The current donation philosophies are split between "longtermism" and "near-termist" goals. Longtermism gears its donations towards assisting the potential humans of the future, while "neartermist" ideals focus on preventable deaths and poverty in the present. Longtermists argue that nuclear war, AI, and future pandemics might prevent a future for humanity altogether. FTX Future Fund is completely focused on securing a future. However, longtermist supporters are still determining the cost-effectiveness of their donations. In the case of AI, one of Open Phil's grants to OpenAI may have inadvertently accelerated the fears currently held on AI's takeover. OpenAI is responsible for the GPT-3 language model and the DALL-E visual model. Even if the certainty of the outcomes is unclear, the issues the money goes toward get a much more widespread focus.
Even with long-term approaches, the existence and success of near-term donations are not erased. Undoubtedly, EA affects both the present and future. EA is not a monolith. The leading thinkers and donators all have different philosophies and strategies within their companies. Their influence is felt the world over, and if they are successful, future generations will feel it too.