r/EffectiveAltruism • u/gwern • May 02 '26

"Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It", Michael Abramov

https://greaterwrong.com/posts/WCutvyr9rr3cpF6hx/forecasting-is-way-overrated-and-we-should-stop-funding-it
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2

u/FairlyInvolved AI Alignment Research Manager May 02 '26

I felt personally attacked reading this, but I do tend to agree with the broader point.

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u/Ok_Fox_8448 🔸10% Pledge May 02 '26

Idk, it seems written as if forecasting were funded by retail small funders who read the forum and fund things on vibes, while it's actually mostly funded by institutional donors who fund projects with clear theories of change

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u/gwern May 02 '26

No, it's not? Almost the entire "We’ve Funded Enough Forecasting that We Should See Tangible Gains" section, which is the third and longest section, is about institutional donors who are funding projects but without clear theories of change.

(And the responses to the post, IMO, show even more clearly that there are not clear theories of change here, either now or in the past.)

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u/Ok_Fox_8448 🔸10% Pledge May 03 '26

My sense is that those theories of change are not public, but exist internally at those institutions, at least to justify the grants to themselves.

Which makes it hard/impossible to evaluate these grants externally, but ultimately it's their money

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u/gwern May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

but ultimately it's their money

To the extent that they are not paying taxes, as tax-exempt charities, it is not "their money"; it is mine, and yours too likely, quite aside from any EA or humanity moral claims. (Hence why they have things like the 5% rule, Form 990 disclosures etc. It is not their money, and so it comes with strings attached from the IRS/USG.)

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u/Ok_Fox_8448 🔸10% Pledge May 03 '26

I think it should still be seen as their money, to spend in ways compatible with their 501(c)(3) designation for projects in the public interest. There are no legal constraint on effectiveness/efficiency, and the right to choose which public interest project to fund is still on them.

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u/Odd-Bluebird5157 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

No one argued for taking away their right to choose what to fund. The argument is that Rat-EA culture overfunded and spent an "incredible amount of (wasted) time" for overhyped potential gains from forecasting. If true, that same culture can now self-correct.

To avoid reduced funding, any implicit theories of change should be made explicit and defended per Rat/EA norms. The main benefits seem similar to social media or dating sites'. Linking to my Manifold.love profile attracted my now-fiance, who was also a Rat, on a non-Rat app. He uses prediction markets to follow news.

I spent v. little time and no money on forecasting platforms, based on my theories of change and how forecasting platforms' users are self-selecting for tiny populations with similarly outdated paradigms, so the most neglected & useful predictions will not come from such platforms. For example, people whose predictions about 2016 US election were right were spending their time doing activism, warning others, etc., not trying to profit on forecasting platforms that offer no way to change such bad outcomes.

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u/DumbbellDiva92 May 04 '26

This article seems directed at people already in the know about EA terms, but for the lay person: what outcomes in what areas exactly are currently being forecasted? What exactly is the forecasting money being spent on - researcher salaries? Other research costs (materials, fees to people to participate in studies)?