Predictable Updating About Funding In EA

A blogger predicts a massive increase in funding for effective altruism (EA) causes by 2028, potentially eight times the 2025 level, based on trends and key donor decisions. The author urges the EA community to adjust their strategies accordingly, prioritizing work over academic performance and preparing for a step-change in available resources.

Written in a personal capacity. I recently came back to SF after finishing my first year of grad school. I already had a sense that new money was coming into EA causes. But being back in the Bay Area has made me feel like this funding increase could be truly flabbergasting. Shamelessly plagiarizing Joe Carlsmith’s great blog post, https://joecarlsmith.com/2023/05/08/predictable-updating-about-ai-risk/ I think that our actions should reflect a strong likelihood of an upcoming step-change in funding for EA causes. Here is a stitched together tl;dr of Joe’s post: Imagine you learn that the quantity of year-over-year EA-style philanthropy will double in each of 2026, 2027, and 2028. This would suggest that eight times as much funding would be directed to EA causes in 2028 relative to 2025. How surprised would you be to end up in this world? What would you do differently if you knew this would happen? To be clear, I am not confident that the amount of money directed to EA causes will increase this steeply. A huge amount depends on the decisions and wealth fluctuation of a few key donors. However, at this point, I'd be more surprised if the amount of money directed to EA causes in 2028 were <2x the 2025 level than if it were 8x. 1 https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/feed.xml fnd6uapew1lx So what changes might this lead to in practice? For meta work For career choice For organizations already receiving EA funding Here’s what I’m changing in response to predicted increases in EA funding: If you haven’t read Predictable Updating About AI Risk https://joecarlsmith.com/2023/05/08/predictable-updating-about-ai-risk/ , I think you’ll like it. I resonated with its core claim and revised my beliefs about potential risks from transformative AI. Using the same chain of reasoning, I encourage you to ask yourself: This is just my view, and doesn’t reflect any official projections from EA donors or organizations. In addition to EAG, EAGx, and EA Summit conferences, you might explore the UN General Assembly https://www.un.org/en/ga/ and Of course, this is not guaranteed and it may be safest to check with funders directly. I’m planning to finish my degree, but tell all of my professors that work is my top priority. I expect to take less demanding classes and get lower grades.