Good Ancestors Policy

Preemptively pledging $5k for when Greg accepts the transfer and I'm able to add to Joel's existing offer (at which point I'll write up my thoughts in more detail).

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Good Ancestors Policy expenses, Dec 2023

**Main points in favor of this grant**

I believe policy to be a high-leverage field, as demonstrated by the success of Open Philanthropy's support for American biosecurity policy efforts--in particular, it's a high-leverage field where success is often somewhat difficult for outside observers to see. I think Australian policy is probably undervalued, due to the majority of donors being clustered in the UK and US. Australia is a relatively small country, so I'd guess there is potential for Australian policy to be positively influenced through the efforts of fewer people than it takes in the UK and US. Although there are many countries that are more immediately influential on an international stage, Australia is a relatively wealthy country with strong cultural similarities and political ties to the UK and US, and is an economic leader in the Pacific region, so it could be a good place to test policies that then influence other countries--Chelsea Liang from GAP informed me that plain tobacco packaging began in Australia and has since been adopted by over 20 other countries.

I also second everything Joel said, particularly the points about a) Greg Sadler's deep understanding of Australian policymaking and b) the terrible incentives demonstrated if GAP's work goes unfunded. It matters a lot to me that Greg clearly seems to think that he'll be more impactful outside of the civil service than within it--this seems like a clear-cut case of being able to take cues from people on the ground, and to counteract regional over-centralization within charitable networks.

**Donor's main reservations**

Pretty simple: when deciding on how to use my regranting budget, I had a preference for opportunities where my marginal grant was more likely to make a difference as to whether a project moved forward (or moved faster). It currently seems reasonably likely for GAP to shut down anyway, in which case my grant wouldn't really have done much! But I really hope the grant does matter, and I think GAP deserves the vote of confidence either way, in case it helps sway other grantmakers in the future.

I slightly share Joel's reservation about Australian policy not seeming especially important in reducing catastrophic risk, but it's not as strong of a reservation: as I wrote above, I think policy levers seem effective to a degree that might surprise outside observers, and policy requires serious on-the-ground experience, so I would expect policymaking to be undervalued in countries without major grantmaker concentrations.

However, I have a related reservation about how this grant falls under the philosophy of hits-based giving: I myself work on pretty speculative projects, for an organization that runs pretty speculative policy projects, and I previously gave a grant to a pretty speculative policy project. When working on catastrophic risk, most projects might be speculative, but Australian policy advocacy is perhaps more so than, e.g., direct research or similar. I considered that I might be "investing" too much of my "impact budget" highly speculative projects, when possibly the money would be better spent by another grantmaker pursuing less hits-based/speculative grants.

**Process for deciding amount**

$5k is what I had left in my regrantor budget!

**Conflicts of interest**

Minor: Chelsea Liang, who worked at GAP, is a colleague and friend; she previously worked with me on a strep vaccine project. I value her opinion, so I asked her for further information about GAP's work and the potential for Australian policy to impact catastrophic risk before deciding on this grant. She is not a recipient of the grant. Greg, who is a recipient, provided some advice on the strep project at one point.

Main points in favor of this grant

In my regrantor bio, I wrote that my “edge as a regrantor [...] comes from having an unusually large professional network.” This grant is primarily a bet on that network — when I asked people I trust about projects they are unusually excited about, the Good Ancestors Project received a very strong recommendation.

The case in favor seems clean:

- Greg Sadler is a very senior public servant who deeply understands Australian government. This means he is more likely to have considerable influence. - He has already had some reasonably significant wins; above pre-funding expectations. - Without additional funding, he might soon return to his previous position. - This makes it more likely that the impact of this grant is counterfactual. - I take Greg’s revealed preferences (wanting to continue with GAP if possible) to reveal that he believes that returning to his previous position would be a less impactful option. - The effect on incentives from not funding senior professionals who make bold moves into more impactful work (and exceed expectations for this work) when the funding winds change seems awful. - Greg has tentatively agreed that “[i]f GAP stops operating before 30 June 2024 (or some similar date) it will return this grant.” - I leave the exact details to be worked out with Austin. - This was somewhat important to me. Manifund dollars will likely be necessary but insufficient for GAP to continue; I wanted to make sure that the funding wouldn’t be wasted if GAP wasn’t able to raise remaining funds. - I do not sense that there is much negative selection going on here.

Donor's main reservations

My main reservation is presumably the same reservation that other grantmakers have had — the Australian government is not an unusually important actor with regards to making advanced AI safe or ending pandemics. To me, this seems like a pretty severe reservation; I worry that I am not triaging sufficiently hard.

The incentives point above weighed on me quite heavily when thinking about this grant. At one point (not now) I thought it would be the pivotal consideration. But I distrust my reasoning here for two reasons:

• My regrant is a very blunt instrument against this problem, and
• It is more reasonable for implicit contracts to be broken in extreme circumstances unforeseen by both parties, and the FTX disaster (with its effects on the remaining funding environment) is one such circumstance.

Lastly, I’m a little concerned that making this regrant will prevent me from making offers that I am even more excited about in the near future.

Process for deciding amount

Less of a process, more of a cloud of reasons:

• $10k is the smallest amount that felt respectful of Greg’s time.
• $10k is ~40% of my remaining budget; I have other projects that I would like to fund.
• Greg was happy to receive $10k even though it is significantly below his total ask (which I would not be able to cover using my regranting budget).

Conflicts of interest

Please disclose e.g. any romantic, professional, financial, housemate, or familial relationships you have with the grant recipient(s).

None.