Stephen Grugett, James Grugett, Austin Chen

organization

Technical AI safety researchAI safety metaOther

Received: $220,000; from 2 funders
Grants: 2
Funders: 2
Years active: 2021–22

Grants over time

Long-Term Future FundACX Grants

Biggest funders

Long-Term Future Fund	$200,000	91%	1
ACX Grants	$20,000	9%	1

Reviews

Linch Zhang · Long-Term Future Fund · full post · Aug 2, 2023

$200,000 · 4 month stipend for 3 FTE to build a forecasting platform made available to the public based on user-created play-money prediction markets

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March 2022 Notes by Linch Zhang: This was my first substantive grant investigation. At the time, I felt shaky about it, but now I feel really good about it. The two main reasons I originally recommended this grant:1. It was an investment into the people who wanted to do EA work – getting 3 ~Google-quality engineers to do more EA/longtermist work (as opposed to counterfactuals that were earning to give or worse) seems well worth it at 200k. 2. It was an investment into the team specifically. Having cohesive software teams seems like an important component for EA becoming formidable in the future, and is somewhat (surprisingly to me) missing in EA, especially outside of AI safety and crypto trading. I heard really good things about Manifold from early users, and they appeared to be developing at a speed that blew other software projects in forecasting (Metaculus, Foretold, Cultivate, Hypermind, etc) out of the water.At the time, it was not an investment into the prediction market itself/theory of change with regards to play-money prediction markets broadly, because the above two factors were sufficient to be decisive.At the time, it was also unclear whether they plan to go the for-profit route or the nonprofit route.They’ve since decided to go the for-profit route.Looking back, still too soon to be sure, but it looks like Manifold is going quite well. Continue to develop features at phenomenal speeds, lots of EAs and others in adjacent communities use the product, team is still producing fast and are excited for the future.From an “investment into team” perspective, I think Manifold now plausibly has the strongest software team in EA outside of AI safety and earning-to-give (not that I’d necessarily have enough visibility to know of all the potentially better teams, especially stealth ones).I have a number of disjunctive ToCs for how Manifold (and forecasting in general) can over time make the future better, some of which is implicitly covered here. Though I am still uncertain about whether this particular project is the best use of the cofounders + team’s time...a lot of the evidence I have to observe this is more an update on the team’s overall skill + cohesiveness rather than an update about their comparative advantage for prediction markets specifically.
Addendum June 2023:I’ve grown more confused about the total impact or value of this grant. On the one hand, I think Manifold is performing at or moderately above expectations in terms of having a cohesive team that’s executing quickly, and many people in the community appear to find their product useful or at least interesting. On the other hand, the a) zero-interest-rate environment and corresponding high startup evaluations when I recommended this grant has ended in early 2022, and b) recent events have reduced a substantial fraction of EA funding, which meant 200K is arguably much more costly now than a year ago.Still, I think I’m broadly glad to have Manifold in our ecosystem. I think they’re very helpful for people in our and adjacent communities in training epistemics, and I’m excited to see them branch out into experiments in regranting and retroactive funding projects; from a first-principles perspective, it’d be quite surprising if the current status of EA grantmaking is sufficiently close to optimal.

Grants received 2 · $220,000 · $110,000 average

Date ↓	Funder	Via	Amount	Cause	Source	Purpose
Jan 2022	Long-Term Future Fund	EA Funds	$200,000	Technical AI safety research, Strategy & forecasting	ea_funds	Support to build a forecasting platform based on user-created play-money prediction markets
Dec 2021	ACX Grants		$20,000	Other	acx_grants	Subjective-resolution prediction market (Manifold Markets) with user-submitted questions and decentralized arbitration. — ACX Grants 2021