Apply to >30 AI safety funders in one application with the Nonlinear Network 2023-04-12T21:23:45.276Z

Comment by Drew Spartz (drew-spartz) on Nonlinear’s Evidence: Debunking False and Misleading Claims · 2023-12-15T13:29:22.991Z · LW · GW

I've been trying to stay out of this, but I'm honestly shocked at this claim you're making.

You say:

We talked to dozens of other people working at the organization, extensively cross-checked the stories they told us

But this is, just, wildly false? You did not speak to dozens of other people working at Nonlinear.

And Ben himself contradicts you. In Ben's post, he says:

My current understanding is that they’ve had around ~4 remote interns, 1 remote employee, and 2 in-person employees (Alice and Chloe).

Ben thinks we’ve only had 7 total team members, but we've actually had 21 - extremely far off.

If you "extensively cross-checked the stories," how did Ben get such a basic number so wrong? And why are you under the impression that you had talked to dozens of employees if Ben did not?

The fact that you spent 1000 hours on this and got such key details this wrong is surprising to me.

Ok, but why is this a big deal? Aside from showing egregiously bad fact checking, a large portion of Ben's post was trying to make the case that there is a pattern of Nonlinear "chewing up and spitting out other bright-eyed young EAs who want to do good in the world." It would significantly weaken your case if it were 2 out of 21 team members ^[1]were unhappy instead of 2 out of 7.

Not only that, but to my knowledge, Ben did not talk to a single employee or intern since Alice and Chloe to see if these patterns were, in fact, patterns.

This seems like poor truth-seeking to me.

1. ^{^}

   edit: changed "employees" to "team members"

Comment by Drew Spartz (drew-spartz) on Alignment Grantmaking is Funding-Limited Right Now · 2023-07-23T10:51:11.893Z · LW · GW

This lines up with our experience running our first Nonlinear Network round. We received ~500 applications, most of which did not apply to other EA funders like the LTFF. Full writeup coming soon.

If you'd like to help out, you can apply to be a funder for our next round in Oct/Nov. 

Comment by Drew Spartz (drew-spartz) on Apply to >30 AI safety funders in one application with the Nonlinear Network · 2023-04-13T05:22:48.184Z · LW · GW

Hi, thanks for saying you liked the idea, and also appreciate the chance to clear up some things here. As a reminder, we’re not making funding decisions. We’re just helping funders and applicants find each other. 

Some updates on that thread you might not have seen: the EA Forum moderators investigated and banned two users for creating ~8 fake sockpuppet accounts. This has possibly led to information cascades about things “lots of people are saying.”

Another thing you might not be aware of: the Glassdoor CEO rating of 0% was actually not Emerson (who left in early 2017), but his successor. Emerson’s reviews were actually above average for GlassDoor. 

Regardless, I don’t think that this should matter anyway, because we’re just connecting folks with funders because we think it will help the ecosystem.

Comment by Drew Spartz (drew-spartz) on Apply to >30 AI safety funders in one application with the Nonlinear Network · 2023-04-13T02:24:39.669Z · LW · GW

Yes, some funders are more interested in funding individuals and some are more interested in existing organizations.

If you apply here I'd also recommend applying to the Long Term Future Fund because they're always looking for more good applications.