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A call for more funding before Lightcone Commons' October 23, 2026, round closes

Eliezer Yudkowsky says recommender Nate Soares thinks he could usefully direct another $50 million toward grant proposals.

Eliezer Yudkowsky ⏹️EY
1 Source, 44m ago, first seen 44m ago

TLDR

Eliezer Yudkowsky said Nate Soares, a Lightcone Commons recommender, thinks he could usefully direct another $50 million toward grants, and possibly more with diminishing marginal value. Yudkowsky described a system in which recommenders rank proposals and funders can back them or fund proposals directly. He urged donors to join before funding priorities for the October 23, 2026, round are reconciled.

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1 Source, first seen 44m ago

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Combined views

1.3K

1 Source, first seen 44m ago

19 likes1 comments

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1 Source

Eliezer Yudkowsky ⏹️@ESYudkowskyExpanding: Lightcone Commons accepts a range of grant proposals. Recommenders rank them by priority order. Funders direct money to recommenders (and potentially veto particular items) (or can fund items directly). Then "the obvious" algorithm reconciles all the priorities, to avert the usual problem in charity where everybody delays hoping that somebody else will fund something. The total amount of money Lightcone Commons has to dispense, is much less than the amount of grant proposals that Nate Soares thinks could be usefully funded. He thinks he can direct an additional $50M, or $90M, or $150M. (With noticeable downticks in the utility of the last marginal dollar after each interval.) My guess is that my own unfunded priority ranking has a further $10M of good room that wouldn't overlap with Nate's. (This doesn't reflect deep disagreement, probably, but that we went through different fractions of an enormous flood of grant proposals.) While we're on the subject, Lightcone Infrastructure recuses themselves from being an LC funding recipient because they are just that scrupulous. LI is NOT adequately funded. I would put the first $5M to Lightcone Infrastructure above literally anything else on my priority list, if you're taking recommendations from me. And then the next $10M to Lightcone ahead of anything after the first 20 grants on my list. So if you're trying to figure out how to usefully increase the scale of your giving by $70M within the next month or so, talk to myself or Nate, please? Even if you're merely trying to scale up your giving another $10M, you could join Lightcone Commons as a funder on the current round and direct it to Nate. (Or myself, or split with some of the other recommenders, &c.) It is nicer and makes better incentives for everyone if the added funding happens in time to be reconciled into the collective priority order calculated on Oct 23. But I suppose LC would figure out how to direct a sufficiently large chunk of money if it came in Oct 24 instead. (There's another planned funding round for December, if this one goes well, but who knows what the AI landscape will look like by then?) Blatant lies to the contrary, our supposedly vast anti-extinction conspiracy remains much less funded than the AI industry. But we are trying hard to scale up to be more the counterforce they allege we are.44m
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    Eliezer Yudkowsky ⏹️@ESYudkowskyExpanding: Lightcone Commons accepts a range of grant proposals. Recommenders rank them by priority order. Funders direct money to recommenders (and potentially veto particular items) (or can fund items directly). Then "the obvious" algorithm reconciles all the priorities, to avert the usual problem in charity where everybody delays hoping that somebody else will fund something. The total amount of money Lightcone Commons has to dispense, is much less than the amount of grant proposals that Nate Soares thinks could be usefully funded. He thinks he can direct an additional $50M, or $90M, or $150M. (With noticeable downticks in the utility of the last marginal dollar after each interval.) My guess is that my own unfunded priority ranking has a further $10M of good room that wouldn't overlap with Nate's. (This doesn't reflect deep disagreement, probably, but that we went through different fractions of an enormous flood of grant proposals.) While we're on the subject, Lightcone Infrastructure recuses themselves from being an LC funding recipient because they are just that scrupulous. LI is NOT adequately funded. I would put the first $5M to Lightcone Infrastructure above literally anything else on my priority list, if you're taking recommendations from me. And then the next $10M to Lightcone ahead of anything after the first 20 grants on my list. So if you're trying to figure out how to usefully increase the scale of your giving by $70M within the next month or so, talk to myself or Nate, please? Even if you're merely trying to scale up your giving another $10M, you could join Lightcone Commons as a funder on the current round and direct it to Nate. (Or myself, or split with some of the other recommenders, &c.) It is nicer and makes better incentives for everyone if the added funding happens in time to be reconciled into the collective priority order calculated on Oct 23. But I suppose LC would figure out how to direct a sufficiently large chunk of money if it came in Oct 24 instead. (There's another planned funding round for December, if this one goes well, but who knows what the AI landscape will look like by then?) Blatant lies to the contrary, our supposedly vast anti-extinction conspiracy remains much less funded than the AI industry. But we are trying hard to scale up to be more the counterforce they allege we are.44m
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