Nan Ransohoff says hundreds of billions in philanthropic capital from OpenAI and Anthropic equity could overwhelm nonprofit capacity

https://nanransohoff.substack.com/p/the-third-wave-of-american-philanthropy

@nanransohoff yeah um they're effective altruists so they're just going to pay their friends millions to write a few white papers about science fiction

@nanransohoff @MATSprogram has just launched a Founding & Field-Building track for our field-leading AI safety & security program! https://www.matsprogram.org/track/founding-and-field-building

It will all be absorbed into fraudulent NGO's and non-profits run by the wives, children and cronies of these people. No person in need will be helped. And certainly the everday Americans who are increasingly alienated and nihilistic about their birthright being stolen to enrich these so-called elites will not see a dollar. Everyone knows it's a joke and it will just massively fan the flames of resentment.

I'd maybe deprioritize, checks notes, 5000 thinktanks or the nth nonprofit "alignment" "research" institute but, really, what do I know

@nanransohoff Strongly agree! Just wrote this:

https://ssir.org/articles/entry/philanthropy-new-gilded-age

@nanransohoff I've been thinking about this for a while and built https://www.aialignmentfoundation.org/ for that reason

I suspect there's a decent chance most of the new money here doesn't go directly into solving the alignment problem, because historically it hasn't and people are scared to think about it

@nanransohoff IMO it's very hard to scale the capital allocation through org building this way becuase of talent constraints, and so I think we need other options to leverage that much capital

I give some ideas here https://www.pathwaysai.org/p/thoughts-on-the-openai-foundation

@nanransohoff Love the article. Spot on! I bet you'll find Andy Konwinski's path interesting. Databricks founder, had all the options you described, created a non-profit (http://laude.org) to help make sure AI gets used in a way that benefits the species, runs it like a startup.

@nanransohoff Addressing "What to do #2: Attract great philanthropic startup talent" is a big motivation behind @Spec__Tech's Brains Research Accelerator!

(https://spec.tech/brains for those who are curious)

@nanransohoff I recommend funding @manifund (no involvement) They are a regranting site. They are already building the kind of infrastructure I want to see.

https://manifund.org/

@halogen1048576 @nanransohoff And save 100,000s of lives in Africa, but who's counting.

Spot on. We’ve built an answer to at GitLab Foundation and excited to unveil the next phase of it very soon.

Fully transparent, outcomes driven, thesis driven funds to help the world’s next philanthropists solve important problems without having to build their own expensive private foundations.

@nanransohoff Yet nothing for me

@NathanpmYoung @nanransohoff you are a disgraceful propaganda hack Nathan

@halogen1048576 @nanransohoff We can call each other names or you can engage with the impact.

Bednets, animal welfare policy, AI companies funded.

@nanransohoff

@nanransohoff “Donating” their surplus wealth means hiding it in tax shelters while maintaining control of it. Ever hear of the Bill and Mylinda Gates Foundation? Who do you think directs its spending?

@nanransohoff Does this mean retroactive funding for "philanthropic startups" might finally be viable?

@nanransohoff I bet @GiveDirectly could spend a big chunk of that $50bn well!