Main points in favor of this grant

Rachel’s work looks really valuable to me. I don’t have strong inside views on technical AI safety research paths, but there are a bunch of positive signals: she’s at a top PhD program, so unlike many other TAIS researchers, she has received high quality mentorship and works with strong teams. She’s published papers with other well-regarded researchers, some of which have gotten into top journals, and others have won safety-specific rewards. She also works with interns at CHAI and holds office hours for aspiring AI safety researchers, which were so successful that 80k began to fund and recommend them. The world is really short on good AI safety researchers, and possibly even more short on good AI safety researchers who can offer mentorship to produce more good AI safety researchers. Rachel is both.

She’s also extremely under compensated for this work at the moment. Her monthly term-time take-home income in the past year was about $2,800, and she lives in a high-cost area. Her lab cannot offer her higher compensation or better insurance. This type of work is easily worth a 6-figure salary, and probably worth a 7-figure salary, so paying $13,000 for a ~5% increase in productivity over a year seems like a good price.

Donor's main reservations

None really. In the worst case, it makes no impact on her work but helps her personally, which both seems unlikely and not that bad relative to the potential downsides of other longtermist grants. In the best case this makes the difference between a good researcher staying in what I think is the most important field, and her leaving it.

Process for deciding amount

I initially offered $10k to cover her baseline medical expenses, in hopes that other donors would chip in a bit more as well. Then, after some discussion with Rachel about the costs that transparency imposed on her and the positive externalities I think it produces, we settled on $13k because this grant and her identity are public.

Mostly I didn’t offer $15-30k initially just because I only have $50k total to give out over 6 months and it’s been a week.

Conflicts of interest

None.

Thanks for the writeup, Rachel W -- I think paying researchers in academia so they are compensated more closely to industry averages is good. (It would have been helpful to have a topline comparison, eg "Berkeley PHDs make $50k/year, whereas comparable tech interns make $120k/year and fulltime make $200k/year")

I really appreciate Rachel Freedman's willingness to share her income and expenses. Talking about salary and medical costs is always a bit taboo; it's brave of her to publish these so that other AI safety researchers can learn what the field pays.

Other comments:

• We'd love to have other regrantors (or other donors!) help fill the remainder of Rachel Freedman's request; there's currently still a $21k shortfall from her total ask.
• Rachel W originally found this opportunity through the Nonlinear Network; kudos to the Nonlinear folks!

I saw this a couple weeks ago and thought it was a really good idea. Main reason I didn't fund it is because there are things I want to do more. Would be a real shame if the EA community couldn't step in and do this.

Main points in favor of this grant

I don't have a strong take on how good Rachel's current research is, but she's clearly doing relevant work and it seems high-impact to cover medical expenses to let her keep doing that if doing so is cheap.

Donor's main reservations

I am more confident that covering medical expenses is good than I am that other timesaving services such as a PA will be good.

Process for deciding amount

I have committed $10k for now, but would be willing to commit more if @rachelfreedman identifies to me that the current amount is insufficient to cover her medical expenses. Based on current committed funding, it looks to me like she may or may not have enough to do that depending on how much buffer is necessary. If the current amount is insufficient, I would likely be willing to put in more.

Conflicts of interest

None.