Lightcone Commons: what I funded and why

I am an evaluator for Lightcone Commons (LC). LC is a platform for applicants to submit projects, for evaluators to rank them and for funders to choose the funding orders of several evaluators. It is not a foundation, in that it doesn’t have money that it spends how it chooses. And I do not have a permanent position working for Lightcone Commons. I get paid 2% of any money that a funder chooses to direct via my funding order. This pays for my time and also for any research that I pay others to do. That said, what were my general and specific funding preferences?This is a version of what Lightcone published, it might be wrong, but theirs was definitely wrong (their headline numbers didn’t include funding that had been hidden) Lightcone also has a beautiful page for looking through public information here. General preferences: • I like AI policy that creates the ability to slow down AI if necessary, but doesn’t automatically push for immediate pauses. I like policy orgs which people I know in US politics respect. My current understanding is that it’s organisations that work with the administration, are respected by Republicans or that the AI companies listen to. Bipartisan organisations, I am told, are considered Dem. It’s not worth talking to random Senators, it should be those who tend to push/change legislation that gets passed. This is true even with a Dem majority. Policy will still need Trump’s non-veto and Republican votes.• I flag conflicts of interest but still recommend those orgs if they’re good. I don’t recommend myself or my company. Beyond that, I fund the work I think is best.• I’m less confident of AI safety work than the median evaluator. This is both because I tend to think AI safety work sometimes subsidises AI research and because I don’t know what good AI safety work looks like. I funded a few pieces of AI safety work that other evaluators said was valuable to them (notably Anima).• I like things that have incentive alignment, but might not get VC