sawyer's Quick takes

Even when that's true, the org could specify all the other sources of funding, and separate out 'anonymous donations' into either one big slice or one-slice-per-donor.

I think this dynamic is generally overstated, at least in the existential risk space that I work in. I've personally asked all of our medium and large funders for permission, and the vast majority of them have given permission. Most of the funding comes from Open Philanthropy and SFF, both of which publicly announce all of their grants—when recipients decided not to list those funders, it's not because the funders don't want them to. There are many examples of organizations with high funding transparency, including BERI (which I run), ACE, and MIRI (transparency page and top contributors page).

(Not deeply thought through) Funders have a strong (though usually indirect) influence on the priorities and goals of the organization. Transparency about funders adds transparency about the priorities and goals of the organization. Conversely, lack of funder transparency creates the appearance that you're trying to hide something important about your goals and priorities. This sort of argument comes up a lot in US political funding, under the banners of "Citizens United", "SuperPACs", etc. I'm making a pretty similar argument to that one.

Underlying my feelings here is that I believe charities have an obligation to the public. The government is allowing people to donate their income to a charity, and then (if they donate enough) to not pay taxes on that income. That saves the donor ~30% of their income in taxes. I consider that 30% to be public money, i.e. money that would have otherwise gone to the government as taxes. So as a rule of thumb I try to think that ~30% of a US charity's obligations are to the public. The main way charities satisfy this obligation is by sticking to their IRS-approved exempt purpose and following all the rules of 501(c)(3)s. But another way charities can satisfy that obligation is by being really transparent about what they're doing and where their money comes from.

There are many examples of organizations with high funding transparency, including BERI (which I run), ACE, and MIRI (transparency page and top contributors page).

I think people would say that the dog was stronger and faster than all previous dog breeds, not that it was "more capable". It's in fact significantly less capable at not attacking its owner, which is an important dog capability. I just think the language of "capability" is somewhat idiosyncratic to AI research and industry, and I'm arguing that it's not particularly useful or clarifying language.

More to my point (though probably orthogonal to your point), I don't think many people would buy this dog, because most people care more about not getting attacked than they do about speed and strength.

As a side note, I don't see why preferences and goals change any of this. I'm constantly hearing AI (safety) researchers talk about "capabilities research" on today's AI systems, but I don't think most of them think those systems have their own preferences and goals. At least not in the sense that a dog has preferences or goals. I just think it's a word that AI [safety?] researchers use, and I think it's unclear and unhelpful language.

#taboocapabilities