Updates
2024 February 9:
Got a $40k ACX grant for this. See https://manifund.org/projects/seed-fund-for-bo
2024 Jan 13:
The people I invited to the workshop all seem to have research funding anyway, and right now I'd be most interested in funding a second workshop on this topic that Davidad has asked me to plan. Mathematical Boundaries Workshop will be larger, 5-days, in Berkeley (LightHaven), and in April. Seeking up to $93,392 but probably more like $75k. Click here to email me, and I will send you the planning document and budget. (Or email me: chris@chrislakin.com)
2023 Dec:
We've received a $5k grant from LTFF for this workshop, and they have said it can go towards seed funding if we want.
Details
The workshop is already fully-funded and now we're also looking for a seed fund for empirical projects ideated at the workshop.
At the workshop, we will decide research directions and brainstorm empirical projects with the "chefs"— people who have thought about boundaries-related ideas a lot (Davidad, Critch, Garrabrant, etc.)— and assign them to the “cooks”, people who can execute on the projects and have the time to take on a new project.
Having pre-committed funding to support future work could be the difference between conversations stopping at the end of the workshop and individuals changing their research agendas to immediately pursue continuations of the workshop projects immediately without funder delays.
$40k? [1 month of funding x 4 cooks x $10k/mo]
We already have many great applications from potential "cooks".
Future workshops
It seems like there's far more interested people than we have space at this planning workshop, and we are also in the early stages of planning a larger boundaries workshop in Berkeley in Spring 2024. We are also exploring organizing other workshops with <related big research group>. We may use funds for running these workshops, too.
Who is on your team and what's your track record on similar projects?
Evan Miyazono:
Led metascience and special projects at Protocol Labs for 6 years
Recently organized a metascience workshop with the Santa Fe Institute: https://www.santafe.edu/events/accelerating-science-risks-incentives-and-rewards
His team created and ran the Protocol Labs Research RFP program, hypercerts, Funding the Commons (conference series), The Arcological Association, gov4git, and was the first supporter of Discourse Graphs.
PhD in Applied Physics at Caltech
Me:
I wrote the compilation on boundaries when the topic wasn’t organized
Currently funded for independent research on boundaries by a private donor
Ideated this workshop
Past experience in physics (CMU) and operations (eg ran ops for the ELK Winners’ Retreat)
Funded for part-time rationality research by CFAR
chris@chrislakin.com