Lightcone evaluator Nathan Young publishes $5m–$12m funding rationale, gets one comment

NathanpmYoung · x · 2026-11-16

Nathan Young, an evaluator for Lightcone Commons, published a long piece explaining his grant decisions — allocating $5m to $12m depending on how you count — ahead of evaluating another round and running an epistemics fund.

Key points:

LC lets applicants submit projects and multiple evaluators rank them; funders follow evaluator orderings. Young is paid 2% of money directed through his order, and flags conflicts of interest while still recommending the best orgs
His general preference: AI policy work that enables slowing down AI if necessary without automatically pushing for immediate pauses; he values orgs respected by both parties and by AI companies, noting that talking to random senators is pointless — what matters is people who push legislation that actually passes
He is less confident in AI safety work than the median evaluator, partly because he thinks some of it effectively subsidizes AI research
He laments that despite complaints about opaque funder reasoning, his fully transparent writeup received exactly one comment

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Lightcone evaluator Nathan Young publishes $5m–$12m funding rationale, gets one comment

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