The hidden zero problem

• Authors: Dean Spears, Mark Budolfson
• Published in: Effective Altruism: Philosophical Issues
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Abstract

The hidden zero problem is that the marginal effect of an action often depends on a hidden parameter that is ignored in widespread effective altruism (EA) analyses of efficacy, where that parameter might realistically have the value of zero in a way that ensures that individual actions are not efficacious. In the billionaires example, the hidden parameter is the marginal effect of a donation on the operating budget of a charity; the phenomena of billionaires topping up charities to predetermined targets illustrates how such a parameter could be zero even if all of the other parameters that EA evaluators track actually have the positive values that EA proponents claim— and if such a parameter is zero, then the marginal effect of a donation can be zero regardless of how positive the other parameters are the EA proponents track.

We articulate this hidden zero problem more formally and provide a number of additional important examples of this problem for EA. We emphasize that there is no argument here that top-rated EA charities should not exist or should pursue other activities. We are instead focused narrowly on the question of what the expected effect is of an individual’s donation, and what an ordinary individual donor has reason to do. We consider the dynamics of the particular billionaires example that we introduced above in more detail.