Silicon Valley’s AI boom is remaking American charity

AI founders pledge to give away hundreds of billions of dollars. How will they be spent? Aug 13th 2026|SAN FRANCISCO|9 min readEACH DOLLAR given to charity may soon do less good. In the coming years the marginal cost of saving a child’s life from disease or starvation could jump from about $5,000 to $15,000, or more. This sounds worrying. In fact it is good news, argues Alexander Berger of Coefficient Giving, one of Silicon Valley’s most influential grantmakers. Non-profits like his spend on cheap, scalable interventions first—say, by buying malaria nets before malaria vaccines. If an influx of donations pays for all the inexpensive ways of doing good, then the rest flows into costlier acts of altruism that can save yet more lives.Explore more