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This is maybe tangential of me to say, but since this post is coming from an EA forum: I think the cozy relationship between EA and FTX has done immense damage

This is maybe tangential of me to say, but since this post is coming from an EA forum: I think the cozy relationship between EA and FTX has done immense damage to the public image and standing of the EA movement. I've never been an EA person (much less a utilitarian) but I can appreciate the meat and potatoes of applied ethics, especially when those ethics are applied consistently. The infusion of cryptocurrency funny money into that world has completely perverted both aspects: much of EA now seems focused on speculative concerns (AGI) rather than real ones (world hunger or civic integrity), and all sorts of perverse rationales are offered for wealth extraction in service of future utils rather than just doing morally good things.

dullcrisp 4y ago
IIRC lots of people had issues with EA even before they went all in on MTX.
LudwigNagasena 4y ago
AGI nonsense was always at the forefront of the EA movement. You can thank Eliezer Yudkowsky for that.
JonahSussman 4y ago
I'm a bit behind on the times, but I'm failing to see how the philosophy of effective altruism and cryptocurrency are related. Do you know how the two got intertwined?
- loeg 4y ago
  SBF participates or participated in the EA movement.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  My (outsider's) understanding is that the "longtermist" sub-school of EA has grown over the years, and has developed increasingly convoluted and speculative rationales for behavior that would otherwise be considered unethical. The example I'm most familiar with is calculating utils in terms of the expected total human population of the galaxy, were we to achieve interstellar travel: it's not inconceivable that orders of magnitude more humans would be alive in the distant future than are alive now, which makes their combined future interest more important than the interests of any (or even all) living human beings. Consequently, we should divert money away from the welfare of people living today and towards efforts that maximize the likelihood of a galaxy filled with colonized planets. If that sounds ridiculous, it's because it is.
  - 7e 4y ago
    This is called “the end justifies the means” and EA did not invent it, unfortunately.
    - ETH_start 4y ago
      That phrase refers to doing immoral acts and justifying it by the supposedly positive impact of that act in the long run. It does not refer to acting in the long term future's interest instead of the short term future's.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      Honestly, I think this is even more perverse than the "normal" hedonic trap of the ends justifying the means: this particular branch of EA expects us to make world-altering decisions based on what mostly comes off as speculative science fiction. I would understand it more if it was purely hedonic: at least I could then argue about whether the ends actually do justify the means! But instead it's this sort of unfalsifiable, "but what if" reasoning that's actively diverting money away from worthwhile causes.
  - javajosh 4y ago
    Galactic utility is ridiculous. But so is the other extreme, to act only on short-term utility. The asymmetry is that most humans don't need any encouragement to think short-term, but they do need some impetus to think long-term. But it takes wisdom to balance the two concerns. And yes it is a huge downside to any strategy that delays gratification that it can be "hacked" for evil, which is a problem more general than EA or "longetermism".
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      Assuming utilitarian ethics for a moment, I agree! Maybe someone more familiar with the EA movement can answer this: why has rule utilitarianism disappeared from EA rationales for behavior? That seems to me a very natural check on these otherwise extreme (long and short-term) leaps of reasoning.
- meco 4y ago
  The philosophies aren’t related beyond the fact that EA seems to view making as much money as possible a virtue if you use the money effectively, and the crypto space has happened to be the place where people are making the most money the fastest.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    "Using the money effectively" is the operative point: as more and more of the money in the EA sphere comes from cryptocurrencies (and other civically corrosive sources), the EA movement's notion of "effective use" seems to loosen.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  OP is complaining about SBF coming into ea and using his crypto money to donate huge amounts to speculative and sometimes even harmful causes such as ai safety and that Oregon house seat instead of meat and potatos ea causes of global health/poverty and animal rights
- edanm 4y ago
  As someone kind of on the outside of all these movements, I think this is mostly a "founder effects" thing. A lot of the initial people in EA came from the world of rationality. Classic LessWrong had 3 main topics that were actively discussed - AI risk, Rationality, and EA. It also happened that cryptocurrency became known and somewhat popular among some LessWrong visitors. We're probably talking like 1% of LessWrong visitors, mind you - but a few of those became crypto-millionaires. So that's why a bunch of people, who were interested in both AI risk and EA, and now have millions, are infusing the EA movement with cash. Or at least, that's the story as I understand it.
- zucker42 4y ago
  Effective altruism and cryptocurrency are related because SBF's pledge to donate his wealth represented a significant portion of total wealth pledged to EA, and the FTX Future fund represented a large portion of the present funding available for longtermist causes.
loeg 4y ago
> The infusion of cryptocurrency funny money into that world has completely perverted both aspects: much of EA now seems focused on speculative concerns (AGI) rather than real ones (world hunger or civic integrity) My impression is the (excessive) AGI focus predated FTX (which was founded in 2019), rather than being caused by cryptocurrency money. For example, OpenAI was founded in 2015.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Yeah. To be clear, I'm not claiming that the AGI focus comes from FTX, or any particular monetary source. The claim is that "easy" money (or, more accurately, the prospect of easy money) from those sources has made those aspects of EA more prominent, drowning out other "schools."
archon1410 4y ago
>much of EA now seems focused on speculative concerns (AGI) rather than real ones (world hunger or civic integrity) this has been the case since perhaps the very start of EA. many prominent EA/utilitarian faces and perhaps all "long-termists" have been involved in highly speculative stuff like that. it's a meme at this point, as they say.
shuckles 4y ago
This is an incorrect understanding of history. Eliezer Yudkowsky more or less created the rationalist movement, out of which EA emerged, as a way of funding AI safety research. MIRI is older than EA.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  My understanding is that EA mostly came from Peter Singer's ethics. The "rationalist" movement adopted a lot of the language and metaethical principles espoused by Singer, but Singer has not (to my knowledge) indicated particular interest in AI. The books I've read by him mostly focus on animal welfare and human welfare in developing nations (cf. "doing the most good").
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - shuckles 4y ago
    Peter Singer happened to write primary source material, but your comment is like saying the EAs came from Jeremy Bentham. EA the organization began with LessWrong which, again, was all along a play to generate funding for AI safety research. Edit: The original version of the comment implies LessWrong is the single precursor to EA, which is wrong. But it is a relevant and influential one.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      The key distinction between Bentham and Singer is that Bentham is dead (unless you count the auto-icon!), and Singer is actively publishing books about EA. I have no doubt whatsoever that EA the organization, LessWrong, and MIRI are all instrumental in EA the movement. But my understanding, including from actually reading just about everything Singer's ever written, is that the applied ethical groundwork for EA was laid at least a decade before LessWrong or MIRI arrived on the scene.
      - shuckles 4y ago
williamsmj 4y ago
Agreed. This was not a good look for the movement https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/1590478599844339712 https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/1590478599844339712.
r12343a_19 4y ago
> I think the cozy relationship between EA and FTX has done immense damage to the public image and standing of the EA movement. And it couldn't happen to a nicer cult.
Gatsky 4y ago
EA and BankmaniFried receive your criticism for trying to do good. Is it really the case that other billionaires who earn their money say selling cigarettes, or helping old ladies gamble their life savings away, or selling vaping kits to children, and spend their ill-begotten gains on expensive champagne and private jets, are somehow better because they are morally consistent?
- woodruffw 4y ago
  What about my comment made you think I’d be okay with any of those things? I think you missed the point about consistency: I was trying to say that EA, minus the recent tangent, has my appreciation for its consistency. Consistency on its own isn’t a moral virtue, but it is a sign of earnestness. And I like it when people are earnest.
  - Gatsky 4y ago
    I presumed your comment about consistency was regarding the fact that on the one hand EA has at its core applied utilitarian ethics, but on the other hand the greatest source of EA funding is from an apparent charlatan. Of course I don't think you find other dubious money making activities to be acceptable. I was pointing out that consistency is not a very useful moral yardstick. But since you don't seem to be claiming it as such with your clarification, my comment was unnecessary.

dullcrisp 4y ago

IIRC lots of people had issues with EA even before they went all in on MTX.

LudwigNagasena 4y ago

AGI nonsense was always at the forefront of the EA movement. You can thank Eliezer Yudkowsky for that.

JonahSussman 4y ago

I'm a bit behind on the times, but I'm failing to see how the philosophy of effective altruism and cryptocurrency are related. Do you know how the two got intertwined?

loeg 4y ago
SBF participates or participated in the EA movement.
woodruffw 4y ago
My (outsider's) understanding is that the "longtermist" sub-school of EA has grown over the years, and has developed increasingly convoluted and speculative rationales for behavior that would otherwise be considered unethical. The example I'm most familiar with is calculating utils in terms of the expected total human population of the galaxy, were we to achieve interstellar travel: it's not inconceivable that orders of magnitude more humans would be alive in the distant future than are alive now, which makes their combined future interest more important than the interests of any (or even all) living human beings. Consequently, we should divert money away from the welfare of people living today and towards efforts that maximize the likelihood of a galaxy filled with colonized planets. If that sounds ridiculous, it's because it is.
- 7e 4y ago
  This is called “the end justifies the means” and EA did not invent it, unfortunately.
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    That phrase refers to doing immoral acts and justifying it by the supposedly positive impact of that act in the long run. It does not refer to acting in the long term future's interest instead of the short term future's.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    Honestly, I think this is even more perverse than the "normal" hedonic trap of the ends justifying the means: this particular branch of EA expects us to make world-altering decisions based on what mostly comes off as speculative science fiction. I would understand it more if it was purely hedonic: at least I could then argue about whether the ends actually do justify the means! But instead it's this sort of unfalsifiable, "but what if" reasoning that's actively diverting money away from worthwhile causes.
- javajosh 4y ago
  Galactic utility is ridiculous. But so is the other extreme, to act only on short-term utility. The asymmetry is that most humans don't need any encouragement to think short-term, but they do need some impetus to think long-term. But it takes wisdom to balance the two concerns. And yes it is a huge downside to any strategy that delays gratification that it can be "hacked" for evil, which is a problem more general than EA or "longetermism".
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    Assuming utilitarian ethics for a moment, I agree! Maybe someone more familiar with the EA movement can answer this: why has rule utilitarianism disappeared from EA rationales for behavior? That seems to me a very natural check on these otherwise extreme (long and short-term) leaps of reasoning.
meco 4y ago
The philosophies aren’t related beyond the fact that EA seems to view making as much money as possible a virtue if you use the money effectively, and the crypto space has happened to be the place where people are making the most money the fastest.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  "Using the money effectively" is the operative point: as more and more of the money in the EA sphere comes from cryptocurrencies (and other civically corrosive sources), the EA movement's notion of "effective use" seems to loosen.
colinmhayes 4y ago
OP is complaining about SBF coming into ea and using his crypto money to donate huge amounts to speculative and sometimes even harmful causes such as ai safety and that Oregon house seat instead of meat and potatos ea causes of global health/poverty and animal rights
edanm 4y ago
As someone kind of on the outside of all these movements, I think this is mostly a "founder effects" thing. A lot of the initial people in EA came from the world of rationality. Classic LessWrong had 3 main topics that were actively discussed - AI risk, Rationality, and EA. It also happened that cryptocurrency became known and somewhat popular among some LessWrong visitors. We're probably talking like 1% of LessWrong visitors, mind you - but a few of those became crypto-millionaires. So that's why a bunch of people, who were interested in both AI risk and EA, and now have millions, are infusing the EA movement with cash. Or at least, that's the story as I understand it.
zucker42 4y ago
Effective altruism and cryptocurrency are related because SBF's pledge to donate his wealth represented a significant portion of total wealth pledged to EA, and the FTX Future fund represented a large portion of the present funding available for longtermist causes.

loeg 4y ago

> The infusion of cryptocurrency funny money into that world has completely perverted both aspects: much of EA now seems focused on speculative concerns (AGI) rather than real ones (world hunger or civic integrity) My impression is the (excessive) AGI focus predated FTX (which was founded in 2019), rather than being caused by cryptocurrency money. For example, OpenAI was founded in 2015.

woodruffw 4y ago
Yeah. To be clear, I'm not claiming that the AGI focus comes from FTX, or any particular monetary source. The claim is that "easy" money (or, more accurately, the prospect of easy money) from those sources has made those aspects of EA more prominent, drowning out other "schools."

archon1410 4y ago

>much of EA now seems focused on speculative concerns (AGI) rather than real ones (world hunger or civic integrity) this has been the case since perhaps the very start of EA. many prominent EA/utilitarian faces and perhaps all "long-termists" have been involved in highly speculative stuff like that. it's a meme at this point, as they say.

shuckles 4y ago

This is an incorrect understanding of history. Eliezer Yudkowsky more or less created the rationalist movement, out of which EA emerged, as a way of funding AI safety research. MIRI is older than EA.

woodruffw 4y ago
My understanding is that EA mostly came from Peter Singer's ethics. The "rationalist" movement adopted a lot of the language and metaethical principles espoused by Singer, but Singer has not (to my knowledge) indicated particular interest in AI. The books I've read by him mostly focus on animal welfare and human welfare in developing nations (cf. "doing the most good").
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- shuckles 4y ago
  Peter Singer happened to write primary source material, but your comment is like saying the EAs came from Jeremy Bentham. EA the organization began with LessWrong which, again, was all along a play to generate funding for AI safety research. Edit: The original version of the comment implies LessWrong is the single precursor to EA, which is wrong. But it is a relevant and influential one.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    The key distinction between Bentham and Singer is that Bentham is dead (unless you count the auto-icon!), and Singer is actively publishing books about EA. I have no doubt whatsoever that EA the organization, LessWrong, and MIRI are all instrumental in EA the movement. But my understanding, including from actually reading just about everything Singer's ever written, is that the applied ethical groundwork for EA was laid at least a decade before LessWrong or MIRI arrived on the scene.
    - shuckles 4y ago

williamsmj 4y ago

Agreed. This was not a good look for the movement https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/1590478599844339712 https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/1590478599844339712.

r12343a_19 4y ago

> I think the cozy relationship between EA and FTX has done immense damage to the public image and standing of the EA movement. And it couldn't happen to a nicer cult.

Gatsky 4y ago

EA and BankmaniFried receive your criticism for trying to do good. Is it really the case that other billionaires who earn their money say selling cigarettes, or helping old ladies gamble their life savings away, or selling vaping kits to children, and spend their ill-begotten gains on expensive champagne and private jets, are somehow better because they are morally consistent?

woodruffw 4y ago
What about my comment made you think I’d be okay with any of those things? I think you missed the point about consistency: I was trying to say that EA, minus the recent tangent, has my appreciation for its consistency. Consistency on its own isn’t a moral virtue, but it is a sign of earnestness. And I like it when people are earnest.
- Gatsky 4y ago
  I presumed your comment about consistency was regarding the fact that on the one hand EA has at its core applied utilitarian ethics, but on the other hand the greatest source of EA funding is from an apparent charlatan. Of course I don't think you find other dubious money making activities to be acceptable. I was pointing out that consistency is not a very useful moral yardstick. But since you don't seem to be claiming it as such with your clarification, my comment was unnecessary.