5 ms·

Babies and bathwater. The philosophical underpinnings of AI Safety and Effective Altruism absolutely have merit and warrant consideration. Of course as with mo

Babies and bathwater. The philosophical underpinnings of AI Safety and Effective Altruism absolutely have merit and warrant consideration. Of course as with most things human group/tribal tendencies can tend to overwhelm such underpinnings rather quickly, and it should be no surprise when it turns out individuals who broadcasted belonging to x or y group turned out to be less than trustworthy (or merely incorrect/misguided) along various dimensions. We can critique the specific actions or beliefs of such actors and question broad labels worn as badges without casting dispersions on a wide swath of potential tenets that may fit into such a label as "complete BS".

rapnie 3y ago
The danger of those broad terms when they become trendy is how effective they are as a facade for all kinds of malpractices to hide behind and fester. A term popular some time ago was "Microfinancing". On TV you witnessed celebrities proudly micro-investing directly in people with few financial means. But for ruthless types it was also a way to put naive people in severe debt with extortionary loans. "UBI" is another such term, with a lot of well-meaning proponents. And sometimes advocates one wouldn't expect. For UBI I wonder if the abuse may lie in how it can lull people to sleep, while pervasive use of AI eats into the low(er)-skilled labor markets.
mejutoco 3y ago
I think EA is at its essence "the end justify the means", but communicated in a less simple way. I do not see what is so interesting or novel about it.
- chronofar 3y ago
  Not really at all, if we were to try and reduce EA to a pithy one-liner it would be more like "if one aspires to do good (altruism), one should use evidenced based data to determine how they can do the most good with their limited resources (effective)."
  - skohan 3y ago
    I think that's one interpretation, but the perverse interpretation is: "If I am an effective altruist, and I will use my resources to produce the most possible good, then it's a moral imperative to acquire as much money and power as I can, to maximize the results I can achieve"
    - chronofar 3y ago
      Well I don't think that's really an interpretation so much as it is a strategy certain people may take, and as you're alluding to a very fallible one at that. It certainly could be a reasonable strategy to amass wealth and power and wield that for altruistic reasons, such a person does indeed stand to be much more effective than most. But of course people are quite corruptible and intentions can be fuzzy, so there's no guarantees that person will follow through, or that whatever they had to do to amass that money/wealth was worth it for the ultimate good. Again one can look at the underlying tenets of such a creed and evaluate them for their conceptual merit without blasting the entire enterprise because some people abuse them for personal gain.
    - lesuorac 3y ago
      That only works if the money and power you acquire is enough to pay somebody else to do the work instead of you. If you don't make enough to sustain yourself and others to work on a cause more useful than a cause you could work yourself on then it doesn't make sense. Basically taking a standard 95k non-fang SWE job isn't better than taking a 50K SWE job at say Red Cross. Also if you can get some 10M job at OpenAI but you also are certain that you could use those same skills to independent develop some drug that will say ~12M in lives/yr then you shouldn't go to OpenAI. But there's also no true scotsman.
  - mejutoco 3y ago
    And what evidence can one really collect of how to do the most good? that involves predicting the future. I prefer the doctors approach: "first, do no harm". "The end justifies the means" is a useful concept that has been talked about many times. I would not dismiss it. I do not think it is reducing EA. I think it is communicating it with clarity, without confusing additions. It is its essence. Someone claims (let's say to simplify they are not lying) to want to maximize their good in the world, for that to be accomplished they need to do something that somebody does not approve of (only caring about money, being rude to you, whatever it is). That is literally "the end justifies the means", where the end is "doing good in the world according to model x". More often than not, that is just an excuse to do something despicable under the excuse of the future good. > Evidence-based data to determine how they can do the most good This is a model. If the model is wrong you might cause more harm than good. So, if EA is honest to work this model needs some proof that it works. Otherwise EA is only successful in becoming popular as an idea, not in accomplishing its stated objectives. Does earning a lot of money and donating it to charities create more good? I am not sure. Maybe earning less money and care for people in your everyday life would create more good.
pasabagi 3y ago
If you ask anybody who a) isn't part of EA and b) has philosophy training, they'll tell you EA is just utilitarianism with some new buzzwords.
- throwaway1249 3y ago
  In my opinion, if we consider the simplest definition of Effective Altruism (EA), which is 'think about the most effective way to give to charity,' it differs from utilitarianism in a couple of ways: Firstly, it's more pragmatic because it acknowledges our personal biases. Second, it's an individual practice, unlike utilitarianism, which is typically associated with broader societal or governmental actions. I really appreciate this approach to altruism. It doesn’t force a moral standard on others. I like practicing it on a small scale, recognizing my biases. Just the act of thinking about how to best help my community is better than giving randomly. This approach also helps to see the world as a place with more love than what we often see in the news. However, I have concerns about the more widespread version of EA, which seems to be about gaining as much money and power as possible while appearing altruistic. This, in my view, is more akin to a personality disorder, like narcissism, than to utilitarianism. I've been using the term EA to describe this, but it might not align with what others think EA is. For me, it's a personal habit I try to maintain, but I don't let it define who I am.
  - pasabagi 3y ago
    I guess I fundamentally don't think charity is the right way to solve social injustice. If you went around giving out blankets to antebellum American slaves, I guess you're helping the specific person you're handing the blanket to, but are you helping with the actual problem? After all, the problem facing the slave is not that they don't have enough things, but rather, that they don't have enough rights. Until you have the rights, no amount of material palliatives will ever save you. So that's why I didn't really go for EA when I first heard of it. Now, we have Sam Bankman-Fried's version, which is at least intellectually rigorous: if you can make billions (through scams) then give those billions (eventually) to charity, are you not morally obligated to do so? At which point I am somewhere between laughing and crying.

rapnie 3y ago

The danger of those broad terms when they become trendy is how effective they are as a facade for all kinds of malpractices to hide behind and fester. A term popular some time ago was "Microfinancing". On TV you witnessed celebrities proudly micro-investing directly in people with few financial means. But for ruthless types it was also a way to put naive people in severe debt with extortionary loans. "UBI" is another such term, with a lot of well-meaning proponents. And sometimes advocates one wouldn't expect. For UBI I wonder if the abuse may lie in how it can lull people to sleep, while pervasive use of AI eats into the low(er)-skilled labor markets.

mejutoco 3y ago

I think EA is at its essence "the end justify the means", but communicated in a less simple way. I do not see what is so interesting or novel about it.

chronofar 3y ago
Not really at all, if we were to try and reduce EA to a pithy one-liner it would be more like "if one aspires to do good (altruism), one should use evidenced based data to determine how they can do the most good with their limited resources (effective)."
- skohan 3y ago
  I think that's one interpretation, but the perverse interpretation is: "If I am an effective altruist, and I will use my resources to produce the most possible good, then it's a moral imperative to acquire as much money and power as I can, to maximize the results I can achieve"
  - chronofar 3y ago
    Well I don't think that's really an interpretation so much as it is a strategy certain people may take, and as you're alluding to a very fallible one at that. It certainly could be a reasonable strategy to amass wealth and power and wield that for altruistic reasons, such a person does indeed stand to be much more effective than most. But of course people are quite corruptible and intentions can be fuzzy, so there's no guarantees that person will follow through, or that whatever they had to do to amass that money/wealth was worth it for the ultimate good. Again one can look at the underlying tenets of such a creed and evaluate them for their conceptual merit without blasting the entire enterprise because some people abuse them for personal gain.
  - lesuorac 3y ago
    That only works if the money and power you acquire is enough to pay somebody else to do the work instead of you. If you don't make enough to sustain yourself and others to work on a cause more useful than a cause you could work yourself on then it doesn't make sense. Basically taking a standard 95k non-fang SWE job isn't better than taking a 50K SWE job at say Red Cross. Also if you can get some 10M job at OpenAI but you also are certain that you could use those same skills to independent develop some drug that will say ~12M in lives/yr then you shouldn't go to OpenAI. But there's also no true scotsman.
- mejutoco 3y ago
  And what evidence can one really collect of how to do the most good? that involves predicting the future. I prefer the doctors approach: "first, do no harm". "The end justifies the means" is a useful concept that has been talked about many times. I would not dismiss it. I do not think it is reducing EA. I think it is communicating it with clarity, without confusing additions. It is its essence. Someone claims (let's say to simplify they are not lying) to want to maximize their good in the world, for that to be accomplished they need to do something that somebody does not approve of (only caring about money, being rude to you, whatever it is). That is literally "the end justifies the means", where the end is "doing good in the world according to model x". More often than not, that is just an excuse to do something despicable under the excuse of the future good. > Evidence-based data to determine how they can do the most good This is a model. If the model is wrong you might cause more harm than good. So, if EA is honest to work this model needs some proof that it works. Otherwise EA is only successful in becoming popular as an idea, not in accomplishing its stated objectives. Does earning a lot of money and donating it to charities create more good? I am not sure. Maybe earning less money and care for people in your everyday life would create more good.

pasabagi 3y ago

If you ask anybody who a) isn't part of EA and b) has philosophy training, they'll tell you EA is just utilitarianism with some new buzzwords.

throwaway1249 3y ago
In my opinion, if we consider the simplest definition of Effective Altruism (EA), which is 'think about the most effective way to give to charity,' it differs from utilitarianism in a couple of ways: Firstly, it's more pragmatic because it acknowledges our personal biases. Second, it's an individual practice, unlike utilitarianism, which is typically associated with broader societal or governmental actions. I really appreciate this approach to altruism. It doesn’t force a moral standard on others. I like practicing it on a small scale, recognizing my biases. Just the act of thinking about how to best help my community is better than giving randomly. This approach also helps to see the world as a place with more love than what we often see in the news. However, I have concerns about the more widespread version of EA, which seems to be about gaining as much money and power as possible while appearing altruistic. This, in my view, is more akin to a personality disorder, like narcissism, than to utilitarianism. I've been using the term EA to describe this, but it might not align with what others think EA is. For me, it's a personal habit I try to maintain, but I don't let it define who I am.
- pasabagi 3y ago
  I guess I fundamentally don't think charity is the right way to solve social injustice. If you went around giving out blankets to antebellum American slaves, I guess you're helping the specific person you're handing the blanket to, but are you helping with the actual problem? After all, the problem facing the slave is not that they don't have enough things, but rather, that they don't have enough rights. Until you have the rights, no amount of material palliatives will ever save you. So that's why I didn't really go for EA when I first heard of it. Now, we have Sam Bankman-Fried's version, which is at least intellectually rigorous: if you can make billions (through scams) then give those billions (eventually) to charity, are you not morally obligated to do so? At which point I am somewhere between laughing and crying.