Normally I would downvote a claim without evidence. But if this is true, it would help explain why FTX bailed out Alameda using customer funds. And it would have important implications for how EA views conflicts of interest from romantic relationships in other areas.
AI Safety has plenty of romantic relationships between important people. To name just one relationship that has been made fully public and transparent, Holden Karnofsky is married to Daniella Amodei, President of Anthropic and sister to Dario Amodei, an advisor to OpenPhil on AI Safety. I think it’s reasonable to believe that Dario has had more influence over OpenPhil’s institutional views, and that OpenPhil has a higher opinion of Anthropic, than would be true without this romantic relationship.
My perception is that many EAs think romantic relationships don’t often cause problematic conflicts of interest. Sabs’ comment was downvoted heavily for reasons such as Lukas’s below. I have previously drafted posts similar to this one and not published them because of fear of backlash.
I don’t want to name other relationships mostly because it wouldn’t solve the problem. I don’t think romance between coworkers is always wrong — I’m currently dating someone I used to work with, though our relationship only started after she left the company. But when grantmakers are taking advice from or giving grants to people they’re romantically involved with, I think there’s a lot of room for compromised decision making. These conflicts of interest should at least be public, and better yet avoided entirely.
I’d add that some (maybe even many) potential conflicts of interest can be legitimately waived, but that it is not the decision of the person with the potential conflict to make. Furthermore, the waiver decision should generally be based on the best interests of the organization, employer, community, mission, etc. rather than the conflicted party’s own interests.
Normally I would downvote a claim without evidence. But if this is true, it would help explain why FTX bailed out Alameda using customer funds. And it would have important implications for how EA views conflicts of interest from romantic relationships in other areas.
AI Safety has plenty of romantic relationships between important people. To name just one relationship that has been made fully public and transparent, Holden Karnofsky is married to Daniella Amodei, President of Anthropic and sister to Dario Amodei, an advisor to OpenPhil on AI Safety. I think it’s reasonable to believe that Dario has had more influence over OpenPhil’s institutional views, and that OpenPhil has a higher opinion of Anthropic, than would be true without this romantic relationship.
My perception is that many EAs think romantic relationships don’t often cause problematic conflicts of interest. Sabs’ comment was downvoted heavily for reasons such as Lukas’s below. I have previously drafted posts similar to this one and not published them because of fear of backlash.
I don’t want to name other relationships mostly because it wouldn’t solve the problem. I don’t think romance between coworkers is always wrong — I’m currently dating someone I used to work with, though our relationship only started after she left the company. But when grantmakers are taking advice from or giving grants to people they’re romantically involved with, I think there’s a lot of room for compromised decision making. These conflicts of interest should at least be public, and better yet avoided entirely.
Julia Wise writes about this a bit here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fovDwkBQgTqRMoHZM/power-dynamics-between-people-in-ea
I’d add that some (maybe even many) potential conflicts of interest can be legitimately waived, but that it is not the decision of the person with the potential conflict to make. Furthermore, the waiver decision should generally be based on the best interests of the organization, employer, community, mission, etc. rather than the conflicted party’s own interests.