no one cares about EA except EAs and some obviously bad faith critics trying to tar you with guilt-by-association
I agree with your broad points, but this seems false to me. I think that lots of people seem to have negative associations with EA, especially given SBF and in the AI and tech space where eg it’s widely (and imo falsely) believed that the openai coup was for EA reasons
I overstated this, but disagree. Overall very few people have ever heard of EA. In tech, maybe you get up to ~20% recognition, but even there, the amount of headspace people give it is very small and you should act as though this is the case. I agree it’s negative directionally, but evasive comments like these are actually a big part of how we got to this point.
I think we feel this more than is the case. I think a lot of people know about it but don’t have much of an opinion on it, similar to how I feel about NASCAR or something.
I recently caught up with a friend who worked at OpenAI until very recently and he thought it was good that I was part of EA and what I did since college.
Further, Adam d’Angelo is not, to my knowledge, an EA/AI safety person, but also voted to remove Sam and was a necessary vote, which is strong evidence there were more legit reasons
The “highly inappropriate behavior” is question was nearly entirely about violating safety protocols, and by the time Murati and Sutskever defected to Altman’s side the conflict was clearly considered by both sides to be a referendum on EA and AI safety, to the point of the board seeking to nominate rationalist Emmett Shear as Altman’s replacement.
I don’t think the board’s side considered it a referendum. Just because the inappropriate behaviour was about safety doesn’t mean that a high integrity board member who is not safety focused shouldn’t fire them!
It doesn’t matter what you think they should have done, the fact is, Murati and Sutskever defected to Altman’s side after initially backing his firing, almost certainly because the consensus discourse quickly became focused on EA and AI safety and not the object-level accusations of inappropriate behavior.
I agree with your broad points, but this seems false to me. I think that lots of people seem to have negative associations with EA, especially given SBF and in the AI and tech space where eg it’s widely (and imo falsely) believed that the openai coup was for EA reasons
I overstated this, but disagree. Overall very few people have ever heard of EA. In tech, maybe you get up to ~20% recognition, but even there, the amount of headspace people give it is very small and you should act as though this is the case. I agree it’s negative directionally, but evasive comments like these are actually a big part of how we got to this point.
I’m specifically claiming silicon valley AI, where I think it’s a fair bit higher?
I think we feel this more than is the case. I think a lot of people know about it but don’t have much of an opinion on it, similar to how I feel about NASCAR or something.
I recently caught up with a friend who worked at OpenAI until very recently and he thought it was good that I was part of EA and what I did since college.
“widely (and imo falsely) believed that the openai coup was for EA reasons”
False why?
Because Sam was engaging in a bunch of highly inappropriate behaviour for a CEO like lying to the board which is sufficient to justify the board firing him without need for more complex explanations. And this matches private gossip I’ve heard, and the board’s public statements
Further, Adam d’Angelo is not, to my knowledge, an EA/AI safety person, but also voted to remove Sam and was a necessary vote, which is strong evidence there were more legit reasons
The “highly inappropriate behavior” is question was nearly entirely about violating safety protocols, and by the time Murati and Sutskever defected to Altman’s side the conflict was clearly considered by both sides to be a referendum on EA and AI safety, to the point of the board seeking to nominate rationalist Emmett Shear as Altman’s replacement.
I don’t think the board’s side considered it a referendum. Just because the inappropriate behaviour was about safety doesn’t mean that a high integrity board member who is not safety focused shouldn’t fire them!
It doesn’t matter what you think they should have done, the fact is, Murati and Sutskever defected to Altman’s side after initially backing his firing, almost certainly because the consensus discourse quickly became focused on EA and AI safety and not the object-level accusations of inappropriate behavior.
Ilya too!