I think it’s fair for Davis to characterise Schmidt as a longtermist.
He’s recently been vocal about AI X-Risk.
He funded Carrick Flynn’s campaign which was openly longtermist, via the Future Forward PAC alongside Moskovitz & SBF.
His philanthropic organisation Schmidt Futures has a future focused outlook and funds various EA orgs.
And there are longtermists who are pro AI like Sam Altman, who want to use AI to capture the lightcone of future value.
Yeah, but so have lots of people; it doesn’t mean they’re all longtermists. Same thing with Sam Altman—I haven’t seen any indication that he’s longtermist, but would definitely be interested if you have any sources. This tweet seems to suggest that he does not consider himself a longtermist.
He funded Carrick Flynn’s campaign which was openly longtermist, via the Future Forward PAC alongside Moskovitz & SBF.
Do you have a source on Schmidt funding Carrick Flynn’s campaign? Jacobin links this Vox article which says he contributed to Future Forward, but it seems implied that it was to defeat Donald Trump. Though I actually don’t think this is a strong signal, as Carrick Flynn was mostly campaigning on pandemic prevention and that seems to make sense on neartermist views too.
His philanthropic organisation Schmidt Futures has a future focused outlook and funds various EA orgs.
I know Schmidt Futures has “future” in its name, but as far as I can tell they’re not especially focused on the long-term future. They seem to just want to boost innovation through scientific research and talent growth, but so does, like, nearly every government. For example, their Our Mission page does not mention the word “future”.
His philanthropic organisation Schmidt Futures...funds various EA orgs
Can you give some examples? My impression was that the funding has been minimal at best, would be surprised if EA orgs receive say >10% of their funding, and likely <1%.
Also I don’t want to overstate this point, but I don’t think I’ve yet met a longtermist researcher who claims to have had a extended (or any) conversation with Schimdt. Given that there aren’t many longtermist researchers to begin with (<500 worldwide defined rather broadly?), it’d be quite surprising for someone to claim to be a longtermist (or for others to claim that they are) if they’ve never even talked to someone doing research in the space.
To be fair, I think a few of Schmidt Futures people were looking around EA Global for things to fund in 2022. I can imagine why someone would think they’re a longtermist.
I agree there are probably a few longtermist and/or EA-affliated people at Schimdt Futures, just as there are probably such people at Google, Meta, the World Bank, etc. This is a different claim than whether Schimdt Futures institutionally is longtermist, which is again a different claim from whether Eric Schimdt himself is.
I think it’s fair for Davis to characterise Schmidt as a longtermist.
He’s recently been vocal about AI X-Risk. He funded Carrick Flynn’s campaign which was openly longtermist, via the Future Forward PAC alongside Moskovitz & SBF. His philanthropic organisation Schmidt Futures has a future focused outlook and funds various EA orgs.
And there are longtermists who are pro AI like Sam Altman, who want to use AI to capture the lightcone of future value.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/05/24/ai-poses-existential-risk-former-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-says.html
Yeah, but so have lots of people; it doesn’t mean they’re all longtermists. Same thing with Sam Altman—I haven’t seen any indication that he’s longtermist, but would definitely be interested if you have any sources. This tweet seems to suggest that he does not consider himself a longtermist.
Do you have a source on Schmidt funding Carrick Flynn’s campaign? Jacobin links this Vox article which says he contributed to Future Forward, but it seems implied that it was to defeat Donald Trump. Though I actually don’t think this is a strong signal, as Carrick Flynn was mostly campaigning on pandemic prevention and that seems to make sense on neartermist views too.
I know Schmidt Futures has “future” in its name, but as far as I can tell they’re not especially focused on the long-term future. They seem to just want to boost innovation through scientific research and talent growth, but so does, like, nearly every government. For example, their Our Mission page does not mention the word “future”.
Can you give some examples? My impression was that the funding has been minimal at best, would be surprised if EA orgs receive say >10% of their funding, and likely <1%.
Also I don’t want to overstate this point, but I don’t think I’ve yet met a longtermist researcher who claims to have had a extended (or any) conversation with Schimdt. Given that there aren’t many longtermist researchers to begin with (<500 worldwide defined rather broadly?), it’d be quite surprising for someone to claim to be a longtermist (or for others to claim that they are) if they’ve never even talked to someone doing research in the space.
To be fair, I think a few of Schmidt Futures people were looking around EA Global for things to fund in 2022. I can imagine why someone would think they’re a longtermist.
I agree there are probably a few longtermist and/or EA-affliated people at Schimdt Futures, just as there are probably such people at Google, Meta, the World Bank, etc. This is a different claim than whether Schimdt Futures institutionally is longtermist, which is again a different claim from whether Eric Schimdt himself is.