Those low on the spectrum tend to shape the incentives around them proactively to create a culture that rewards what they don’t want to lose about their good qualities.
What percent of people do you think fall into this category? Any examples? Why are we so bad at distinguishing such people ahead of time and often handing power to the easily corrupted instead?
Off the cuff answers that may change as I reflect more:
Maybe around 25% of people in leadership positions in the EA ecosystem qualify? Somewhat lower for positions at orgs that are unusually “ambitious;” somewhat higher for positions that are more like “iterate on a proven system” or “have a slow-paced research org that doesn’t involve itself too much in politics.”
For the ambitious leaders, I unfortunately have no examples where I feel particularly confident, but can think of a few examples where I’m like “from a distance, it looks like they might be good leaders.” I would count Holden in that category, even though I’d say the last couple of years seem suboptimal in terms of track record (and also want to flag that this is just a “from a distance” impression, so don’t put much weight on it).
Why we’re bad at identifying: This probably isn’t the only reason, but the task is just hard. If you look at people who have ambitious visions and are willing to try hard to make them happen, they tend to be above-average on dark triad traits. You probably want someone who is very much not high on psychopathic traits, but still low enough on neuroticism that they won’t be anxious all the time. Similarly, you want someone who isn’t too high on narcissism, but they still need to have that ambitious vision and belief in being exceptional. You want someone who is humble and has inner warmth so they will uplift others along the way, so high on honesty-humility factor, but that correlates with agreeableness and neuroticism – which is a potential problem because you probably can’t be too agreeable in the startup world or when running an ambitious org generally, and you can’t be particularly neurotic.
(Edit) Another reason is, I think people often aren’t “put into leadership positions” by others/some committee; instead, they put themselves there. Like, usually there isn’t some committee with a great startup idea looking for a leader; instead, the leader comes with the vision and accumulates followers based on their conviction. And most people who aren’t in leadership positions simply aren’t vigilant or invested enough to care a lot about who becomes a leader.
I think incentives matter, but I feel like if they’re all that matters, then we’re doomed anyway because “Who will step up as a leader to set good incentives?” In other words, the position “incentives are all that matters” seems self-defeating, because to change things, you can’t just sit on the sidelines and criticize “the incentives” or “the system.” It also seems too cynical: just because, e.g., lots of money is at stake, that doesn’t mean people who were previously morally motivated and cautious about their motivations and trying to do the right thing, will suddenly go off the rails.
To be clear, I think there’s probably a limit for everyone and no person is forever safe from corruption, but my point is that it matters where on the spectrum someone falls. Of the people that are low on corruptibility, even though most of them don’t like power or would flail around helplessly and hopelessly if they had it, there are probably people who have the right mix of traits to create, maintain and grow pockets of sanity (well-run, well-functioning organizations, ecosystems, etc.).
If I had to guess, the EA community is probably a bit worse at this than most communities because A) bad social skills and B) high trust.
This seems like a good tradeoff in general. I don’t think we should be putting more emphasis on smooth-talking CEOs—which is what got us into the OpenAI mess in the first place.
But at some point, defending Sam Altman is just charlie_brown_football.jpg
What percent of people do you think fall into this category? Any examples? Why are we so bad at distinguishing such people ahead of time and often handing power to the easily corrupted instead?
Off the cuff answers that may change as I reflect more:
Maybe around 25% of people in leadership positions in the EA ecosystem qualify? Somewhat lower for positions at orgs that are unusually “ambitious;” somewhat higher for positions that are more like “iterate on a proven system” or “have a slow-paced research org that doesn’t involve itself too much in politics.”
For the ambitious leaders, I unfortunately have no examples where I feel particularly confident, but can think of a few examples where I’m like “from a distance, it looks like they might be good leaders.” I would count Holden in that category, even though I’d say the last couple of years seem suboptimal in terms of track record (and also want to flag that this is just a “from a distance” impression, so don’t put much weight on it).
Why we’re bad at identifying: This probably isn’t the only reason, but the task is just hard. If you look at people who have ambitious visions and are willing to try hard to make them happen, they tend to be above-average on dark triad traits. You probably want someone who is very much not high on psychopathic traits, but still low enough on neuroticism that they won’t be anxious all the time. Similarly, you want someone who isn’t too high on narcissism, but they still need to have that ambitious vision and belief in being exceptional. You want someone who is humble and has inner warmth so they will uplift others along the way, so high on honesty-humility factor, but that correlates with agreeableness and neuroticism – which is a potential problem because you probably can’t be too agreeable in the startup world or when running an ambitious org generally, and you can’t be particularly neurotic.
(Edit) Another reason is, I think people often aren’t “put into leadership positions” by others/some committee; instead, they put themselves there. Like, usually there isn’t some committee with a great startup idea looking for a leader; instead, the leader comes with the vision and accumulates followers based on their conviction. And most people who aren’t in leadership positions simply aren’t vigilant or invested enough to care a lot about who becomes a leader.
I think incentives matter, but I feel like if they’re all that matters, then we’re doomed anyway because “Who will step up as a leader to set good incentives?” In other words, the position “incentives are all that matters” seems self-defeating, because to change things, you can’t just sit on the sidelines and criticize “the incentives” or “the system.” It also seems too cynical: just because, e.g., lots of money is at stake, that doesn’t mean people who were previously morally motivated and cautious about their motivations and trying to do the right thing, will suddenly go off the rails.
To be clear, I think there’s probably a limit for everyone and no person is forever safe from corruption, but my point is that it matters where on the spectrum someone falls. Of the people that are low on corruptibility, even though most of them don’t like power or would flail around helplessly and hopelessly if they had it, there are probably people who have the right mix of traits to create, maintain and grow pockets of sanity (well-run, well-functioning organizations, ecosystems, etc.).
If I had to guess, the EA community is probably a bit worse at this than most communities because A) bad social skills and B) high trust.
This seems like a good tradeoff in general. I don’t think we should be putting more emphasis on smooth-talking CEOs—which is what got us into the OpenAI mess in the first place.
But at some point, defending Sam Altman is just charlie_brown_football.jpg