And MacAskill—Singer’s philosophical heir—had the answer: The best way for him to maximize good in the world would be to maximize his wealth.
SBF listened, nodding, as MacAskill made his pitch. The earn-to-give logic was airtight. It was, SBF realized, applied utilitarianism. Knowing what he had to do, SBF simply said, “Yep. That makes sense.” But, right there, between a bright yellow sunshade and the crumb-strewn red-brick floor, SBF’s purpose in life was set: He was going to get filthy rich, for charity’s sake. All the rest was merely execution risk.
EA will be subject to intense scrutiny if SBF viewed reckless and fraudulent behaviour as execution risk for altruistic goals.
Be vigilant of what money is being donated to EA—if it comes from grey area fields (and I say this as someone who’s worked in crypto for a few years, albeit I quit the area earlier in the year). Of course this being EA there’s going to be people arguing the money has been moved to more positive uses, but public image is key to have sustainable donations moving on.
Have a piece about the pros of EA and thank SBF/FTX for their donations but be clear that EA doesn’t knowingly accept money obtained in potentially immoral ways. Now there’s a chance this was all above board and FTX got beaten by a competitor in an unregulated sector, which is of course possible! However there’s a lot of contradictory points popping up about 1:1 backing and the trading firm was very close to an exchange… market information to front run I get, but hopefully they didn’t loan users funds via FTT to trade.
Tangential to #2, there’s a scenario where this ends up as a reputational nightmare for EA.
If SBF committed fraud, there’s a distinct possibility that SBF will use altruism as a defence and/or justification for his actions in the coming months.
If the above happens, the issue may not die anytime soon. Given the scope of the event, and Sam’s prominence within EA, it would become a borderline obligation for any media outlet to mention it in any coverage of EA for years to come.
Depending on how things break, anyone with a public association with EA may be viewed through the lens of either “dangerously overcommitted to utilitarianism,” or “using EA as a cover for unethical behaviour.”
The author that Sequoia paid to write SBF’s puff piece (linked in earlier comment) has already put out a tweet to this effect:
A bad day for #SBF but even worse for #EA. Is this #ultilitarianism as psychological cover to run a #Ponzi scheme?
My concern at this point is the willingness of MacAskill and other prominent EA’s to condemn SBF. “Wait and see” is often preferred, but there may be permanent damage to EA’s reputation if SBF is not disavowed by EA leadership in due time.
If SBF committed fraud, there’s a distinct possibility that SBF will use altruism as a defence and/or justification for his actions in the coming months.
Sadly, I think his having been the second largest donor to the Biden 2020 campaign fund will be a more effective defence. It certainly worked for the people who lost hundreds of billions of Other People’s Money in 2008.
I don’t think that EA’s reputation will be tainted that much by this incident.
First, startups are inherently risky; the purpose of a startup is to try out an unproven business model in the hope of making money or providing value for customers. FTX exposed investors to what many observers, including me, consider an unacceptable level of risk, but so did Theranos (which was an outright scam).
Second, risk neutrality as a consequence of utilitarianism is not well understood outside the EA community. It might become more prominent in the discourse soon, but right now journalists are mostly not talking about it.
Underlying #1 and #3, there’s the additional question of to what extent EA was motivation for SBF to engage in unethical behaviour.
Sequoia, one of the major investors in FTX, paid a writer to do a lengthy puff piece on SBF in September. EA makes numerous appearances:
https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/sam-bankman-fried-spotlight/
EA will be subject to intense scrutiny if SBF viewed reckless and fraudulent behaviour as execution risk for altruistic goals.
I think there’s two possible next steps:
Be vigilant of what money is being donated to EA—if it comes from grey area fields (and I say this as someone who’s worked in crypto for a few years, albeit I quit the area earlier in the year). Of course this being EA there’s going to be people arguing the money has been moved to more positive uses, but public image is key to have sustainable donations moving on.
Have a piece about the pros of EA and thank SBF/FTX for their donations but be clear that EA doesn’t knowingly accept money obtained in potentially immoral ways. Now there’s a chance this was all above board and FTX got beaten by a competitor in an unregulated sector, which is of course possible! However there’s a lot of contradictory points popping up about 1:1 backing and the trading firm was very close to an exchange… market information to front run I get, but hopefully they didn’t loan users funds via FTT to trade.
Tangential to #2, there’s a scenario where this ends up as a reputational nightmare for EA.
If SBF committed fraud, there’s a distinct possibility that SBF will use altruism as a defence and/or justification for his actions in the coming months.
If the above happens, the issue may not die anytime soon. Given the scope of the event, and Sam’s prominence within EA, it would become a borderline obligation for any media outlet to mention it in any coverage of EA for years to come.
Depending on how things break, anyone with a public association with EA may be viewed through the lens of either “dangerously overcommitted to utilitarianism,” or “using EA as a cover for unethical behaviour.”
The author that Sequoia paid to write SBF’s puff piece (linked in earlier comment) has already put out a tweet to this effect:
https://twitter.com/AdamcFisher/status/1590466104773992448
My concern at this point is the willingness of MacAskill and other prominent EA’s to condemn SBF. “Wait and see” is often preferred, but there may be permanent damage to EA’s reputation if SBF is not disavowed by EA leadership in due time.
Sadly, I think his having been the second largest donor to the Biden 2020 campaign fund will be a more effective defence. It certainly worked for the people who lost hundreds of billions of Other People’s Money in 2008.
seems he has ended up giving more to the democratic party than ea lol
Sequoia pulled that link, here’s an archived version.
I don’t think that EA’s reputation will be tainted that much by this incident.
First, startups are inherently risky; the purpose of a startup is to try out an unproven business model in the hope of making money or providing value for customers. FTX exposed investors to what many observers, including me, consider an unacceptable level of risk, but so did Theranos (which was an outright scam).
Second, risk neutrality as a consequence of utilitarianism is not well understood outside the EA community. It might become more prominent in the discourse soon, but right now journalists are mostly not talking about it.