I don’t think it’s odd at all. As the Bloomberg article notes, this was in response to the martyrdom of Saint Altman, when everyone thought the evil Effective Altruists were stealing/smashing OA for no reason and destroying humanity’s future (as well as the fortune of many of the individuals involved, to a degree few of them bothered to disclose) and/or turning it over to the Chinese commies. An internal memo decrying ‘Effective Altruism’ was far from the most extreme response at the time; but I doubt Gomez would write it today, if only because so much news has come out since then and it no longer looks like such a simple morality play. (For example, a lot of SV people were shocked to learn he had been fired from YC by Paul Graham et al for the same reason. That was a very closely held secret.)
Ah good point that it was in the aftermath of the OpenAI board weekend, but it still seems like a very extreme/odd reaction to me (though I have to note the benefit of hindsight as well as my own personal biases). I still think it’d be interesting to see what Aidan actually said, and/or why he’s formed such a negative opinion of EA, but I think your right than the simplest explanation here is:
Sam gets fired → I think evil EA is behind it → I need to show how not-EA I am → release anti-EA internal memo
I don’t think it’s odd at all. As the Bloomberg article notes, this was in response to the martyrdom of Saint Altman, when everyone thought the evil Effective Altruists were stealing/smashing OA for no reason and destroying humanity’s future (as well as the fortune of many of the individuals involved, to a degree few of them bothered to disclose) and/or turning it over to the Chinese commies. An internal memo decrying ‘Effective Altruism’ was far from the most extreme response at the time; but I doubt Gomez would write it today, if only because so much news has come out since then and it no longer looks like such a simple morality play. (For example, a lot of SV people were shocked to learn he had been fired from YC by Paul Graham et al for the same reason. That was a very closely held secret.)
Ah good point that it was in the aftermath of the OpenAI board weekend, but it still seems like a very extreme/odd reaction to me (though I have to note the benefit of hindsight as well as my own personal biases). I still think it’d be interesting to see what Aidan actually said, and/or why he’s formed such a negative opinion of EA, but I think your right than the simplest explanation here is: