I was thinking about the EA criticism contest… did anyone submit something like “FTX”? Then give that person a prize! Forecaster of the year!
And second place for the best entries talking about accountability and governance.
If not… then maybe it’s interesting to highlight: all of those “critiques” didn’t foresee the main risks that materialized in the community this year. Maybe if we had framed it as a forecasting contest instead… and yet, we have many remarkable forecasters around, and apparently none of them suggested it was dangerous to place so much faith on one person.
Or it’s just a matter of attention. So I ask: what is the most impactful negative event that will happen to EA community in 2023?
The Effective Altruism movement is not above conflicts of interest
Summary
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is a major donator to the Effective Altruism ecosystem and has pledged to eventually donate his entire fortune to causes aligned with Effective Altruism.
By relying heavily on ultra-wealthy individuals like Sam Bankman-Fried for funding, the Effective Altruim community is incentivized to accept political stances and moral judgments based on their alignment with the interests of its wealthy donators, instead of relying on a careful and rational examination of the quality and merits of these ideas. Yet, the Effective Altruism community does not appear to recognize that this creates potential conflicts with its stated mission of doing the most good by adhering to high standards of rationality and critical thought.
In practice, Sam Bankman-Fried has enjoyed highly-favourable coverage from 80,000 Hours, an important actor in the Effective Altruism ecosystem. Given his donations to Effective Altruism, 80,000 Hours is, almost by definition, in a conflict of interest when it comes to communicating about Sam Bankman-Fried and his professional activities. This raises obvious questions regarding the trustworthiness of 80,000 Hours’ coverage of Sam Bankman-Fried and of topics his interests are linked with (quantitative trading, cryptocurrency, the FTX firm…).
In this post, I argue that the Effective Altruism movement has failed to identify and publicize its own potential conflicts of interests. This failure reflects poorly on the quality of the standards the Effective Altruism movement holds itself to. Therefore, I invite outsiders and Effective Altruists alike to keep a healthy level of skepticism in mind when examining areas of the discourse and action of the Effective Altruism community that are susceptible to be affected by incentives conflicting with its stated mission. These incentives are not just financial in nature, they can also be linked to influence, prestige, or even emerge from personal friendships or other social dynamics. The Effective Altruism movement is not above being influenced by such incentives, and it seems urgent that it acts to minimize conflicts of interest.
I spent SO much time trying to find this entry after the FTX news broke. It didn’t forecast FTX fraud, but it has still absolutely been elevated by recent events. You should re-up this on the forum to see if more people will engage with it now.
This post talking about the risks of FTX aged very well, although it wasn’t part of the contest. It was fairly ignored at the time, but I did agree with it and posted so in the comments.
I expect EA to get cautious around financial stuff for a while (hopefully), so another scandal would come from somewhere else. Perhaps a prominent figure will be exposed as an abuser of some kind?
I was thinking about the EA criticism contest… did anyone submit something like “FTX”? Then give that person a prize! Forecaster of the year! And second place for the best entries talking about accountability and governance. If not… then maybe it’s interesting to highlight: all of those “critiques” didn’t foresee the main risks that materialized in the community this year. Maybe if we had framed it as a forecasting contest instead… and yet, we have many remarkable forecasters around, and apparently none of them suggested it was dangerous to place so much faith on one person. Or it’s just a matter of attention. So I ask: what is the most impactful negative event that will happen to EA community in 2023?
A criticism contest submission related to FTX was highlighted by a panelist, but did not win a prize: https://medium.com/@sven_rone/the-effective-altruism-movement-is-not-above-conflicts-of-interest-25f7125220a5
I spent SO much time trying to find this entry after the FTX news broke. It didn’t forecast FTX fraud, but it has still absolutely been elevated by recent events. You should re-up this on the forum to see if more people will engage with it now.
Posted: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/T85NxgeZTTZZpqBq2/the-effective-altruism-movement-is-not-above-conflicts-of
I agree.
I’m a bit wary of awarding a prize to any post mentioning FTX without regard to how accurate it is.
This post talking about the risks of FTX aged very well, although it wasn’t part of the contest. It was fairly ignored at the time, but I did agree with it and posted so in the comments.
I expect EA to get cautious around financial stuff for a while (hopefully), so another scandal would come from somewhere else. Perhaps a prominent figure will be exposed as an abuser of some kind?