I think the principal challenge for an independent investigation is getting folks with useful information to disclose it, given these people will usually (to some kind and degree) also have âexposureâ to the FTX scandal themselves.
If I was such a person I would expect working with the investigation would be unpleasant, perhaps embarrassing, plausibly acrimonious, and potentially disastrous for my reputation. Whatâs in it for me?
I agree this would be a big challenge. A few thoughtsâŠ
An independent investigation would probably make some people more likely to share what they know. It could credibly offer them anonymity while still granting proper weight to their specific situation and access to information(unlike posting something via a burner account, which would be anonymous but less credible). I imagine contributing to a formal investigation would feel more comfortable to a lot of people than weighing in on forum discussions like this one.
People might be incentivized to participate out of a desire not to have the investigation publicly report âperson X declined to participateâ. I donât think publicly reporting that would be appropriate in all cases where someone declined to participate, but I would support that in cases where the investigation had strong reasons to believe the lack of participation stemmed from someone wanting to obscure their own problematic behavior. (I donât claim to know exactly where to draw the line for this sort of thing).
To encourage participation, I think it would be good to have CEA play a role in facilitating and/âor endorsing (though maybe not conducting) the investigation. While this would compromise its independence to some degree, that would probably be worth it to provide a sort of âofficial stamp of approvalâ. That said, I would still hope other steps would be taken to help mitigate that compromise of independence.
As others have noted, some people would likely view participation as the right thing to do.
It could be better for the world, and you might care about that.
It could be that you expect enough other people will talk to them that itâs good for them to hear your side of the story too.
It could be that you expect it would be bad for your reputation to refuse to talk to them (or to give details which are non-concordant with the picture theyâre building from talking to other people).
The second and third possible motivations seem to have a Prisonerâs Dilemma element to them. They would motivate people to talk if and only if similarly situated individuals were talking. The inability to timely determine whether others have defected from the best-for-prisoners-collectively state is pretty important to the Dilemma.
Even worse, if other prisoners strongly oppose cooperation, they may find a way to collectively punish those who do defect. The original Dilemma only gives the jailers the ability to assign punishment based on defection/ânon-defection. None of that is meant to suggest that EA insiders would necessarily punish cooperatorsâI have no way of knowing that. But I expect most people would consider the possibility of who might be displeased with their cooperation.
Some Prisoners Dilemma dynamics are at play here, but there are some important differences (at least from the standard PD setup).
The PD setup pre-supposes guilt, which really isnât appropriate in this case. An investigation should be trying to follow the facts wherever they lead. Itâs perfectly plausible that, for example, an investigation could find that reasonable actions were taken after the Slack warning, that there were good reasons for not publicly discussing the existence or specifics of those actions, and that there really isnât much to learn from the Slack incident. I personally think other findings are more likely, but the whole rationale for an independent investigation is that people shouldnât have to speculate about questions we can answer empirically.
People who arenât âguiltyâ could âdefectâ and do so in a way where they wouldnât be able to be identified. For example, take someone from the EA leaders Slack group who nobody would expect to be responsible for following up about the SBF warnings posted in that group. That person could provide investigators a) a list of leaders in the group who could reasonably be expected to follow-up and b) which of those people acknowledged seeing the Slack warnings. They could do so without compromising their identity. The person who discussed the Slack warnings with the New Yorker reporter basically followed this template.
Re: your comment that âif other prisoners strongly oppose cooperation, they may find a way to collectively punish those who do defectâ, this presumably doesnât apply to people who have already âdefectedâ. For instance, if Tara has a paper trail of the allegations she raised during the Alameda dispute and shared that with investigators, I doubt that would burn any more bridges with EA leadership than sheâs already burned.
The PD setup pre-supposes guilt, which really isnât appropriate in this case.
I think it works fairly well for innocence if one does not trust the investigators/âcops. You might believe, for instance, that they are under pressure to find a scapegoat and would (consciously or otherwise) use statements toward an incorrect or overblown conclusion.
Re: your comment that âif other prisoners strongly oppose cooperation, they may find a way to collectively punish those who do defectâ, this presumably doesnât apply to people who have already âdefectedâ.
True, but to the extent those people have the goods, motivation to disclose, and no fear of retaliation, it is not clear what would be stopping them from going to the media or even self-publishing. They might need to coordinate amongst themselves, but anyone with a sizable chunk of the goods likely knows who else has them.
Rightâfor these types of private investigations to be successful, there often has to be some sort of prod that convinces people to cooperate when they would not choose to do so if given a unpressured choice. For example, your employer might threaten to fire you, or the sports league might sanction your team or university for non-cooperation. A few EtGers might be able to front the money for a good investigation, but only the powers-that-be can supply the necessary prod.
I think in the eyes of many (including substantial fraction of the public) participating in such an investigation will be seen as importantly heroic. I think itâs wrong to assume that people cannot reward and understand the difficulty of such a choice, and cannot assign respect appropriately.
I think this would significantly depend on what the investigation ultimately showed. It would probably be hard for the average EA reader (much less a member of the general public) to reliably estimate how much personal stress, risk, cost, etc. a cooperator bore, and thus how much respect we should assign for their choice. I think many people would use the outcome as a rough proxy. If the investigation revealed only fairly-well-known structural problems plus bad judgment by a few individuals, then people may not appreciate how much of a burden it was to work with a thorough, broad-scope investigation that went down many paths that ultimately ended up being unfruitful.
If itâs better for the extended EA community and our efforts to do good, itâs plausibly better for the world, which I assume such a person would care about. Thatâs what would be in it for them.
Maybe they donât think the balance of benefits and risks/âdownsides and costs (including opportunity costs) is favourable, though.
I think the principal challenge for an independent investigation is getting folks with useful information to disclose it, given these people will usually (to some kind and degree) also have âexposureâ to the FTX scandal themselves.
If I was such a person I would expect working with the investigation would be unpleasant, perhaps embarrassing, plausibly acrimonious, and potentially disastrous for my reputation. Whatâs in it for me?
I agree this would be a big challenge. A few thoughtsâŠ
An independent investigation would probably make some people more likely to share what they know. It could credibly offer them anonymity while still granting proper weight to their specific situation and access to information(unlike posting something via a burner account, which would be anonymous but less credible). I imagine contributing to a formal investigation would feel more comfortable to a lot of people than weighing in on forum discussions like this one.
People might be incentivized to participate out of a desire not to have the investigation publicly report âperson X declined to participateâ. I donât think publicly reporting that would be appropriate in all cases where someone declined to participate, but I would support that in cases where the investigation had strong reasons to believe the lack of participation stemmed from someone wanting to obscure their own problematic behavior. (I donât claim to know exactly where to draw the line for this sort of thing).
To encourage participation, I think it would be good to have CEA play a role in facilitating and/âor endorsing (though maybe not conducting) the investigation. While this would compromise its independence to some degree, that would probably be worth it to provide a sort of âofficial stamp of approvalâ. That said, I would still hope other steps would be taken to help mitigate that compromise of independence.
As others have noted, some people would likely view participation as the right thing to do.
It could be better for the world, and you might care about that.
It could be that you expect enough other people will talk to them that itâs good for them to hear your side of the story too.
It could be that you expect it would be bad for your reputation to refuse to talk to them (or to give details which are non-concordant with the picture theyâre building from talking to other people).
The second and third possible motivations seem to have a Prisonerâs Dilemma element to them. They would motivate people to talk if and only if similarly situated individuals were talking. The inability to timely determine whether others have defected from the best-for-prisoners-collectively state is pretty important to the Dilemma.
Even worse, if other prisoners strongly oppose cooperation, they may find a way to collectively punish those who do defect. The original Dilemma only gives the jailers the ability to assign punishment based on defection/ânon-defection. None of that is meant to suggest that EA insiders would necessarily punish cooperatorsâI have no way of knowing that. But I expect most people would consider the possibility of who might be displeased with their cooperation.
Some Prisoners Dilemma dynamics are at play here, but there are some important differences (at least from the standard PD setup).
The PD setup pre-supposes guilt, which really isnât appropriate in this case. An investigation should be trying to follow the facts wherever they lead. Itâs perfectly plausible that, for example, an investigation could find that reasonable actions were taken after the Slack warning, that there were good reasons for not publicly discussing the existence or specifics of those actions, and that there really isnât much to learn from the Slack incident. I personally think other findings are more likely, but the whole rationale for an independent investigation is that people shouldnât have to speculate about questions we can answer empirically.
People who arenât âguiltyâ could âdefectâ and do so in a way where they wouldnât be able to be identified. For example, take someone from the EA leaders Slack group who nobody would expect to be responsible for following up about the SBF warnings posted in that group. That person could provide investigators a) a list of leaders in the group who could reasonably be expected to follow-up and b) which of those people acknowledged seeing the Slack warnings. They could do so without compromising their identity. The person who discussed the Slack warnings with the New Yorker reporter basically followed this template.
Re: your comment that âif other prisoners strongly oppose cooperation, they may find a way to collectively punish those who do defectâ, this presumably doesnât apply to people who have already âdefectedâ. For instance, if Tara has a paper trail of the allegations she raised during the Alameda dispute and shared that with investigators, I doubt that would burn any more bridges with EA leadership than sheâs already burned.
I think it works fairly well for innocence if one does not trust the investigators/âcops. You might believe, for instance, that they are under pressure to find a scapegoat and would (consciously or otherwise) use statements toward an incorrect or overblown conclusion.
True, but to the extent those people have the goods, motivation to disclose, and no fear of retaliation, it is not clear what would be stopping them from going to the media or even self-publishing. They might need to coordinate amongst themselves, but anyone with a sizable chunk of the goods likely knows who else has them.
Rightâfor these types of private investigations to be successful, there often has to be some sort of prod that convinces people to cooperate when they would not choose to do so if given a unpressured choice. For example, your employer might threaten to fire you, or the sports league might sanction your team or university for non-cooperation. A few EtGers might be able to front the money for a good investigation, but only the powers-that-be can supply the necessary prod.
I think in the eyes of many (including substantial fraction of the public) participating in such an investigation will be seen as importantly heroic. I think itâs wrong to assume that people cannot reward and understand the difficulty of such a choice, and cannot assign respect appropriately.
I think this would significantly depend on what the investigation ultimately showed. It would probably be hard for the average EA reader (much less a member of the general public) to reliably estimate how much personal stress, risk, cost, etc. a cooperator bore, and thus how much respect we should assign for their choice. I think many people would use the outcome as a rough proxy. If the investigation revealed only fairly-well-known structural problems plus bad judgment by a few individuals, then people may not appreciate how much of a burden it was to work with a thorough, broad-scope investigation that went down many paths that ultimately ended up being unfruitful.
If itâs better for the extended EA community and our efforts to do good, itâs plausibly better for the world, which I assume such a person would care about. Thatâs what would be in it for them.
Maybe they donât think the balance of benefits and risks/âdownsides and costs (including opportunity costs) is favourable, though.