Your concern about EA’s consequentialist lens warping these fields resonates with what I found when experimenting with multi-AI deliberation on ethics. I had Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini each propose ethical frameworks independently, and each one reflected its training philosophy—Grok was absolutist about truth-seeking, Claude cautious about harm, ChatGPT moderate and consensus-seeking.
The key insight: single perspectives hide their own assumptions. It’s only when you compare multiple approaches that the blindspots become visible.
This makes your point about EA flooding these areas with one ontology particularly concerning. If we’re trying to figure out “AI character” or “gradual disempowerment” through purely consequentialist framing, we might be encoding that bias into foundational work without realizing it.
Maybe the solution isn’t avoiding EA involvement, but structuring the work to force engagement with different philosophical traditions from the start? Like explicitly pairing consequentialists with virtue ethicists, deontologists, care ethicists, etc. in research teams. Or requiring papers to address “what would critics from X tradition say about this framing?”
Your “gradual disempowerment” example is perfect—this seems like it requires understanding emergent structures and collective identity in ways that individual-focused utilitarian thinking might miss entirely.
Would you say the risk is:
EA people not recognizing non-consequentialist framings as valid?
EA organizational culture making it uncomfortable to disagree with consequentialist assumptions?
Just sheer numbers overwhelming other perspectives in discourse?
Your concern about EA’s consequentialist lens warping these fields resonates with what I found when experimenting with multi-AI deliberation on ethics. I had Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini each propose ethical frameworks independently, and each one reflected its training philosophy—Grok was absolutist about truth-seeking, Claude cautious about harm, ChatGPT moderate and consensus-seeking.
The key insight: single perspectives hide their own assumptions. It’s only when you compare multiple approaches that the blindspots become visible.
This makes your point about EA flooding these areas with one ontology particularly concerning. If we’re trying to figure out “AI character” or “gradual disempowerment” through purely consequentialist framing, we might be encoding that bias into foundational work without realizing it.
Maybe the solution isn’t avoiding EA involvement, but structuring the work to force engagement with different philosophical traditions from the start? Like explicitly pairing consequentialists with virtue ethicists, deontologists, care ethicists, etc. in research teams. Or requiring papers to address “what would critics from X tradition say about this framing?”
Your “gradual disempowerment” example is perfect—this seems like it requires understanding emergent structures and collective identity in ways that individual-focused utilitarian thinking might miss entirely.
Would you say the risk is:
EA people not recognizing non-consequentialist framings as valid?
EA organizational culture making it uncomfortable to disagree with consequentialist assumptions?
Just sheer numbers overwhelming other perspectives in discourse?