Crossposted on Medium.
Content warning: This article discusses sexual assault and suicide.
Edited to add: This post is not an attack of EA, on the contrary. It is a plea for help. We share a concern that a morally corrupt tech community will develop misaligned AI.
There is a rape-to-exodus and a rape-to-suicide pipeline in the Silicon Valley Bay Area. We raise the alarm about this issue.
We compiled this article with the collective information of multiple women. We want every person who experiences this horror to know that they are not alone. If you’re in tech and haven’t experienced abuse, but suspect that you know someone who has, this article will help you get a better understanding of their reality.
Because our experiences happened in the San Francisco Bay Area and in AI in particular, we share a broader concern about humanity’s shared future. The men who victimized us are shaping the world. We are canaries for their disregard for human dignity.
A puzzling phenomenon
In 2020, we lost a friend to suicide. She was an energetic and optimistic tech entrepreneur. She was speaking on world stages about her work to improve the state of the world.
More than a year prior to her death, she had allegedly been sexually abused at a conference. A successful man had allegedly shared a hotel room with her, given her drugs, and taken advantage of her. Among friends, we rumored that this had something to do with her death. But why did she die long after the event was over — and not right after the traumatic event, when the stress is supposedly the highest?
In this past decade in the San Francisco Bay Area, we have come across similar stories. Many women left. A few died. By now, many of us know more women with tech backgrounds who have left Silicon Valley than who are still there. Of those who left, everyone mentioned non-consensual sexual experiences and the resulting fallout.
What’s the reality?
Here is an anonymized list of the reality of women whose experiences contributed directly or indirectly to this article.
A was sexually assaulted. She moved to another country and re-enrolled in college to earn a new degree in a different industry. Her rapist’s career was unaffected.
B worked at a venture fund for tech startup companies. She was groomed for being trafficked in Epstein’s network. She left the Silicon Valley Bay Area. She now works in tech in another country.
C was an investor for tech startup companies. She left after a well-liked entrepreneur violently attacked her. Her abuser’s career was unaffected. He flourishes in AI.
D’s reputation was destroyed by a close male friend of hers after she was raped by a buddy of his. After the rapist started addiction treatment and somewhat owned up and apologized, she was cautiously tolerated in the tech community again. She now has a new job and a family.
E quietly struggled, hinted at traumatic experiences, and took her own life.
F was tied up and sexually assaulted. She left the tech industry and moved away. Her rapist’s career was unaffected. He flourishes in AI.
G was sexually assaulted while intoxicated. She moved to another country. Her rapist’s career was unaffected. He flourishes in AI.
H was sexually assaulted in her sleep. Her rapist slandered her mental health, leading her to be ostracized. Later, her rapist was ostracized himself after he sexually assaulted someone of higher social status and popularity.
J was abused on business travel at a conference. She died of suicide more than a year later. Her rapist’s career was unaffected.
K was a VP at a major tech company. She left Silicon Valley after she was raped on business travel and subsequently fired. Her rapist was investigated, but never formally charged. His career flourishes.
L was abused several times. She went on to study misogyny and reported about it to the Effective Altruism community. Her work was dismissed. She named her abusers in an elaborate post, then took her own life. Her accusations were dismissed. [0]
M left the Bay Area for two years after being sexually assaulted, then returned to start a new life. Her rapist’s life was unchanged.
N was sexually abused by someone influential who keeps inspiring social aggression against her. She is considering a dignified death at a euthanasia facility in Switzerland. His career flourishes.
Why though?
This phenomenon has puzzled some. Why do women in Silicon Valley, instead of getting therapy and support, leave their lives behind? Some of us even received therapy money from our respective rapists. And yet, after much struggle to stay, we couldn’t. Some of us hosted goodbye events. One woman even organized a “funeral” gathering before leaving to say goodbye to her career, her friends, and her chosen family. Why is sexual assault in the Silicon Valley Bay Area such a life-ending event?
We argue that the initial trauma of a sexual consent violation, while severe, does not explain the magnitude of the impact on the lives and careers of women. The real horror is in how the Bay Area treats its witnesses of sexual abuse. Women leave after sexual assault because of the loss of belonging, psychological safety, and shared meaning.
The real horror is in how the Bay Area treats its witnesses of sexual abuse.
Introducing the Alice
In this article, besides calling a person a survivor, a victim, or a witness¹ of sexual abuse in the Silicon Valley Bay Area² (which are all appropriate terms in the right context), we will call them an “Alice”³. “Alice” refers broadly to a person who experienced a violation in a world pitted against her⁴. This is intended to be a value-neutral allegory to the fairytale protagonist who unexpectedly finds herself in a bizarre world full of nonsense and casual cruelty. It also challenges the “Karen” trope that is weaponized against Alices. Next time you encounter someone alleging abuse and getting called a Karen, you may ask yourself: “Is she really a Karen? Or is she an Alice?”
“Is she really a Karen? Or is she an Alice?”
Down the rabbit hole
When we talk about the Bay Area or Silicon Valley culture, we’re referring to the particularities of tech workers and the tech elites. A wealthy social class of a particular type of neurodivergence dominates the culture. Many people formally or informally identify on the autism spectrum. Openness to new experiences is high, and mind-altering drugs are common and popular. Akin to royal courts of the past, exclusive events are where deals are made and new companies are founded. It creates an environment that can be extremely fun and stimulating, but also dangerous and unaccountable. With drugs, parties, overflowing testosterone, a lack of communication skills, and blindness to social cues, consent violations happen easily and frequently.
A perpetrator often has an active imagination, projecting more sexual desire than what actually was present in the other party. His⁴ perception may be affected by a long string of encounters with women where he successfully imposed his fantasy on them, including “no consent parties” where drugged women are available for him to have his way with. An Alice, on the other hand, suffers from a lack of imagination: She expects society to work as advertised, her boundaries to be respected, and is unwilling to bend to his distorted version of reality. To a tech entrepreneur who has a “reality distortion field” around him, living in a fantasy world of his making, this can be an unusual and jarring experience. An Alice is an unwelcome tether from the default world.
A perpetrator often has an active imagination, projecting more sexual desire than what actually was present. An Alice is an unwelcome tether from the default world.
In concrete numbers
Can we estimate how many “bad apples” there are? In a study⁵ among US college students, almost a third of the men (31.7%) said that in a consequence-free situation, they’d force a woman to have sexual intercourse. The Artificial Intelligence industry is highly male-dominated, with only an estimated 12% of employees in AI being women⁶. In our back-of-the-envelope comparison, the AI industry can be estimated to contain more self-identified sexual assaulters than women.
This tracks when we look at the statistics about victims in this population, too. Women on the Asperger’s spectrum, the archetype of the “technical person” (that Elon Musk identifies as, too), report⁸ rates of sexual assault at 90%.
Sexual assault is very rarely reported to the police, and when it is, the police even more rarely move the case to formal charges⁹.
Another characteristic of Bay Area tech culture is that there is little to no separation between work and private life. Work, community, housing, spiritual life, our “tribe”, everything is one big source of meaning, and different from “normie” life. This is very effective for startups, but when it fails, Alices are left without support, social connection, or sources of meaning.
Statistically, the AI industry can be estimated to contain more sexual assaulters than women.
No way home
Once a consent violation has happened, a perpetrator may recruit allies in a war against the Alice while she is still in shock. The collective efforts to shut down her truth render her world bizarre. As a result, the Alice can no longer live an authentic life: She has to choose between conforming to the pressure and denying her reality or saying goodbye to her network, her career, and her ability to keep and form social connections. The section “Real life Cyberball” below describes what this looks like concretely.
We’ve found¹⁰ that the amount of second-hand betrayal is most highly correlated with the perceived social influence of the perpetrator, such as his wealth, his power, and his network. Social climbers will further harm the Alice to curry favor with the perpetrator.
The Cyberball experiment
In a classic psychology experiment¹¹, a human participant sits in front of a screen to play a simple game. They, let’s call them player A, virtually tosses a ball back and forth with two other players. It’s simple, wholesome, ball-tossing fun. A tosses to B, B to C, then back to A, and so on. Now comes the kicker: Players B and C stop including A in their tosses. A watches helplessly as B and C keep tossing the ball to each other, but never to A. A’s stress response shoots up. What A doesn’t know is that the game had been rigged from the beginning; they are the only real participant.
As players B and C exclude A from their ball tosses, player A will soon start to get nervous, then distressed, and then hopeless. We can measure their significant stress responses, for example in their skin¹² and in their pupils¹³. Brain scans¹⁴ revealed that these feelings of social exclusion are registered in the same way as physical pain¹⁵. Their distress is negatively correlated with a sense of control, belongingness, and meaningful existence¹⁶.
Luckily, it was just a brief experiment, and they can go back to the real world where they are seen and included. Often, the researchers let the participant play a few more inclusive rounds of Cyberball in the end to undo the feeling of ostracization.
We posit that even more than the initial sexual assault, this social pain of ostracism exiles and ultimately kills Alices. Instead of a quick trauma that could be addressed and resolved, it is a slow, ongoing, excruciating one, happening repeatedly until the Alice gives up on shared meaning, social connection, and impactful work.
Real life Cyberball
Calling the Alice’s reality cruel and bizarre is no exaggeration. We have collectively experienced the following acts of ostracization after sexual assault:
We were uninvited from events and conferences.
We lost jobs and had job offers revoked.
We were removed from group chats.
When contracted for work, employers have requested secrecy from us to be able to deny knowing us.
Speaking engagements were canceled.
Our trauma was disclosed as a reason to exclude us from communities, conferences, job opportunities, and retreats.
Elaborate documents were circulated in group chats in our absence on the topic of our character and mental health.
Cherry-picked screenshots were circulated in group chats, along with elaborate discussion for character assassination.
Our friends have been selectively approached and influenced to no longer engage with us.
We were unfriended and blocked on social media by former friends.
We were frozen out and lied to about upcoming social gatherings.
Warnings were circulated about us with calls to spread the warning to everyone.
We were kicked out of community housing, and prevented from finding new housing within the network.
Besides ostracization, we experienced concerted efforts to silence us, including:
When reacting with fear to being in the presence of our rapist, we were accused of “projecting our trauma” and ruining a friendly event.
We were manipulated in various ways to agree that what happened wasn’t “really” sexual assault.
We were pressured to sign non-disclosure agreements or “consent statements” in a manipulative “community process”.
We were put through triggering psychedelic experiences — and accused of not being spiritually enlightened enough when it didn’t change our story.
We were put through intimidating “community mediation” processes by self-appointed “witch hunters”. When we didn’t recant at the end of the process, we were excluded on the grounds of failing the process.
We were pressured to publicly “admit” to lying about the sexual assault, under the promise that it would end the ostracization.
We were threatened and intimidated to stay silent in text, in voice, and in person.
We were vilified for “violating social norms” when we named an abuser.
We were directed to file our concerns with self-appointed community stewards, who advocated for silence, no police intervention, and who, on multiple occasions, compassionately recommended suicide.
And then there was opportunistic harm, including:
We were targeted with other interpersonal crime, such as theft and appropriation, followed by the thieves joining ranks with the rapists to cast doubt on us.
We were refused pay, equity, and credit for our work, followed by the employer joining ranks to freeze us out from our industry.
Humiliating websites were put up about us with cherry-picked screenshots and non-consensual recordings.
Our home address was publicly released (doxxed) with encouragement for harassment.
We were pressured into sexual acts to “prove ourselves” to “community advocates”.
We were preyed on by other sexual assaulters in the rapist’s network. The amount of predation after the initial assault implies a gossip network among rapists where they help each other identify targets and coordinate to harm the woman’s credibility.
It is now becoming more clear how our friend died in 2020. After the sexual assault, rumors began to circulate that she was crazy, annoying, and dangerous. Her distress, confusion, and shock at being frozen out from meaningful interactions were interpreted to confirm the rumors about her annoyingness and contributed further to her isolation. Over time, it became impossible for her to raise capital for her business, to find a new job, or to have trusted friends, until there was nothing meaningful left. Ultimately, she stopped communicating, eating, and drinking water. She died alone, in a slow death of starvation and dehydration.
Among us, a certain kind of gossip and warning about a woman raises skepticism now. More likely than not, the woman is another Alice, and the gossip is the candy trail that leads back to a rapist and his circle of enablers.
Among Alices, we confidentially share knowledge not only about the men who violate boundaries, but also about those who will do their dirty work of harming the women’s reputations. While rapists vary, the ones who take an active role in ending women’s careers, social life, and belonging in the Bay Area are a shockingly small number of individuals who come up over and over. A wealthy and popular entrepreneur in AI has been identified by half a dozen women for having harmed their reputations after they were raped by buddies of his. A thought leader in AI safety wrote multiple slandering documents about women whom his friends had raped. They often present as extraordinarily “caring about the community”, seeking social leadership positions. Needless to say, the presence of these “witch hunters” does not imply any actual witchcraft — just like in historic days, non-conforming women are eliminated to protect the establishment and the illusions that uphold it.
Deep thanks to everyone who contributed to this report.
Footnotes
[2] The same dynamics may happen in other locations, too, most likely everywhere where power is largely held by men.
[3] This is not to be confused with the neurological condition called Alice in Wonderland syndrome. canmedaj00720–0006.pdf (nih.gov) Alice in Wonderland syndrome | Neurology Clinical Practice
[4] We are using female pronouns when referring to the Alice concept, although male victims and non-binary victims exist, too. To respect their gender identity, their preferred label may be included when referencing them specifically, such as “male Alice”. Perpetrators are referred to in this article with male pronouns to distinguish from the Alice’s female pronouns. Of course, all genders can do everything in conducive circumstances.
[5] Denying Rape but Endorsing Forceful Intercourse: Exploring Differences Among Responders | Violence and Gender (liebertpub.com)
[7] Sexual Assault of Women | AAFP
[8] Frontiers | Evidence That Nine Autistic Women Out of Ten Have Been Victims of Sexual Violence (frontiersin.org)
[9] Why don’t more women report sexual assault to the police? | CMAJ
[10] Observational — a scientific study on this would be great!
[11] Cyberball: A program for use in research on interpersonal ostracism and acceptance | SpringerLink
[12] Cold-blooded loneliness: Social exclusion leads to lower skin temperatures — ScienceDirect
[13] The social pain of Cyberball: Decreased pupillary reactivity to exclusion cues — ScienceDirect
[14] Does rejection hurt? An FMRI study of social exclusion — PubMed (nih.gov)
[15] Neuroscience. Feeling the pain of social loss — PubMed (nih.gov)
[16] Afraid of Social Exclusion: Fear of Missing Out Predicts Cyberball-Induced Ostracism | SpringerLink
Thanks for posting and drawing more attention to this. I can only imagine that it takes a lot of courage to write about this in such a public manner. I hope you and your friends have all the support the you need.
Reading this makes me feel really angry and sad, both that an initial violation occurs, and also that later harm occurs.
Thank you a lot for this comment. I am honestly surprised and saddened by the number of downvotes on Mandelbrot’s post and think it’s ironically reflective of the issue she is drawing attention to.
‘A wealthy social class of a particular type of neurodivergence dominates the culture. Many people formally or informally identify on the autism spectrum. Openness to new experiences is high, and mind-altering drugs are common and popular. Akin to royal courts of the past, exclusive events are where deals are made and new companies are founded. It creates an environment that can be extremely fun and stimulating, but also dangerous and unaccountable. With drugs, parties, overflowing testosterone, a lack of communication skills, and blindness to social cues, consent violations happen easily and frequently.’
As a man with an Asperger’s Diagnosis from childhood, who is quite visibly autistic*, and not in tech, I feel kind of in two minds about whether I object to this passage.
On the one hand, sadly, I do suspect that it is in fact true that men with autism are more likely to commit sexual assault**. And I generally lean on the side of people saying stuff that is true and relevant, even if it is a bit non-PC, so it’d be kind of hypocritical for me to condemn the authors outright.
On the other hand, this is, effectively, an attack on a minority that already (in most contexts) faces a lot of bullying ( https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13603116.2014.981602) and hostility. (I suspect some of the hostility may in some sense be a reasonable response to how we behave but I doubt all of it is.) I also suspect we face higher rates of workplace discrimination, though from quick googling I wasn’t able to find a high-quality looking study measuring this directly, as opposed to a lot of poor-quality looking papers asserting this was a known fact and then measuring a different but related thing. (Again, I admit that the line between “discrimination” and “people reasonably reacting to autistic behaving badly” can get blurry, but I doubt this accounts for all discrimination.) And it’s an attack being presented in passing without any supporting statistical evidence being cited whatsoever. Imagine if you experienced things like articles coming out in scientific journals about how everyone instantly dislikes you and there’s nothing you can do about it (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286449/), or read things that made you realize you (probably) weren’t just being paranoid when you thought people automatically narrowed circles you were standing in to exclude you at social and professional events https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2020/10/on-being-a-philosopher-with-autism.html. And then suddenly you had people planting the idea you were more likely to be rapists on the public forum of the social movement you are involved in. It is quite distressing.
I don’t know if I think the authors should have left it out. But I’d at least like people to discuss this sensitively, and remember that for me, the quoted passage is not just a bit of sociological scene-setting before we move on to the important stuff. It’s more like a reminder of the reasons why in grad school I told one of the people writing a reference for me “no, don’t say that my stimming doesn’t get in the way of my teaching, because I’m scared that if people hear I’m on the spectrum, they’ll assume I’m a high sexual harassment risk”.
*I.e. I stim (https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behaviour/stimming) visibly enough that drunks in bars have assumed I’m learning disabled and in need of a minder, I’ve been verbally mocked in the street for my body language, and also in one case a bunch of German lads on a night out in a bar in Kreuzberg came over to mock me for rocking back and forth and got really quite menacing.
**I’m less confident this extends to the kind of deliberate, planned predation this post discusses elsewhere, as opposed to simply ignoring boundaries in the moment.
Speaking of autism, this article mentions some characteristics of autistic women that seem potentially relevant:
I think autistic men and women have a lot to contribute to the EA movement.
It seems to me that we should be especially protective towards autistic women, as they’re a potentially vulnerable population. In particular, I hypothesize that autistic women might experience e.g. sensory overload from unpleasant social interactions that neurotypical women would evade or brush off.
OP mentions that 90% of autistic women report being sexually assaulted. A quick Google suggests the number for neurotypical women is substantially lower. There is a lot of uncertainty in my mind regarding the cause of this disparity. It could be that autistic women are targeted by predators; it could be that autistic women experience a “sexual assault” level of trauma from a broader set of interactions; it could be some combination.
In any case, I like almost all the autistic women I’ve met, and it upsets me that they’re disproportionately suffering. I think it would be good if EAs took a protective attitude towards a vulnerable population which, IMO, has a lot to contribute.
This is very insightful. I can think of a few reasons why autistic women may be more vulnerable to sexual abuse:
Autistic women may be more isolated from protective informal networks with other women that could warn them or help them make sense of their relational experiences.
In general, they may be less communicative about “touchy-feely” things like intimate interactions, making it more difficult to analyze them.
They may gravitate towards fields and environments that are male-dominated and contain strong power gradients (in finance, engineering, AI, etc).
They may be less alert to people’s hidden motives.
Due to their neurological wiring, the intensity of the experience may cause them to “leave their bodies”, making it impossible to react quickly or fight back. This can mistakenly cause the man to allege consent, especially if he’s used to passive intimate partners.
The overload of the experience may make it more difficult to process it afterward, too. Women have reported prolonged periods of confusion, dissociation from their bodies, and a sense of horror without being able to clearly articulate the crime.
Many people on the autism spectrum have experienced punishments and shaming for violating social norms from early childhood, leading to insecurity about expressing themselves. This makes it harder to confidently express their preferences in intimidating or manipulative situations.
The same threat about violating social norms keeps them quiet afterwards, too. One woman reported that after she disclosed her spectrum identity, she was told by a rationalist “community council” member that she would violate a social norm if she named her abuser.
Thank you for your comment. I understand promoting narratives that autistic men may be more likely to be sexual predators is deeply unfair and encourages neurotype discrimination (and tracks alongside some racism narratives).
That said, I don’t think this post is saying that, nor is that the point of the post. I think it’s pointing that this has historically correlated with risk factors for all genders. I have also seen (usually wealthy, high status) men use autism as an excuse for boundary violating behavior (they may not even be autistic in the first place, lol).
I would love to find a way to talk about this that does not unfairly condemn non-predatory autistic men.
Thanks for being kind. I regret commenting at all to be honest.
EDIT: That is, I regret commenting because I actually agree that it is more important people attend to the issues raised by the post than that they worry about the one paragraph that was bothering me.
I want to make clear that I’m not saying that people on the autism spectrum are more prone to being sexual assailants (I don’t know of any statistics on this), but they experience sexual victimhood more often (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.852203/full). From the comments I understand that it comes across that way, and I will think about how to rephrase it—open to suggestions.
Thanks for clarifying.
I am glad you raised this point. I am not a neuropsychologist so please treat this comment with a low level of confidence. Anecdotally, I have heard multiple times of psychologists wrongly diagnosing people as being on the Autism spectrum when really those patients were narcissists. For instance, someone with Asperger may violate social conventions because they don’t understand them. Someone with narcissism may violate social conventions because although they understand them, they don’t care or they actually enjoy the transgression. Someone with Asperger will have affective empathy but lower cognitive empathy so it may look like they don’t care about others suffering. A narcissist may truly not care about someone else’s suffering. I think it tends to especially the case for covert narcissism (also called vulnerable narcissism) because some of the behaviors are very similar. I may be wrong but I doubt that Asperger people are more prone to being sexual assailants. However, I believe narcissists certainly are more prone to it, and they would be the type to pretend to be neuro-atypical in order to justify their behaviors. I think this is terrible because it probably has the adverse effect of creating fear of people with Aspergers, who in my opinion don’t deserve this reputation.
Thank you for this clarification. I’m not saying that people on the autism spectrum are more prone to being sexual assailants (I don’t know of any statistics on this), but they experience sexual victimhood more often (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2022.852203/full). From the comments I understand that it comes across that way, and I will think about how to rephrase it—open to suggestions.
Also, I should add that some people can have both!
You say “we”, but from my personal acquaintance with you I would definitely not put you in one group with the attackers this post is about, and I’ll emphasise that you don’t deserve any hostility.
I have not been to the Bay Area as an adult, so I can only guess about what’s going on there. But trying to extrapolate my experiences in, say, Sci-Fi conventions, I think the (relevant aspect of the) problem is people who use autism—many times without an actual diagnosis—as an excuse to dismiss their actions’ effects on others.
This is correct, thank you for bringing it up. One woman reported that even a person in CEA leadership made excuses for sexual transgressors on the basis of their neurodivergence.
I am not referring to the attackers mentioned in the post when I say “we” there, but to people with autism as a whole, when speculating about why we might receive a higher rate of bullying and hostility across society as a whole.
We have found it relevant to describe the population characteristics. Reportedly nine out of ten autistic women have been victims of sexual violence. If you haven’t been raped, haven’t raped anyone, don’t know anyone who was raped, and don’t have empathy for victims (autistic or not), then this post probably isn’t for you and it isn’t about you.
Frontiers | Evidence That Nine Autistic Women Out of Ten Have Been Victims of Sexual Violence (frontiersin.org)
For some of these acts of ostracization, silencing, and harm, would it be possible to name which organizations/individuals did these[1]? I’d like to lessen/avoid contact with them.
I understand that concerns about libel probably exist for some, and concerns about the victim’s privacy probably exist for some of the scenarios. No need to respond if you prefer to not share any additional information.
Something like:
• [ORG_A] revoked a job offer from someone after she was raped.
• [NAME_1] was the administrator of a group chat that removed a member after she spoke up about sexually assaulted.
• [NAME_2] shared a home address with encouragement for harassment.
• I was uninvited from [CONFERENCE_X].
I’ve been thinking about this, too. What are recommended practices for naming bad actors? I’m tempted to name some right here in the comments, but I’m concerned that few others might notice or care since it’s in a sub-comment, making the risk alerting them into action not worth it.
Some might identify themselves by attacking this post, downvoting, or jumping into action against women who might report them. We might spot them in the shadows by paying attention.
The primary requirement would be getting the permission of the victims, as naming the perpetrators could expose the victims to retaliation by the bad actors.
Are there other considerations, too?
It is pretty notable how frequently bad actors / bystanders out themselves on this forum if you watch for red flags.
Can you name some of the red flags to watch for? I’d also be interested in hearing who some of the bad actors are (perhaps in a DM if you don’t want them to know they’ve been spotted).
This post is incredibly eloquent, well-written, and disturbing.
I will need several days, minimum, to fully process the implications of people who have committed felonies being active in Silicon Valley AI, and good actors getting systemically driven out.
I sense the second and third order effects are much greater and more disturbing than anyone realizes.
Thank you for writing this post.
Note that L was the only example in your list which was specifically related to EA. I believe that that accusation was false. See here for previous discussion.
I would also be interested in more clarification about how EA relevant the case studies provided might be, to whatever extent this is possible without breaking confidentiality. For example:
this does not sound like the work of CEA Community health team, but it would be an important update if it was, and it would be useful to clarify if it wasn’t so people don’t jump to the wrong conclusions.
That being said, I think the AI community in the Bay Area is probably sufficiently small such that these cases may be personally relevant to individual EAs even if it’s not institutionally relevant-it seems plausible that a potential victim who gets into AI work via EA might meet alleged abusers in cases A to K, even if no EA organizations or self-identified EAs are involved.
I can’t comment on whether these cases were EA involved because I don’t know.
As you said, the Silicon Valley AI community is extremely small, which makes this relevant to the EA AI sphere, and AI safety more broadly.
The situation with person L was deeply tragic. This comment explains some of the actions taken by CEA’s Community Health team as a result of their reports.
Even if most examples are unrelated to EA, if it’s true that the Silicon Valley AI community has zero accountability for bad behavior, that seems like it should concern us?
EDIT: I discuss a [high uncertainty] alternative hypothesis in this comment.
I think where it relates to EA is our worry about the future of complex life. If transformative superintelligence is developed in a morally bankrupt environment, will that create value-aligned AI?
I don’t see anything on the linked post in this comment that L’s report was false from legitimate sources.
OP stated that L’s accusations were dismissed by the EA community.
Hi Mandelbrot,
Thanks for sharing. The stories of individual women from Silicon Valley are very harrowing.
This point in struck me:
> The men who victimized us are shaping the world. We are canaries for their disregard for human dignity.
It is a deeply sad thing about the world that those who wield power are often unethical or ignorant of the plight of those who they affect. With the improvement in AI technology, I’m expecting rapid changes in who (or what) wields power, so I’m feeling very anxious about this getting worse.
I encourage victims of sexual misconduct to reach out to others for support, and to seriously consider reporting the incident.
People you can report to or seek support from:
If the incident relates to someone involved in the EA community in some way, you can contact the Community Liaisons (Julia Wise, Charlotte Darnell and me), anonymously if you wish.
University authorities if the misconduct involved university staff or students, or a university affiliated group
Police
Human resources staff or managers, if the misconduct was associated with a workplace
The organiser of the event, if the incident happened at an event.
A lawyer—one option with an advice line is Bay Area Legal Aid, or this guidance from Women’s Law on finding a lawyer
And friends and family
Many countries have free sexual misconduct advice available. Some people find it helpful to talk to one of these support services to learn more about what is likely to happen if you report to the police. Here are some resources that may be useful for the US, UK and Australia. We don’t have experience working with these organisations.
Information and Support for Sexual Harassment Survivors - mostly US
RAINN—US
Free legal advice on sexual assault or sexual harassment (US only)
24⁄7 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line—UK
List of sexual assault services—Australia
Respect@Work—Australia (workplace)
We also encourage victims to seek mental health support. EA Mental Health Navigator can help people in our community access support.
Thank you for this absolutely brilliant expose. I know too many people who have stories like these ones.
I worry about the broader effects on AI alignment, given that Silicon Valley AI is somewhat selecting for bad actors.
I have a lot more to stay but will take some time to process everything here first.
I could be missing reasons not to do this, but would you be able to link to the post that you mention? I think that could give me a lot of context and it seems especially relevant to this community.
The situation with person L was deeply tragic. This comment explains some of the actions taken by CEA’s Community Health team as a result of their reports.
Good idea. Here it is: If I Can’t Have Me, No One Can (Kathleen Rebecca Forth — Born April 11, 1980) | by Itai Emberwell | Medium
I believe that these accusations are false. See here for previous discussion.
OP stated that L’s accusations were dismissed by the EA community. Your link doesn’t provide any proof that they’re false. So it seems like you’re proving OP right.
There’s some evidence in that thread they weren’t dismissed by the EA community given the claim that multiple people were banned from EA events as a result. Perhaps not all accusations lead to an action, and you/OP mean dismissed as in “not entirely accept all claims”, but it does seem like that’s a pretty high, and likely unreasonable bar.
I do not see valid claims that L’s report was false on the post you link, and to be totally honest, this comment is a bit of a red flag.
Hi Lucretia,
I’m really sorry about your experiences, and I think it is noble of you to try and fix this problem.
It kind of seems like Buck is being placed into a double bind here. The OP denounces “acts of ostracization” and “opportunistic harm”:
Buck seems to be a in something of a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. If he provides proof, he’s liable to be accused of ostracization, opportunistic harm, or slander. If he doesn’t, that could be a bit of a red flag, that proves how EA dismisses women.
Note Scott Alexander’s reasoning for not sharing proof publicly:
Do you disagree with Scott’s reasoning? If so, why?
It seems like you’ve arrived at a similar place Scott has, with regard to your own case—you don’t mention your name, or the name of the person who hurt you, and you’re not sharing much proof.
If we’re going to avoid public discussion, is it OK to e.g. share evidence with Maya privately?
What do you think the “rules of engagement” should be here? I’d like to see a set of agreed-upon guidelines, such that a person who follows those guidelines can be confident that they won’t later be accused of ostracization, harm, slander, dismissiveness, or anything like that.
Again—I don’t feel knowledgeable about the details of what happened to you, but I’m sorry it happened, it’s clear to me that it hurt you a lot, and I think you deserve an apology, at the very very least, from the person who hurt you.
Sending compassion and support your way!
Those who are familiar with Scott Alexander’s stories about Kathy Forth said that he slandered her on the basis of her mental health, without ever having met her. I find this unethical and stigmatizing to people who are getting treatment for mental health conditions.
Scott said: “She had a paranoia for being targeted for rape”—It is easy to guess where that paranoia comes from. People whose houses burned down panic at the smell of smoke. If anything at all, this indicates that she has indeed experienced rape.
“Investigations had found it to be false”—The conviction rate for sexual assault is abysmally low. Just because an incident couldn’t be proven doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Scott is epistemologically incorrect here.
He then reported a widely shared “warning” that Kathy makes false accusations, which could have just as easily been put out by a rapist or two and their friends. If you put yourself in the shoes of a woman who has been sexually assaulted, this is an absolute horror. She can never feel safe in the community again because no matter what happens to her, she won’t be believed. When rapists hear a “warning” like this, they have found their next convenient victim because the discrediting work has already been done for them. Imagine being a woman who has a target on her back like this and the most essentially layer of recourse, her word, stripped away.
The presence of “warnings”, the fear about sexual assault, the body of work on misogyny, and ultimately the suicide and her suicide note all together are strong evidence for me that Kathy has been falsely discredited after sexual assault.
That’s not what Maya said.
Sorry, where did Scott say that?
She could’ve experienced rape many years before becoming involved in EA. Perhaps that created a paranoia that lead to her making false accusations once she became involved in EA.
“The conviction rate for sexual assault is abysmally low” doesn’t help us figure out whether a given person is guilty or innocent. We want the conviction rate for innocent people to be low. (Could you confirm that you’re on board with that, at least?)
This sounds like a fully general way to excuse any false accusation.
Suppose I say: “Mandelbrot is a thief.” You say: “Where’s the proof?” I say: “Just because an incident couldn’t be proven doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. You’re epistemologically incorrect here.” How does that make you feel?
In any case… I think the most productive discussion here is about the rules of engagement. What is the right way to discuss the possibility of a false accusation, without being accused of ostracization, harm, slander, dismissiveness, etc.?
If there’s no right way to discuss the possibility of a false accusation, we can’t trust the community to come to accurate conclusions, which leaves us in the dark.
I think if you believe that false accusations are rare, the thing to do is work to create a widely trusted investigative process. If there’s an investigative process which is widely trusted, and it finds that most accusations are true, people will see the pattern.
I might have more to say later. All I can say right now is that I am familiar with these stories.