Anthropic: Founded due to xrisk concern, most of the staff are EA, most of the initial funding was EA, EA encouraged people to work there etc
OpenAI: Founded on the back of superintelligence concerns, the FLI Open Letter (the last one!)and a behind closed doors conference organised by EAs. Much of the staff was EAs, and OpenAI was publicised and legitimised by EAs, including capabilities jobs on the job board etc. OpenPhil money got it going (maybe counterfactual would have done anyway)
That’s certainly what OpenPhil says about it. I don’t know enough to comment, beyond saying it clearly still legitimised the company and in general as said the EA energy and ideology definitely counterfactual I would say led to their foundation
I’d say without ideas around AGI doom coming out of EA/Longtermist spheres and being popularised by people in that sphere ( Stuart Russell, Nick Bostrom, FLI etc), openAI probably doesn’t happen. So I’d say makes their foundation over 50% more likely. In this sense ‘led to’ seems pretty adequate
With the AI XRisk stuff it’s hard to say what counts as ‘EA’ vs ‘proto-EA’; you are right though, it’s mostly the pre-EA bostrom-miri- rationalist cluster. I’ve lump them in with EA, maybe you don’t want to
Anthropic: Founded due to xrisk concern, most of the staff are EA, most of the initial funding was EA, EA encouraged people to work there etc OpenAI: Founded on the back of superintelligence concerns, the FLI Open Letter (the last one!)and a behind closed doors conference organised by EAs. Much of the staff was EAs, and OpenAI was publicised and legitimised by EAs, including capabilities jobs on the job board etc. OpenPhil money got it going (maybe counterfactual would have done anyway)
I sense that the OpenPhil money was quite a small and easily replaced part of the raise. Is that not your sense?
That’s certainly what OpenPhil says about it. I don’t know enough to comment, beyond saying it clearly still legitimised the company and in general as said the EA energy and ideology definitely counterfactual I would say led to their foundation
Made their foundation maybe 5% more likely, perhaps. Led to it seems way too strong, right?
I’d say without ideas around AGI doom coming out of EA/Longtermist spheres and being popularised by people in that sphere ( Stuart Russell, Nick Bostrom, FLI etc), openAI probably doesn’t happen. So I’d say makes their foundation over 50% more likely. In this sense ‘led to’ seems pretty adequate
Isn’t Bostrom publishing that stuff before EA? Though would we take responsibility if it were positive?
With the AI XRisk stuff it’s hard to say what counts as ‘EA’ vs ‘proto-EA’; you are right though, it’s mostly the pre-EA bostrom-miri- rationalist cluster. I’ve lump them in with EA, maybe you don’t want to
I guess if we would lump if positive we should lump if negative