Here’s another summary. I used Gemini 2.0 Flash (via the API), and this prompt:
The following is a series of comments by Habryka, in which he makes a bunch of criticisms of the effective altruism (EA) movement. Please look at these comments and provide a summary of Habryka’s main criticisms.
Lack of leadership and accountability: He believes EA leadership is causing harm and lacks mechanisms for correcting course.
Emphasis on PR and narrative control: He condemns EA organizations’ risk aversion, guardedness, and attempts to control the narrative around FTX, prioritizing public image over transparency.
Inadequate community health: He laments conformity pressures, fears of reprisal for dissent, and insufficient efforts to cultivate a culture of open disagreement.
Entanglement with FTX: He faults EA leadership, particularly Will MacAskill, for endorsing Sam Bankman-Fried and entangling the movement with FTX despite warnings about SBF’s character.
Hero worship and lack of respect for intellectual leaders: He criticizes the hero worship of MacAskill, contrasting it with MacAskill’s perceived lack of engagement with other intellectual leaders in the community. He sees this as part of a pattern of MacAskill prioritizing popularity and prestige over community health and epistemic integrity.
Misleading communications and lack of transparency: He criticizes CEA for making inaccurate and misleading statements, for omitting crucial context in communications, and for concealing information about funding decisions.
Scaling too quickly and attracting grifters: He worries that EA’s rapid growth and increased funding attract deceptive actors and create perverse incentives.
Overreliance on potentially compromised institutions: He expresses concerns about EA’s deep ties to institutions like Oxford University, which may stifle intellectual exploration and operational capacity.
Ignoring internal warnings about FTX: He reveals that he and others warned EA leadership about Sam Bankman-Fried’s reputation for dishonesty, but those warnings went unheeded. He suggests he personally observed potentially illegal activities by SBF but chose not to share this information more widely.
Flawed due diligence and poor judgment in grantmaking: He feels EA leadership’s due diligence on SBF was inadequate and that they made poor judgments in providing him with substantial resources. He extends this criticism to grantmaking practices more generally.
Unfair distribution of resources: He argues that the current distribution of funds within EA doesn’t adequately compensate those doing object-level work and undervalues their contributions relative to donors. He argues for a system that recognizes the implicit tradeoff many have made in pursuing lower-paying EA-aligned careers.
Centralized media policy and negative experiences with journalists: While supporting a less centralized media policy, he also cautions against interacting with journalists, as they frequently misrepresent interviewees and create negative experiences.
FWIW it looks like claude is only summarising this quick take (all the quotes are from it)
Here’s another summary. I used Gemini 2.0 Flash (via the API), and this prompt:
Lack of leadership and accountability: He believes EA leadership is causing harm and lacks mechanisms for correcting course.
Emphasis on PR and narrative control: He condemns EA organizations’ risk aversion, guardedness, and attempts to control the narrative around FTX, prioritizing public image over transparency.
Inadequate community health: He laments conformity pressures, fears of reprisal for dissent, and insufficient efforts to cultivate a culture of open disagreement.
Entanglement with FTX: He faults EA leadership, particularly Will MacAskill, for endorsing Sam Bankman-Fried and entangling the movement with FTX despite warnings about SBF’s character.
Hero worship and lack of respect for intellectual leaders: He criticizes the hero worship of MacAskill, contrasting it with MacAskill’s perceived lack of engagement with other intellectual leaders in the community. He sees this as part of a pattern of MacAskill prioritizing popularity and prestige over community health and epistemic integrity.
Misleading communications and lack of transparency: He criticizes CEA for making inaccurate and misleading statements, for omitting crucial context in communications, and for concealing information about funding decisions.
Scaling too quickly and attracting grifters: He worries that EA’s rapid growth and increased funding attract deceptive actors and create perverse incentives.
Overreliance on potentially compromised institutions: He expresses concerns about EA’s deep ties to institutions like Oxford University, which may stifle intellectual exploration and operational capacity.
Ignoring internal warnings about FTX: He reveals that he and others warned EA leadership about Sam Bankman-Fried’s reputation for dishonesty, but those warnings went unheeded. He suggests he personally observed potentially illegal activities by SBF but chose not to share this information more widely.
Flawed due diligence and poor judgment in grantmaking: He feels EA leadership’s due diligence on SBF was inadequate and that they made poor judgments in providing him with substantial resources. He extends this criticism to grantmaking practices more generally.
Unfair distribution of resources: He argues that the current distribution of funds within EA doesn’t adequately compensate those doing object-level work and undervalues their contributions relative to donors. He argues for a system that recognizes the implicit tradeoff many have made in pursuing lower-paying EA-aligned careers.
Centralized media policy and negative experiences with journalists: While supporting a less centralized media policy, he also cautions against interacting with journalists, as they frequently misrepresent interviewees and create negative experiences.
The original post is only 700 words, and this is like half that length. Can you not give people the dignity of reading their actual parting words?
Pablo and I were trying to summarise the top page of Habryka’s comments that he linked to (~13k words) not this departure post itself.
Hmm true, I gave it the whole Greater Wrong page of comments, maybe it just didn’t quote from those for some reason.