I thank you for apologizing publicly and loudly. I imagine that you must be in a really tough spot right now.
I think I feel a bit conflicted on the way you presented this.
I treat our trust in FTX and dealings with him as bureaucratic failures. Whatever measures we had in place to deal with risks like this weren’t enough.
This specific post reads a bit to me like it’s saying, “We have some blog posts showing that we said these behaviors are bad, and therefore you could trust both that we follow these things and that we encourage others to, even privately.” I’d personally prefer it, in the future, if you wouldn’t focus on the blog posts and quotes. I think they just act as very weak evidence, and your use makes it feel a bit like otherwise.
Almost every company has lots of public documents outlining their commitments to moral virtues.
I feel pretty confident that you were ignorant of the fraud. I would like there to be more clarity of what sorts of concrete measures were in place to prevent situations like this, and what measures might change in the future to help make sure this doesn’t happen again.
There might also be many other concrete things that could be done to show your (and other senior people’s) care about these values.
Again, I appreciate the words, but if there’s one thing that the recent scandal taught us, it’s that it’s hard to take much from words. I don’t blame you here—but I would like us to have a culture where EAs can focus on evidence of credibility that’s much more high-signal than a list of previous altruistic writings.
All that said, I imagine that more rigorous evidence here will take more time.
Almost every company has lots of public documents outlining their commitments to moral virtues.
EA posts are very unlike company virtue statements. They include philosophical arguments (at least some of screenshots and linked posts do). I agree that there’s more that can (and maybe should) be said, but I think linking to extensive discussion of naive/act utilitarianism vs. global consequentialism, ethical injunctions, etc., is a great way to show that EAs have seriously engaged with these topics and come down pretty decisively on one side of it.
I think it’s nice, but I also think we should be raising the bar of the evidence we need to trust people.
SBF and the inner FTX crew seemed very EA. SBF had a utilitarian blog[1] that I thought was pretty good (for the time, it was ~2014).
He repeatedly spoke about how important it was for crypto exchanges to not do illegal activity. He even actively worked to regulate the industry.
I’d bet that SBF spent a lot more effort speaking and advocating about the importance of trustworthiness in crypto, then perhaps any of us on the importance of trust and regularly-good moral principles.
From what I understand, he was the poster boy for what trustworthy crypto looks like.
We at very least could really use measures that would have caught a SBF-lite.
> EA posts are very unlike company virtue statements.
Sure, but SBF definitely got through. I’m sure any of his co-conspirators also would have. EA-adjacent people an clearly fool EAs using these sorts of methods.
(I considered raising this issue more in the first post, but am happy to add it now that there’s push-back.)
I can’t find the blog now, and wouldn’t be surprised if it were no longer online. It’s possible I’m misremembering. I remember the blog having like ~6 posts or so, in around 2014. If anyone else has a link, it seems valuable to share it.
I think coming back to this, my point isn’t straightforwardly fair. My post above uses a lot of evidence in a way that makes it seem like the point is very obvious.
I think that bars like “does the person have public writing showing they deeply understand EA principles” are generally pretty decent and often have worked decently well.
The case with SBF does seem extremely unusual to me. Protecting against it isn’t just some “obvious set of regular measures”. It might take a fair deal of thought and effort.
I think that we should be thinking about how to that thought of effort. I think we should be working to find and assume ways of verification that would have at least caught some lite-SBF.
So, the example of SBF seemed too good to not share, but it is extreme, so can’t be taken too much as a typical example to be worried about.
I still think that we should set the bar higher than a few blog posts for situations like this though, and assume that Will would agree. (He meant this much more as a quick public statement, and not real evidence of innocence to EAs, I assume)
You should find a better example. The video above doesn’t contain any a relevant warning. Her criticism is that SBF is pro-regulation. Not that he was defrauding his customers and neither does she make any predictions about his exchange going down due to insolvency.
I agree with Lukas, though I also suspect this was mostly a failure of bureaucracy / competence / a few individuals’ moral character, rather than a failure that has much connection to EA ideology. I expect we’ll have more clarity on that later, as facts come to light.
Eh, let’s not overrate how much abstract arguments actually work to achieve their goals. Now the broader EA sphere has responded surprisingly well, but we need to move beyond abstract words, and instead focus more on what they actually do.
(Edit: I think now that I misread this a bit: I think this post is really meant as a hastily-written update, not a well-reasoned apology. I would appreciate just a head’s up that a longer doc is coming.)
I think one issue I have is that this post seems to be doing a few things at once, and it’s not very clear to me.
1. Publicly apologize for what happened 2. Re-affirm to those viewing this that doing things like fraud are not publicly endorsed by EA leadership 3. Outline Will’s involvement in the situation and describe who was responsible for it 4. Make it clear that Will wasn’t involved in the bad parts of the scandal, and can be trusted in the future
This post came from a Twitter thread. It seems like it was hastily written.
I don’t think this post does a great job at all points. It seems likely to me that it wasn’t meant to.
If this post is meant to be the best public statement of all 4 things, I would really like that to be made clear.
I’d personally prefer it, in the future, if you wouldn’t focus on the blog posts and quotes. I think they just act as very weak evidence, and your use makes it feel a bit like otherwise.
Especially when they contain massive qualifiers like “the ends do not ALWAYS justify the means”
That doesn’t strike me as a massive qualifier, it strikes me as something that’s straightforwardly true (or as true as a moral claim can be). For example, if you’re in a situation where you can lie to save 1B people from terrible suffering, then I bet most people think it’s not only acceptable, but obligatory to lie. If so, the ends clearly do sometimes justify the means.
I think it is morally correct and that people would agree with it, but I don’t think if it as strong evidence for the claim “we are against this type of behavior.”
Seems to me that you have it exactly backwards? Everyone agrees that the ends usually justify the means—e.g., it’s a good idea to go grocery shopping because this results in getting food. “Are there exceptions?” is exactly the claim that naive consequentialists are getting wrong.
I thank you for apologizing publicly and loudly. I imagine that you must be in a really tough spot right now.
I think I feel a bit conflicted on the way you presented this.
I treat our trust in FTX and dealings with him as bureaucratic failures. Whatever measures we had in place to deal with risks like this weren’t enough.
This specific post reads a bit to me like it’s saying, “We have some blog posts showing that we said these behaviors are bad, and therefore you could trust both that we follow these things and that we encourage others to, even privately.” I’d personally prefer it, in the future, if you wouldn’t focus on the blog posts and quotes. I think they just act as very weak evidence, and your use makes it feel a bit like otherwise.
Almost every company has lots of public documents outlining their commitments to moral virtues.
I feel pretty confident that you were ignorant of the fraud. I would like there to be more clarity of what sorts of concrete measures were in place to prevent situations like this, and what measures might change in the future to help make sure this doesn’t happen again.
There might also be many other concrete things that could be done to show your (and other senior people’s) care about these values.
Again, I appreciate the words, but if there’s one thing that the recent scandal taught us, it’s that it’s hard to take much from words. I don’t blame you here—but I would like us to have a culture where EAs can focus on evidence of credibility that’s much more high-signal than a list of previous altruistic writings.
All that said, I imagine that more rigorous evidence here will take more time.
EA posts are very unlike company virtue statements. They include philosophical arguments (at least some of screenshots and linked posts do). I agree that there’s more that can (and maybe should) be said, but I think linking to extensive discussion of naive/act utilitarianism vs. global consequentialism, ethical injunctions, etc., is a great way to show that EAs have seriously engaged with these topics and come down pretty decisively on one side of it.
[Edit: I have a reply to this in the comments]
I think it’s nice, but I also think we should be raising the bar of the evidence we need to trust people.
SBF and the inner FTX crew seemed very EA. SBF had a utilitarian blog[1] that I thought was pretty good (for the time, it was ~2014).
He repeatedly spoke about how important it was for crypto exchanges to not do illegal activity. He even actively worked to regulate the industry.
I’d bet that SBF spent a lot more effort speaking and advocating about the importance of trustworthiness in crypto, then perhaps any of us on the importance of trust and regularly-good moral principles.
Sam literally argued for trust and accountability to congress.
From what I understand, he was the poster boy for what trustworthy crypto looks like.
We at very least could really use measures that would have caught a SBF-lite.
> EA posts are very unlike company virtue statements.
Sure, but SBF definitely got through. I’m sure any of his co-conspirators also would have. EA-adjacent people an clearly fool EAs using these sorts of methods.
(I considered raising this issue more in the first post, but am happy to add it now that there’s push-back.)
I can’t find the blog now, and wouldn’t be surprised if it were no longer online. It’s possible I’m misremembering. I remember the blog having like ~6 posts or so, in around 2014. If anyone else has a link, it seems valuable to share it.
I believe this is SBF’s blog: http://measuringshadowsblog.blogspot.com/
I think coming back to this, my point isn’t straightforwardly fair. My post above uses a lot of evidence in a way that makes it seem like the point is very obvious.
I think that bars like “does the person have public writing showing they deeply understand EA principles” are generally pretty decent and often have worked decently well.
The case with SBF does seem extremely unusual to me. Protecting against it isn’t just some “obvious set of regular measures”. It might take a fair deal of thought and effort.
I think that we should be thinking about how to that thought of effort. I think we should be working to find and assume ways of verification that would have at least caught some lite-SBF.
So, the example of SBF seemed too good to not share, but it is extreme, so can’t be taken too much as a typical example to be worried about.
I still think that we should set the bar higher than a few blog posts for situations like this though, and assume that Will would agree. (He meant this much more as a quick public statement, and not real evidence of innocence to EAs, I assume)
This lady posted this 3 weeks ago. Some people in the crypto space have been warning about SBF, and FTX for over a year.
You should find a better example. The video above doesn’t contain any a relevant warning. Her criticism is that SBF is pro-regulation. Not that he was defrauding his customers and neither does she make any predictions about his exchange going down due to insolvency.
Not sure if you find this a better example:
https://twitter.com/Hedgeye/status/1591240664779743232
I agree with Lukas, though I also suspect this was mostly a failure of bureaucracy / competence / a few individuals’ moral character, rather than a failure that has much connection to EA ideology. I expect we’ll have more clarity on that later, as facts come to light.
Eh, let’s not overrate how much abstract arguments actually work to achieve their goals. Now the broader EA sphere has responded surprisingly well, but we need to move beyond abstract words, and instead focus more on what they actually do.
What do you mean, this community is largely composed of people who do really weird things in their day job based on abstract arguments.
Thanks for verifying that for me.
(Edit: I think now that I misread this a bit: I think this post is really meant as a hastily-written update, not a well-reasoned apology. I would appreciate just a head’s up that a longer doc is coming.)
I think one issue I have is that this post seems to be doing a few things at once, and it’s not very clear to me.
1. Publicly apologize for what happened
2. Re-affirm to those viewing this that doing things like fraud are not publicly endorsed by EA leadership
3. Outline Will’s involvement in the situation and describe who was responsible for it
4. Make it clear that Will wasn’t involved in the bad parts of the scandal, and can be trusted in the future
This post came from a Twitter thread. It seems like it was hastily written.
I don’t think this post does a great job at all points. It seems likely to me that it wasn’t meant to.
If this post is meant to be the best public statement of all 4 things, I would really like that to be made clear.
Especially when they contain massive qualifiers like “the ends do not ALWAYS justify the means”
That doesn’t strike me as a massive qualifier, it strikes me as something that’s straightforwardly true (or as true as a moral claim can be). For example, if you’re in a situation where you can lie to save 1B people from terrible suffering, then I bet most people think it’s not only acceptable, but obligatory to lie. If so, the ends clearly do sometimes justify the means.
I think it is morally correct and that people would agree with it, but I don’t think if it as strong evidence for the claim “we are against this type of behavior.”
So massive is too big of a word, but the qualifier in some sense let’s everything in and isn’t powerful.
Seems to me that you have it exactly backwards? Everyone agrees that the ends usually justify the means—e.g., it’s a good idea to go grocery shopping because this results in getting food. “Are there exceptions?” is exactly the claim that naive consequentialists are getting wrong.