Assuming fraud occured: the harder question is whether those who received funding have an obligation to return it, at least under some circumstances. Verbally condemning fraud is a rather low bar; presumably few would openly defend any fraudulent behavior that occured. But some people may be holding grants funded by fraud, and any future avoidable spending of those funds could be seen as condoning the fraud.
I think this point is really important. Statements like those mentioned in the post are important, but now that FTX doesn’t look like it’s going to be funding anyone going forward, they are also clearly quite cheap. The discussion we should be having is the higher stakes one, where the rubber meets the road. If it turns out that this was fraudulent, but then SBF makes a few billion dollars some other way, do we refuse that money then? That is the real costly signal of commitment, the one that actually makes us trustworthy.
Assuming fraud occured: the harder question is whether those who received funding have an obligation to return it, at least under some circumstances. Verbally condemning fraud is a rather low bar; presumably few would openly defend any fraudulent behavior that occured. But some people may be holding grants funded by fraud, and any future avoidable spending of those funds could be seen as condoning the fraud.
I think this point is really important. Statements like those mentioned in the post are important, but now that FTX doesn’t look like it’s going to be funding anyone going forward, they are also clearly quite cheap. The discussion we should be having is the higher stakes one, where the rubber meets the road. If it turns out that this was fraudulent, but then SBF makes a few billion dollars some other way, do we refuse that money then? That is the real costly signal of commitment, the one that actually makes us trustworthy.
For those interested in discussions on this, linking out to other posts, too, see the question Under what conditions should FTX grantees voluntarily return their grants? by sawyer.