I agree that we’re now in a third wave, but I think this post is missing an essential aspect of the new wave, which is that EA’s reputation has taken a massive hit. EA doesn’t just have less money because of SBF; it has less trust and prestige, less optimism about becoming a mass movement (or even a mass-elite movement), and fewer potential allies because of SBF, Bostrom’s email/apology, and the Time article.
For that reason, I’d put the date of the third wave around the 10th of November 2022, when it became clear that FTX was not only experiencing a “liquidity crisis” but had misled customers, investors, and the EA community and likely committed massive fraud, and when the Future Fund team resigned. The other features of the Third Wave (the additional scandals and the rise in public interest in AI safety due to ChatGPT, GPT-4, the FLI letter, the CAIS statement, and so on) took a few months to emerge, but that week seems like the turning point.
But I think the more important question is: what will the ultimate impact on public image be when EA really needs public support (e.g., for AI regulation) against powerful interests (e.g., big tech companies pushing toward AGI) who have every incentive to educate (fairly or otherwise) the public about SBF/EA connections?
Right now, the question has low salience even for the minority who have heard of EA. I’m not sure how well low-salience opinion will correlate to opinion after all sides take their best shots on a high-salience issue.
That is a useful post, thanks. It changes my mind somewhat about EA’s overall reputational damage, but I still think the FTX crisis exploded the self-narrative of ascendancy (both in money and influence), and the prospects have worsened for attracting allies, especially in adversarial environments like politics.
I agree that we’re now in a third wave, but I think this post is missing an essential aspect of the new wave, which is that EA’s reputation has taken a massive hit. EA doesn’t just have less money because of SBF; it has less trust and prestige, less optimism about becoming a mass movement (or even a mass-elite movement), and fewer potential allies because of SBF, Bostrom’s email/apology, and the Time article.
For that reason, I’d put the date of the third wave around the 10th of November 2022, when it became clear that FTX was not only experiencing a “liquidity crisis” but had misled customers, investors, and the EA community and likely committed massive fraud, and when the Future Fund team resigned. The other features of the Third Wave (the additional scandals and the rise in public interest in AI safety due to ChatGPT, GPT-4, the FLI letter, the CAIS statement, and so on) took a few months to emerge, but that week seems like the turning point.
Thanks! You may be interested in my recent post with Emma which found that FTX does not seem to have greatly affected EA’s public image.
But I think the more important question is: what will the ultimate impact on public image be when EA really needs public support (e.g., for AI regulation) against powerful interests (e.g., big tech companies pushing toward AGI) who have every incentive to educate (fairly or otherwise) the public about SBF/EA connections?
Right now, the question has low salience even for the minority who have heard of EA. I’m not sure how well low-salience opinion will correlate to opinion after all sides take their best shots on a high-salience issue.
That is a useful post, thanks. It changes my mind somewhat about EA’s overall reputational damage, but I still think the FTX crisis exploded the self-narrative of ascendancy (both in money and influence), and the prospects have worsened for attracting allies, especially in adversarial environments like politics.
Yep, FTX’s collapse definitely seems bad for EA!
Is this your own experience, something you are confident of or something you guess? If the first two I might move towards you more.
FWIW I have strong agreement from personal experience
I sense this is true internally but not externally. I don’t really feel like our reputation has changed much in general.
Maybe among US legislators? I don’t know.