Given that Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang appear to have committed serious fraud at FTX, and as a consequence have lost most of their fortunes, it would appear EA is at minus two billionaires since I wrote this. I haven’t thought much on how this changes the forecast, but here’s a rough guess.
First, as I mention in a footnote, the model predicts the number of additional billionaires, meaning the net change in EA billionaires from mid-2022 to mid-2027. So the original prediction of 3.5 additional ones would now need 5.5 new billionaires to come true. That seems improbable. I now think ~2 additional billionaires (90% CI: −1 to 7) between now and mid-2027 seems about right, enough to make it ±0 since August 2022. That is because (1) I’m less optimistic about EAs’ money-making abilities, (2) I’m less optimistic about EA membership growth and (3) I think it’s more likely now than before that wealthy EA donors stay anonymous or dissociate from EA. But time will tell.
I updated this post with the following addendum:
Given that Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang appear to have committed serious fraud at FTX, and as a consequence have lost most of their fortunes, it would appear EA is at minus two billionaires since I wrote this. I haven’t thought much on how this changes the forecast, but here’s a rough guess.
First, as I mention in a footnote, the model predicts the number of additional billionaires, meaning the net change in EA billionaires from mid-2022 to mid-2027. So the original prediction of 3.5 additional ones would now need 5.5 new billionaires to come true. That seems improbable. I now think ~2 additional billionaires (90% CI: −1 to 7) between now and mid-2027 seems about right, enough to make it ±0 since August 2022. That is because (1) I’m less optimistic about EAs’ money-making abilities, (2) I’m less optimistic about EA membership growth and (3) I think it’s more likely now than before that wealthy EA donors stay anonymous or dissociate from EA. But time will tell.