None of Musk’s projects are by themselves bad ideas. None of them are obviously a waste of effort either. I agree the impacts of his businesses are mostly greater than the impact of his philanthropy, while the opposite is presumably the case for most philanthropists in EA.
I agree his takeover of Twitter so far doesn’t strongly indicate whether Twitter will be ruined. He has made it much harder for himself to achieve his goals with Twitter, though, through a series of many mistakes he has made during the last year in the course of buying Twitter.
The problem is that he is someone who is able to have an impact that’s neither based strictly in business nor philanthropy. A hits-based approach based on low-probability, high-consequence events will sometimes include a low risk of highly negative consequences. The kind of risk tolerance associated with a hits-based approach doesn’t work when misses could be catastrophic:
His attempts in the last month to intervene in the war in Ukraine and disputes over Taiwan’s sovereignty seem to speak for themselves as at least a yellow flag. That’s enough of a concern even ignoring whatever impacts he has on domestic politics in the United States.
The debacle of whether OpenAI as an organization will be a net positive for AI alignment and the involvement of effective altruism in the organization’s foundation is thought of by some as one of the worst mistakes in the history of AI safety/alignment. Elon Musk played a crucial role in OpenAI’s founding and has acknowledged he made mistakes with OpenAI since he has distanced himself from the organization. In general, the overall impact he has had on AI alignment is ambiguous. He remains one of a small number of individuals who have the most capability to impact public responses to advancing AI other than world leaders, though it’s not clear whether or how much he could be relied on to have a positive impact on AI safety/AI alignment in the future.
These are only a couple examples of the potential impact and risks of the decisions he makes that are unlike anything that any individual in EA has done before. An actor in his position should have a greater deal of fear and uncertainty that should at least inspire someone to be more cautious. My assumption is he isn’t cautious enough. I asked my initial question in the hope the causes of his recklessness can be identified, to aid in formulating adequate protocols for responding to the potentially catastrophic errors he commits in the future.
None of Musk’s projects are by themselves bad ideas. None of them are obviously a waste of effort either. I agree the impacts of his businesses are mostly greater than the impact of his philanthropy, while the opposite is presumably the case for most philanthropists in EA.
I agree his takeover of Twitter so far doesn’t strongly indicate whether Twitter will be ruined. He has made it much harder for himself to achieve his goals with Twitter, though, through a series of many mistakes he has made during the last year in the course of buying Twitter.
The problem is that he is someone who is able to have an impact that’s neither based strictly in business nor philanthropy. A hits-based approach based on low-probability, high-consequence events will sometimes include a low risk of highly negative consequences. The kind of risk tolerance associated with a hits-based approach doesn’t work when misses could be catastrophic:
His attempts in the last month to intervene in the war in Ukraine and disputes over Taiwan’s sovereignty seem to speak for themselves as at least a yellow flag. That’s enough of a concern even ignoring whatever impacts he has on domestic politics in the United States.
The debacle of whether OpenAI as an organization will be a net positive for AI alignment and the involvement of effective altruism in the organization’s foundation is thought of by some as one of the worst mistakes in the history of AI safety/alignment. Elon Musk played a crucial role in OpenAI’s founding and has acknowledged he made mistakes with OpenAI since he has distanced himself from the organization. In general, the overall impact he has had on AI alignment is ambiguous. He remains one of a small number of individuals who have the most capability to impact public responses to advancing AI other than world leaders, though it’s not clear whether or how much he could be relied on to have a positive impact on AI safety/AI alignment in the future.
These are only a couple examples of the potential impact and risks of the decisions he makes that are unlike anything that any individual in EA has done before. An actor in his position should have a greater deal of fear and uncertainty that should at least inspire someone to be more cautious. My assumption is he isn’t cautious enough. I asked my initial question in the hope the causes of his recklessness can be identified, to aid in formulating adequate protocols for responding to the potentially catastrophic errors he commits in the future.