Yeah those are good questions. I have already helped build wind farms to power the data centers of various big tech companies so my conscience is by no means “clean”! Moreover, I own stock, especially via index funds in Meta and other organizations. I also use and even rely on Meta, Alphabet, etc. for a lot of good in my life and make other purchases that are far less ethical. In the end, I think my analysis would show that no matter what, I am embedded in this super connected and complex society where a lot of different interests are pulling in different directions and I am part of that intricate web trying to nudge, in a very miniscule way, our shared future towards something a bit more hopeful and a bit more secure. Still, I would be worried if I get in trouble from being honest about this, and publicly honest about my uncertainty about whether my sources of funding might make my philanthropic endeavors net positive or not. I think for now it is net positive, but I am quite uncertain about this, especially if e.g. I would receive substantial funding from Meta due to an increase in its share price due to its push for open source, risky AGI. It would be fantastic if there was some rating of philanthropic sources that indicated the likelihood that using such funding would be ok or not. But I think that’s a big ask and with the amount of risk and suffering around us perhaps it is better to just try to do something good.
Yeah those are good questions. I have already helped build wind farms to power the data centers of various big tech companies so my conscience is by no means “clean”! Moreover, I own stock, especially via index funds in Meta and other organizations. I also use and even rely on Meta, Alphabet, etc. for a lot of good in my life and make other purchases that are far less ethical. In the end, I think my analysis would show that no matter what, I am embedded in this super connected and complex society where a lot of different interests are pulling in different directions and I am part of that intricate web trying to nudge, in a very miniscule way, our shared future towards something a bit more hopeful and a bit more secure. Still, I would be worried if I get in trouble from being honest about this, and publicly honest about my uncertainty about whether my sources of funding might make my philanthropic endeavors net positive or not. I think for now it is net positive, but I am quite uncertain about this, especially if e.g. I would receive substantial funding from Meta due to an increase in its share price due to its push for open source, risky AGI. It would be fantastic if there was some rating of philanthropic sources that indicated the likelihood that using such funding would be ok or not. But I think that’s a big ask and with the amount of risk and suffering around us perhaps it is better to just try to do something good.