Here are the facts nobody else has bothered telling you and you apparently haven’t bothered to check yourself, or even ask about.
1. “Honor not only the philanthropy but the personality and other activities of billionaire philanthropists because they are loyal to the EA brand” is no principle of EA.
It never has been. It never will be. It’s not even an idea in EA. Some individual participants in may behave like that’s the case but that’s not representative of any part of EA. Even the biggest funders of EA you’ve not mentioned yet on the EA Forum yet have for years received major criticism for their other philanthropic efforts, or their adverse consequences, especially political donations most in EA have disagreed with.
2. Sam Bankman-Fried has already received criticism from within EA and decent criticisms from outside EA have been appreciated too.
That includes the role of both the crypto industry and his recent contributions to various political campaigns. I won’t link to any particular criticism here on the EA Forum because there are several. You can find them by using the keywords “crypto”, “FTX”, “Sam Bankman-Fried”, or “political” in a single search.
3. Peter Thiel only ever donated to one organization associated with one cause in EA. He stopped because the growing consensus on the impact of AI on the future completely contradicted Thiel’s perspective.
Peter Thiel only ever donated to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). He hasn’t donated to MIRI since 2014. Most of those donations occurred before EA had even begun as a movement or AI safety/alignment was as strongly associated with EA. He has never donated to any other charity at any time that has ever received widespread endorsement from any section of EA.
That was also during a time when MIRI wasn’t as explicit about the kind of perspective on AI capabilities development they’ve continued to have until the present. MIRI was one of the main organizations behind a major international campaign to raise awareness of and build the AI safety/alignment ecosystem in 2014.
Thiel’s outlook is that advanced AI doesn’t pose a risk of some existential threat but that advancing AI will be a boon for humankind. He considered it harmful to stymie AI development and concluded EA was full of wrong-headed, pessimistic luddites. Because of all of that he disengaged with EA on his own terms.
4. Peter Thiel has never associated himself with EA in any other way since 2014.
He spoke at one EA conference in 2014. He didn’t want to . Some of his other philanthropic efforts, like for life extension or breakthrough science, are of interest to a minority of participants in EA. Yet the amount of donations or other support those causes receive through EA are negligible compared to the support other causes in EA receive. Almost none of those other organizations Thiel has ever donated to has ever tried to voluntarily affiliate or associate themselves with EA in any way.
Any connection between Thiel and EA ended well before there was a hint of his endorsement of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for President in 2016, or Thiel’s turn toward any of his more controversial political activities of the last few years.
As to Elon Musk, I’ve recognized it’s worth me writing a top-level post evaluating his relationship with EA and how it relates to his other philanthropic efforts during the last several years. Yet it’s for a lot of other reasons other than the one in this article you’ve previously cited. That’s an example of what I meant in my previous comment above about others outside of EA, and many inside of EA, being able to make better criticisms of that kind than the ones you care or know about.
Here are the facts nobody else has bothered telling you and you apparently haven’t bothered to check yourself, or even ask about.
1. “Honor not only the philanthropy but the personality and other activities of billionaire philanthropists because they are loyal to the EA brand” is no principle of EA.
It never has been. It never will be. It’s not even an idea in EA. Some individual participants in may behave like that’s the case but that’s not representative of any part of EA. Even the biggest funders of EA you’ve not mentioned yet on the EA Forum yet have for years received major criticism for their other philanthropic efforts, or their adverse consequences, especially political donations most in EA have disagreed with.
2. Sam Bankman-Fried has already received criticism from within EA and decent criticisms from outside EA have been appreciated too.
That includes the role of both the crypto industry and his recent contributions to various political campaigns. I won’t link to any particular criticism here on the EA Forum because there are several. You can find them by using the keywords “crypto”, “FTX”, “Sam Bankman-Fried”, or “political” in a single search.
3. Peter Thiel only ever donated to one organization associated with one cause in EA. He stopped because the growing consensus on the impact of AI on the future completely contradicted Thiel’s perspective.
Peter Thiel only ever donated to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). He hasn’t donated to MIRI since 2014. Most of those donations occurred before EA had even begun as a movement or AI safety/alignment was as strongly associated with EA. He has never donated to any other charity at any time that has ever received widespread endorsement from any section of EA.
That was also during a time when MIRI wasn’t as explicit about the kind of perspective on AI capabilities development they’ve continued to have until the present. MIRI was one of the main organizations behind a major international campaign to raise awareness of and build the AI safety/alignment ecosystem in 2014.
Thiel’s outlook is that advanced AI doesn’t pose a risk of some existential threat but that advancing AI will be a boon for humankind. He considered it harmful to stymie AI development and concluded EA was full of wrong-headed, pessimistic luddites. Because of all of that he disengaged with EA on his own terms.
4. Peter Thiel has never associated himself with EA in any other way since 2014.
He spoke at one EA conference in 2014. He didn’t want to . Some of his other philanthropic efforts, like for life extension or breakthrough science, are of interest to a minority of participants in EA. Yet the amount of donations or other support those causes receive through EA are negligible compared to the support other causes in EA receive. Almost none of those other organizations Thiel has ever donated to has ever tried to voluntarily affiliate or associate themselves with EA in any way.
Any connection between Thiel and EA ended well before there was a hint of his endorsement of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for President in 2016, or Thiel’s turn toward any of his more controversial political activities of the last few years.
As to Elon Musk, I’ve recognized it’s worth me writing a top-level post evaluating his relationship with EA and how it relates to his other philanthropic efforts during the last several years. Yet it’s for a lot of other reasons other than the one in this article you’ve previously cited. That’s an example of what I meant in my previous comment above about others outside of EA, and many inside of EA, being able to make better criticisms of that kind than the ones you care or know about.