One small comment I’d make is that Bill Gates has been hammered for the way he does philanthropy, I would argue more severely then effective altruism. Most notably by mainstream development orgs and a number of fairly high profile consipiracy theories.
But if the debacles of the last few months continue we might overtake Bill on the criticism front, but let’s hope not.
I think that like you say, EA AGI doomer longtermists might have performed one of the most botched PR job in history. Climate change advocates rightly focus on protecting the world for our grandchildren, and the effect of climate change on the poorest people being far worse. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard AGI people talking in these kind of heartstring-pulling compassionate terms. These same arguments should be made by the AI crowd, realising that the general public has different frames of reference than they do.
Thank you! That’s very interesting r.e. Gates; that wasn’t my impression at all but to be honest I may very well be living in a bubble of my own making, and I’m sure I’ve missed plenty of criticism. That said, I think I might still suggest that there’s two different kinds of criticism here: EA gets quite a bit of high-status criticism from fairly mainstream sources (academics, magazines, etc.); if Bill Gates’s criticism comes more from conspiracy loons then I would suggest it’s probably less damaging, even if it’s more voluminous. (I think both have got a lot of flak from those development orgs who were quite enjoying being complacent about whether they were actually being successful or not.)
And yes I completely agree r.e. longtermism & PR! I wrote something quite similar a couple of months ago. It seems to me that longtermism has an obvious open goal here and yet hasn’t (yet) taken it.
I agree that Gates has been heavily criticised too. This is probably because he’s a billionaire and because he’s involved himself so heavily in issues (such as the pandemic) which attract lots of attention. It might not be a coincidence, though, that there’s not much philosophical difference between Bill Gates and, say, Peter Singer. Gates wrote a blurb praising Singer’s The Most Good You Can Do, and in his recent annual newsletter he said that his goal is to “give my wealth back to society in ways that do the most good for the most people”.
Thanks so much for this, great reflection!
One small comment I’d make is that Bill Gates has been hammered for the way he does philanthropy, I would argue more severely then effective altruism. Most notably by mainstream development orgs and a number of fairly high profile consipiracy theories.
But if the debacles of the last few months continue we might overtake Bill on the criticism front, but let’s hope not.
I think that like you say, EA AGI doomer longtermists might have performed one of the most botched PR job in history. Climate change advocates rightly focus on protecting the world for our grandchildren, and the effect of climate change on the poorest people being far worse. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard AGI people talking in these kind of heartstring-pulling compassionate terms. These same arguments should be made by the AI crowd, realising that the general public has different frames of reference than they do.
Thank you! That’s very interesting r.e. Gates; that wasn’t my impression at all but to be honest I may very well be living in a bubble of my own making, and I’m sure I’ve missed plenty of criticism. That said, I think I might still suggest that there’s two different kinds of criticism here: EA gets quite a bit of high-status criticism from fairly mainstream sources (academics, magazines, etc.); if Bill Gates’s criticism comes more from conspiracy loons then I would suggest it’s probably less damaging, even if it’s more voluminous. (I think both have got a lot of flak from those development orgs who were quite enjoying being complacent about whether they were actually being successful or not.)
And yes I completely agree r.e. longtermism & PR! I wrote something quite similar a couple of months ago. It seems to me that longtermism has an obvious open goal here and yet hasn’t (yet) taken it.
I agree that Gates has been heavily criticised too. This is probably because he’s a billionaire and because he’s involved himself so heavily in issues (such as the pandemic) which attract lots of attention. It might not be a coincidence, though, that there’s not much philosophical difference between Bill Gates and, say, Peter Singer. Gates wrote a blurb praising Singer’s The Most Good You Can Do, and in his recent annual newsletter he said that his goal is to “give my wealth back to society in ways that do the most good for the most people”.