Was the āat least one EAā someone in a position of influence?
My understanding is that Thiel stopped being especially interested in EA around the time he got into politics, but he might still be making AI-related donations here and there. Iād be surprised if he had wanted to speak at any recent EA Global conference, as most of his current work seems either opposed to or orthogonal to common EA positions. But I donāt have any special knowledge here. (Certainly he was never Glebbed.)
Was the āat least one EAā someone in a position of influence?
Not really.
most of his current work seems either opposed to or orthogonal to common EA positions.
I think you have to be careful here, because if someoneās work is āopposedā to a common EA position, itās possible that they disagree on facts related to that position but they are still motivated by doing the most good. It plays into the feedback loop I was talking about in the other comment. If you disagree with someone a lot, and you donāt think you will be able to change their mind, you might not want to invest the time in exploring that disagreement.
Sureāthatās a good thing to clarify. When I say āopposed to,ā I mean that it seems like the things he presently cares about donāt seem connected to a cause-neutral welfare-maximizing perspective (though I canāt say I know what his motivations are, so perhaps that is what heās aiming for).
Most notably, his PAC explicitly supports an āAmerica First immigration policy,ā which seems difficult to square with his espoused libertarianism and his complaints about technological slowdown in addition to being directly opposed to work from Open Phil and others. I donāt understand exactly what his aims are at this point, but it feels like heās far away enough from the EA baseline that I wouldnāt want to assume a motivation of ādo the most good in a cause-neutral wayā anymore.
Was the āat least one EAā someone in a position of influence?
My understanding is that Thiel stopped being especially interested in EA around the time he got into politics, but he might still be making AI-related donations here and there. Iād be surprised if he had wanted to speak at any recent EA Global conference, as most of his current work seems either opposed to or orthogonal to common EA positions. But I donāt have any special knowledge here. (Certainly he was never Glebbed.)
Not really.
I think you have to be careful here, because if someoneās work is āopposedā to a common EA position, itās possible that they disagree on facts related to that position but they are still motivated by doing the most good. It plays into the feedback loop I was talking about in the other comment. If you disagree with someone a lot, and you donāt think you will be able to change their mind, you might not want to invest the time in exploring that disagreement.
Sureāthatās a good thing to clarify. When I say āopposed to,ā I mean that it seems like the things he presently cares about donāt seem connected to a cause-neutral welfare-maximizing perspective (though I canāt say I know what his motivations are, so perhaps that is what heās aiming for).
Most notably, his PAC explicitly supports an āAmerica First immigration policy,ā which seems difficult to square with his espoused libertarianism and his complaints about technological slowdown in addition to being directly opposed to work from Open Phil and others. I donāt understand exactly what his aims are at this point, but it feels like heās far away enough from the EA baseline that I wouldnāt want to assume a motivation of ādo the most good in a cause-neutral wayā anymore.