Was the “at least one EA” 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. I’d 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 don’t have any special knowledge here. (Certainly he was never Glebbed.)
Was the “at least one EA” 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 someone’s work is “opposed” to a common EA position, it’s 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 don’t think you will be able to change their mind, you might not want to invest the time in exploring that disagreement.
Sure—that’s a good thing to clarify. When I say “opposed to,” I mean that it seems like the things he presently cares about don’t seem connected to a cause-neutral welfare-maximizing perspective (though I can’t say I know what his motivations are, so perhaps that is what he’s aiming for).
Most notably, his PAC explicitly supports an “America First immigration policy,” 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 don’t understand exactly what his aims are at this point, but it feels like he’s far away enough from the EA baseline that I wouldn’t want to assume a motivation of “do the most good in a cause-neutral way” anymore.
Was the “at least one EA” 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. I’d 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 don’t have any special knowledge here. (Certainly he was never Glebbed.)
Not really.
I think you have to be careful here, because if someone’s work is “opposed” to a common EA position, it’s 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 don’t think you will be able to change their mind, you might not want to invest the time in exploring that disagreement.
Sure—that’s a good thing to clarify. When I say “opposed to,” I mean that it seems like the things he presently cares about don’t seem connected to a cause-neutral welfare-maximizing perspective (though I can’t say I know what his motivations are, so perhaps that is what he’s aiming for).
Most notably, his PAC explicitly supports an “America First immigration policy,” 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 don’t understand exactly what his aims are at this point, but it feels like he’s far away enough from the EA baseline that I wouldn’t want to assume a motivation of “do the most good in a cause-neutral way” anymore.