The “ethics is a front” stuff: is SBF saying naive utilitarianism is true and his past messaging amounted to a noble lie? Or is he saying ethics in general (including his involvement in EA) was a front to “win” and make money? Sorry if this is super obvious, I just see people commenting with both interpretations. To me it seems like he’s saying Option A (noble lie).
EDIT: Just adding some examples of people interpreting it as Option B (EA was the front): 1234
I also got the same impression. He talks about “ethics”, but in context he seems (I’m not completely sure) to be talking about something like ethical injunctions specifically.
If this is his line of thinking it still comes off as flawed to me. He is intelligent enough to know that there was a risk involved of people losing their money.
If we assume he weighed the risks and determined that the chance of success in this risky venture outweighed the possibility of many thousands of people losing their life savings; well I suppose we could say he was misguided at best and indifferent to the suffering of others at worst.
At what point do we stop taking what someone says at face value and instead look at their actions?
Agree but leaning more towards Option B. Wish this was discussed more explicitly, since it’s the question that determines whether this was “naive utilitarian went too far” (bad) or “sociopath using EA to reputation-launder” (bad). Since EA as a movement is soul-searching right now, it’s pretty important to figure out exactly which thing happened, as that informs us what to change about EA to prevent this from happening again.
whether this was “naive utilitarian went too far” (bad) or “sociopath using EA to reputation-launder” (bad).
I think this is a false dichotomy. You can be a psychopath (i.e. have highly elevated psychopathic traits) and nonetheless be a true believer in an ideology that is about bettering the world. For example, Stalin clearly had highly elevated psychopathic traits but (IIRC) he also risked his life to further communist goals. (To be clear, I’m not saying that Sam is nearly as bad as Stalin.)
C, Neither. The obvious interpretation is exactly what he said—people ultimately don’t care whether you maintained their standard of ‘ethical’ as long as you win. Which means that as far as talking about other people’s ethics, it’s all PR, regardless of how ethical you’re being by your own standards.
(I basically concur. Success earns massive amounts of social capital, and that social capital can buy a whole lot of forgiveness. Whether it also comes with literal capital which literally buys forgiveness is almost immaterial next to that.)
So he’s said essentially nothing about his own ethics and whether he believes he stuck to them. Later elaboration strongly suggests he considered his actions ‘sketchy’ but doesn’t even say that outright. This is entirely consistent with SBF believing that he never did anything wrong on purpose.
Whether you think that belief is true, false but reasonable, or totally delusionary, is a separate matter. Just based on this interview I’d say “false but reasonable”, but there’s a lot of unsubstantiated claims of a history of lying that I haven’t evaluated.
I’ve edited the post to mention this issue, linking to this comment and a recent post that appeared on the question. Getting this right seems pretty crucial to the whole discussion.
The “ethics is a front” stuff: is SBF saying naive utilitarianism is true and his past messaging amounted to a noble lie? Or is he saying ethics in general (including his involvement in EA) was a front to “win” and make money? Sorry if this is super obvious, I just see people commenting with both interpretations. To me it seems like he’s saying Option A (noble lie).
EDIT: Just adding some examples of people interpreting it as Option B (EA was the front): 1 2 3 4
I also got the same impression. He talks about “ethics”, but in context he seems (I’m not completely sure) to be talking about something like ethical injunctions specifically.
I had a similar impression. Some related thoughts here.
If this is his line of thinking it still comes off as flawed to me. He is intelligent enough to know that there was a risk involved of people losing their money.
If we assume he weighed the risks and determined that the chance of success in this risky venture outweighed the possibility of many thousands of people losing their life savings; well I suppose we could say he was misguided at best and indifferent to the suffering of others at worst.
At what point do we stop taking what someone says at face value and instead look at their actions?
Agree but leaning more towards Option B. Wish this was discussed more explicitly, since it’s the question that determines whether this was “naive utilitarian went too far” (bad) or “sociopath using EA to reputation-launder” (bad). Since EA as a movement is soul-searching right now, it’s pretty important to figure out exactly which thing happened, as that informs us what to change about EA to prevent this from happening again.
I think this is a false dichotomy. You can be a psychopath (i.e. have highly elevated psychopathic traits) and nonetheless be a true believer in an ideology that is about bettering the world. For example, Stalin clearly had highly elevated psychopathic traits but (IIRC) he also risked his life to further communist goals. (To be clear, I’m not saying that Sam is nearly as bad as Stalin.)
Good point, I think I’ve heard this perspective before but forgot.
C, Neither. The obvious interpretation is exactly what he said—people ultimately don’t care whether you maintained their standard of ‘ethical’ as long as you win. Which means that as far as talking about other people’s ethics, it’s all PR, regardless of how ethical you’re being by your own standards.
(I basically concur. Success earns massive amounts of social capital, and that social capital can buy a whole lot of forgiveness. Whether it also comes with literal capital which literally buys forgiveness is almost immaterial next to that.)
So he’s said essentially nothing about his own ethics and whether he believes he stuck to them. Later elaboration strongly suggests he considered his actions ‘sketchy’ but doesn’t even say that outright. This is entirely consistent with SBF believing that he never did anything wrong on purpose.
Whether you think that belief is true, false but reasonable, or totally delusionary, is a separate matter. Just based on this interview I’d say “false but reasonable”, but there’s a lot of unsubstantiated claims of a history of lying that I haven’t evaluated.
I’ve edited the post to mention this issue, linking to this comment and a recent post that appeared on the question. Getting this right seems pretty crucial to the whole discussion.