The role of the EA movement in the case of FTX seems surely to meet the level of influence for some of the impact win’s that EA has had so far here.
Perhaps most prominently, the movement:
Gave the idea of ‘Earning to Give’ to Sam
Provided a primary motivation to Sam and other FTX leadership to build the exchange
For example, when comparing to the case of Sendwave, the influence seems at least comparable and if not larger e.g. played a motivational role in founding a company, for the purpose of improving the world. (I’m not familiar with Wave’s founders motivations, so could be wrong here)
In welfare terms alone, the impact of FTX’s collapse on it’s customers seems plausibly comparable to some of the impact win’s of the movement to date. I.e. of the order of $1bn in lost funds. Given this, I think that an honest impact evaluation of the EA movement would include the harm caused to customers through FTX’s collapse.
This is relevant not for blame assignment, but because it’s very decision-relevant to EA’s mission of improving the world. For example, when in the future deciding how much to emphasise harm avoidance when encouraging the (good and novel) idea of Earning to Give.
Thanks for writing this.
On EA Grants: Will you allow individuals to fund EA Grants in the future? This could either be letting individuals add to CEA’s pot of funding for grants, publishing the rejected grants so that individuals can fund them independently or putting the applications on EA funds.
On EA Funds:
What types of funds and models might this investigation include?