Create prediction markets and forecasting questions on AI risk and biorisk. I also work part-time at a prediction market.
Use my connections on Twitter to raise the profile of these predictions and increase the chance that decision-makers discuss these issues.
I liked CEA’s statement
Writing statements like this is really hard. It’s the equivalent of writing one tweet on something that you know everyone is gonna rip to pieces. I think there are tradeoffs here that people on the forum don’t seem to acknowledge. I am very confident (90%) that a page length discussion of this would have been worse in terms of outcomes.
I don’t think it was for us—I think it was for journalists etc. And I think it performed its job of EA not being dragged into all of this. Note how much better it was than either Anders’ statement or Bostrom’s—no one externally is discussing it, and in an adversarial environment that means it’s succeeded.
I think it was an acceptable level of accuracy. It’s very hard to write short things, but does EA roughly hold that all people are equal? Yes I think that’s not a bad 4 word summary. I think a better summary is “the value of beings doesn’t change based on their position in space or time and I reject the many heuristics humanity has used to narrow concern which have led to the suffering we see today—racism, sexism, speciesism, etc”. I think that while more precise that phrase isn’t that much more accurate and is worse in other ways—it’s just hard to understand.
It condemned the language Bostrom used without saying he was wrong to hold views. To me this is clearly more truth-seeking than practically any other organisation would have published.
I think we should judge CEA and by their track records, not one statement. I think they are a truth-seeking, effective organisation and if not, I don’t think it’s this statement that has changed that for me
I think the statement suggests that CEA doesn’t have a tolerance for language or flippancy like this, but doesn’t suggest that they are gonna sever ties with Bostrom. That seems like the right call.
I think people can dislike it. I really want people to feel free—but currently I don’t.
Conflict of interest: I like Shakeel and feel loyalty to him which probably distorts this.
I agree the we ignore experts over people who are more value aligned. Seems like a mistake.
Personal feelings (which I don’t imply are true or actionable)
I am annoyed and sad.
I want to feel like I can trust the leaders of this community are playing by a set of agreed rules. Eg I want to hear from them. And half of me trusts them and half feels I should take an outside view that leaders often seek to protect their own power. The disagreement between these parts causes hurt and frustration.
I also variously feel hurt, sad, afraid, compromised, betrayed.
I feel ugly that I talk so much about my feelings too. It feels kind of obscene.
I feel sad that saying negative things, especially about Will. I sense he’s worked really hard. I feel ungrateful and snide. Yuck.
Object level
I don’t think this article moves me much This article moves me a bit on a number of important things:
We have some more colour around the specific warnings that were given
It becomes much more likely that MacAskill backed Bankman-Fried in the aftermath of the the early Alameda disagreements which was ex-ante, dubious and ex-post disasterous. The comment about threatening Mac Auley is very concerning.
I update a bit that Sam used this support as cover
I sense that people ought to take the accusations of inappropriate sexual relationships more seriously to be consistent, though I personally I am uncertain cos we don’t have much information
edit mainly after talking to Naia in the comments, I update towards being uncertain about whether we knew SBF was unusually badly behaved (from being confident he wasn’t). ie maybe we did have the information required to be pretty sure he wasn’t worth funding or to keep him at arms length. As I say I am uncertain but previously I dismissed this
The 80k interview feels even worse researched/too soft than I previously thought
I still sense that core EAs take this seriously
I still think they don’t think they can talk
I still don’t understand why they can’t give a clear promise of when they will talk and that the lack of this makes me trust them less
I think we had lots of info that sam was a bit dodgy before the FTX crash, but that this was not above normal the levels of many CEOs of rapidly growing business (I have read most about Google’s early days and it was very shifty)
Perhaps EA should have higher standards, but I sense not.
I still think that we should have been much more careful linking ourselves reputationally to FTX
I think the big thing here to note is that even those who saw sam at his worst did not expect the FTX crash, so I guess the question is “should sam have been lauded, given his early behaviour at alameda”. I think no, but given what we knew I am uncertain whether he should have been condemned not condemned either
I think not talking while there is in investigation is reasonable
I have made both criticisms and defences of MacAskill and Beckstead and stand by them
I still think they are both very talented, perhaps more so as a result of the growth and wisdom this will engender in them (I have often thought it was dumb that people remove leaders who make mistakes) edit Though this article does add additional concerns
I would still like an argument that they shouldn’t be removed from boards, when almost any other org would. I would like the argument made and seen to be made.
I have noticed how hard it is to talk publicly about these things. Recently I’ve updated more in favour that there just are emotional, social and some career costs (and benefits) to trying to have accurate semi-public discussions about these things. People DM me. I hear people are annoyed, I build both social credit and debt. I think less than some say, but more than none.
I cannot deny that I am tempted to mediate my comments so that people will like me and probably do a bit
Missing context
I have a reasonable amount of time for the notion that EA leaders should have an independent investigation and I don’t think the article gives that enough credit
Many business leaders are disagreeable people who do grey things. Uber’s activities were deliberately illegal in many countries and I probably on balance support that. edit I am less in agreement with my tone here. The article mentions this, but in my opinion it should be written in big letters in the top that:
None of the early Alameda employees who witnessed Bankman-Fried’s behavior years earlier say they anticipated this level of alleged criminal fraud. There was no “smoking gun,” as one put it, that revealed specific examples of lawbreaking. Even if they knew Bankman-Fried was dishonest and unethical, they say, none of them could have foreseen a fraud of this scope.
If even they didn’t think this, I don’t think we should be surprised that core EAs didn’t either.
Relevant things people may or may not have known:
In the early days of Alameda, SBF reneged on deals with other EAs and had very poor financial management. Many core EAs knew this
Other:
My gut says that Naia Bouscal is telling the truth, since before I knew her in relation to this, I thought she was a pretty straight shooting twitter account.
Edited to combine two comments (one personal one more general) into one and add points as I think of them.
How do you feel?
What do you think?
Thanks for writing this, Will. I appreciate the honesty and ambition. Thank you for all you do and I hope you have people around you who love and support you.
I like the framing of judicious ambition. My key question around this and the related longtermism discussion is something like, What is the EA community for?
A democractic funding body?
A talent pool?
Community support?
Error checkers?
Are we the democratic body that makes funding decisions? No and I don’t want us to be. Doing the most good likely involves decisions that the median EA will disagree with. I would like to trial forecasting funding outcomes and voting systems, but I don’t assume that EA should be democratic. The question is what actually does the most good.
Are we a body of talented professionals who work on lower wages than they otherwise would? Yes, but I think we are more than that. Fundamentally it’s our work that is undervalued, rather than us. Animals, the global poor and future generations cannot pay to save their own lives, so we won’t be properly remunerated, except by the joy we take from doing it.
Are we community support for one another? Yes, and I think in regard to this dramatic shift in EA’s fortunes that’s particularly important. It is weird to move from scarcity to abundance. I wasn’t around in the EArly days, but I was working on cash-strapped community projects and it is good to take that discussion seriously.
Are we error checkers for community decisions? Maayybee. For me, this is one where we could do better. Currently, you either get sent the important google docs or you don’t. While I don’t think the community should make decisions, there is a lot of value in allowing them to look over them. But largely I don’t think the technology required to synthesise and correct huge amounts of information as an informal community exists yet. But given the potential value, it is worth looking into.
What is the EA community for? And what infrastructure is worth building in order to ensure that function as we scale as this post describes?
This list should have karma hidden and entries randomised. I guess most poeple do not read and vote all the way to the bottom. I certainly didn’t the first time I read it.
Fwiw I have little private information but think that:
I sense this misses some huge successes in EA getting where it is. Seems we’ve done pretty well all things considered. Wasn’t will part of that?
Will is a superlative networker
He is a very good public intellectual. Perhaps Ord could be if his books were backed to that extent. Perhaps Will could be better if he wrote different books. But he seems really good at it. I would guess that on that public intellectual side he’s a benefit not a cost
If I’d had the ability to direct billions in philanthropy I probably would have, even with nagging doubts.
It seems he’s maybe less good at representing the community or managing orgs. I don’t know if thats the case, but I can believe it.
If so, it seems possible there is a role as a public intellectual associated with EA but who isn’t the only one
I feel bad when writing criticism because personally I hope he’s well and I’m very grateful to him.
Also thanks Habryka for writing this. I think surfacing info like this is really valuable and I guess it has personal costs to you.
An attempt to express the “this is really bad” position.
These are not my views, but an attempt to describe others.
Imagine I am a person who occasionally experiences racism or who has friends or family for whom that is the case. I want a community I and my friends feel safe in. I want one that shares my values and acts predictably (dare I say, well-aligned). Not one that never challenges me, but one where lines aren’t crossed and if they are, I am safe. Perhaps where people will push back against awful behaviour so I don’t have to feel constantly on guard.
Bostrom’s email was bad and his apology:
Was focused on himself
Decided to take a long detour into the very subjects that make me feel unsafe in the first place
And to add to that, rather than the community saying “yes that was bad” a top response is “I stand with Bostrom”. I understand that people might say “trust us, you know we are good and not racist” but maybe I don’t trust them. Or maybe my friends or family are asking me about if I know this Bostrom guy or if he’s part of my community.
And maybe I am worried that Bostrom et al don’t have the interests of people of colour at heart when they think about the far future. Perhaps, like the first female astronaut, who was asked if she needed 100 of tampons for the week, I am concerned that the far future is not being built with anything like an understanding of the needs of me or people of colour.
Heck, perhaps Bostrom wouldn’t hire someone like me. His apology doesn’t inspire confidence. Whenever I meet someone who holds these views it’s only an amount of time before I see those views worked out in their actions. This might seem overblown, but it plays on my mind.
At that point, the endless focus on the object level might make me feel like this isn’t the community for me. I’m not trying to bully you into submission, but I’m signalling that if you don’t take a moment I might leave. Or people like me won’t join.
More than this these are just good values I want in a community I want to be part of. I want a community with empathy. And I want a community with a good reputation.
Imagine we’re both taking an uber and the driver takes a turn too fast. “Slow down” I shout. You say “it’s fine, it’s fine”. I say “Look, can we tell the driver pull into a side road and stop for a bit”. The question isn’t whether they took the corner too fast, it’s about whether you support me when I don’t feel safe. And if you don’t, I’m gonna get out of the car.
This was written after conversations with a few friends. I’m trying to do a good job but it’s probably flawed, nor do I claim to be a good spokesperson here, I’m not. I think some people are seeing this as an intellectual discussion while others are trying to feel safe and comfortable. If they don’t, those people might leave. While I might not mediate my tone in discourse for an adversary, I often do for my friends.
I haven’t thought about it much but removing people from boards after a massive miscalculation seems reasonable.
Like our prior should be to replace at least Nick and Will right?