I’m so sorry to read this Frances. What you’ve gone through is unimaginably awful, and I’m in awe of your bravery at posting this.
I don’t particularly have a desire to get into a debate with anyone about this, but IMO the behavior from senior leadership you outlined in this post ought to, in my opinion, count as behavior that should lead to resignations (more than have currently occurred).
(Disclosure: I used to work at CEA.)
What does he think about AI risk and what does he think humanity should do about it?
It seems you didn’t look very hard! https://x.com/shakeelhashim/status/1802493753841594711?s=46
You’ve misleadingly quoted me here. I said I was delighted to see The Guardian pick up my reporting on Brian Chau, not that I was delighted with the piece overall. I’m surprised that someone committed to truth-seeking would mislead forum users like this.
Someone sent the article to me, I thought it was interesting and tweeted about it. I live in the UK so maybe I saw it before others woke up?
I didn’t mention Habryka in any of my tweets. I mentioned him in this forum comment because he is the only person in this situation who I know is involved in EA “leadership”.
The definition of “controversial” is “giving rise or likely to give rise to controversy or public disagreement”. The definition of “controversy” is “prolonged public disagreement or heated discussion”. This unusually active thread is, quite clearly, an example of “prolonged public disagreement or heated discussion”.
One thing Manifest could do is stop actively associating with EA — promoting their events and funding platforms on this forum, etc. etc.
Of course Manifest is controversial; the very active and heated debate on this post is evidence of that!
now that I no longer work at CEA, no
You are of course entitled to that view, but I find it morally wrong!
Cease funding, stop giving them booths at EAG, stop inviting Habryka et al to EA leadership events like Meta Coordination Forum.
Thank you for writing this, and I’m really sorry you experienced it. I’m really disappointed that Manifold have learnt absolutely nothing after inviting Hanania last year, and that Lightcone are fine having such horrible people at their events. These organisations are, knowingly or not, actively making their communities unwelcoming to people of colour and other underrepresented groups. I personally think CEA and other major organisations like Open Philanthropy ought to cut all ties with Manifold/Lightcone.
Have you considered that the reason you don’t see a paradox here is because you are not one of the minorities targeted by the abhorrent views you and your organisation seek to platform?
As someone who works on comms stuff, I struggle with this a lot too! One thing I’ve found helpful is just asking decision makers, or people close to decision makers, why they did something. It’s imperfect, but often helpful — e.g. when I’ve asked DC people what catalysed the increased political interest in AI safety, they overwhelmingly cited the CAIS letter, which seems like a fairly good sign that it worked. (Similarly, I’ve heard from people that Ian Hogarth’s FT article may have achieved a similar effect in the UK.)
There are also proxies that can be kind of useful — if an article is incredibly widely read, and is the main topic on certain corners of Twitter for the day, and then the policy suggestions from that article end up happening, it’s probably at least in part because of the article. If readership/discussion was low, you’re probably not the cause.
This is really cool, thanks for organising it!
GiveWell’s previously recommended MSF as a good disaster relief org, so that would be my best guess. I’d love to know more, though.
“is there no EA press or comms unit that journalists contact before publishing such articles” — sometimes CEA or Forethought get asked for comment on pieces, but the vast majority of the time no one contacts us. It’s quite frustrating.
Yeah, the phrase “woke mob” (and similar) is extremely common in conservative media!
I note that in this post Austin doesn’t actually directly acknowledge that FTX misused customer funds, instead just saying that he’s “conflicted,” and that FTX “did wrong” and its “collapse harmed users”. I’m particularly confused what there is to be “conflicted” about. For avoidance of doubt: Austin, do you think that SBF and Caroline acted unethically and illegally in misusing customer funds, and do you think it is right that both were given criminal sentences? I think it would be good to clarify this.