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Notes -
"I liked it before it was cool."
This is a phrase typically associated to hipsters and the mainstream bands they still love, but I'm now starting to think the idea has some merit. I liked EA before it was cool.
It just makes sense to take an abstract principle ("black lives matter"), a set of causes, put them into a spreadsheet and sort by (black lives saved)/(dollars spent). Maybe that works for me because to borrow a phrase from Scott, I'm a regional manager of playing with tiny numbers in spreadsheets. Or jupyter notebooks, but whatever. I liked EA before it was cool.
But now? I'm not really sure I like the current EA movement much. Just today, a far left and a far right substack I read both converged on the idea that it has been captured by the mainstream.
https://eigenrobot.substack.com/p/effective-altruism-and-its-future
https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/sbf-ftx-ea-and-lt-my-reflections
I guess the example of the latter he's probably not hinting at is SBF's "effective" investment in "TRUMPLOSE".
https://external-preview.redd.it/ByiDrANZMyT2-CXazkm0rXXbXJ2bSgRTOnKDORrk9Gg.png?auto=webp&s=22c925a1be8509efa46fdef0a9a94c2822d32b0f
I can't see any plausible case this is "effective", but it's certainly the position of the rich.
For those in this community who are closer to the movements, what do you guys think is the current state of EA? It's clearly not just a bunch of weird nerds who discovered mosquito nets in uganda >> mental health for suburban teenagers anymore. But does that original core remain? Has it moved someplace new?
As someone who has also been around EA for a while and seriously involved, I think that many of the 'core EA' folks still remain deeply committed to the original vision. At recent EA Globals I talked to quite a few people very uncomfortable with the free-spending, involvement with crypto, and political bent of EA. Matthew Yglesias actually gave a talk where he urged EA to remain apolitical citing it as one of the main strengths of the movement.
My take is that unfortunately EA has run into the problem of their original insights becoming 'boring' so to speak. Global health and development, bio risk prevention, nuclear de-armament, climate change, and all the other obvious social change movement have been done to death, and are no longer novel. EA, just like rationalism, tends to run into the problem that they highly value neglectedness over pretty much anything else. This leads to a weird treadmill where whoever points out the most neglected or conventional cause area gets more status, and that take slowly takes over the movement.
The biggest example of this which I think is a much bigger issue than the SBF fiasco is the recent takeover of AI safety obsessives. The FTX did a lot of funding of the worst orgs like Anthropic, but talking with folks at these AI safety places was like talking to a brick wall. They are so clearly disconnected from reality and have takes that are so edgy and contrarian it hurts to listen to them sometimes.
Again overall I think the movement is still in a good place, but it needs to start maturing and stop jumping on board flashy new neglected cause areas just because they are counter-intuitive.
Agree that core EA people seem to be both significantly 'old EA', 'weird', and deeply committed to effectiveness and altruism. Contesting EA should attack that, not say 'they're more democrats'. Although it's quite funny to cite a mattyglesias talk to argue against something becoming more normie democrat!
Also, global health,biorisk,climate change,nuclearhave been normal for several decades before EA even existed - EA's novelty was taking them more seriously and literally, to an extent.
Elaborate? AI is ... definitely a problem, and while AI safety isn't working well (there isn't a clear vision for what AI does, and how its significant 'agency' or ability to compete coexists with 'human utopia', and how any of this AI alignment work coexists with AI's rapid integration into the global economy. Eleizer can at least see that, hence pessimism) but they're not more delusional than the 'AI is just gonna be a fun tool and modern civilization is just gonna vibe for the next thousand years not changing too much no need to worry' or whatever
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