Notice, also, that I didn’t actually say “The problem is fixed.” I instead expressed doubt in the “not anything like enough” claim. I mused that it would be good to make some forecastable predictions. This was because I myself am unsure about what to think here. I have appreciated the discussions and attempted lesson-taking from the SBF disaster and I’m glad it’s happening & I support doing more of it.
I feel like you’re implicitly saying that anything has really changed! I am finding it hard to think of a world where less would have changed after a scandal this big.
I think your description of what happened with SBF is accurate, and I think that it is significantly less likely to happen again given how the SBF thing blew up and how people have reacted to it.
It is common the case that the exact same failure will not repeat itself. I think that the broader civilization does not have the skill of avoiding the same thing from happening (e.g. if a second covid came along I do not much expect that civilization would do more than 2x better the second time around, whereas I think one could obviously do 10x-30x better) and so the Effective Altruism movement is doing less dysfunctionally on this measure, in that there will probably not be another $8B crypto fraud. I think this is primarily just because many people have rightly lost trust in the Effective Altruism ecosystem and will not support it as much, but not because the underlying generators that were untrustworthy have been fixed.
I mused that it would be good to make some forecastable predictions.
I don’t know how to operationalize things here! I think there are underlying generators that give a lot of power and respect to people without vetting them or caring about obvious ways in which they are low-integrity, un-principled, and unethical. Most Effective Altruism orgs are in the non-profit sector. I think most people involved will not have the opportunity to have their low ethical standards be displayed so undeniably as someone involved in a crypto scam, and I do not expect there is going to be consensus about other scandals in the way there is about this one. So I don’t really know what to forecast, other than “a list of people you and I both consider high-integrity will stop participating in the Effective Altruism movement and ecosystem within the next 5 years”, but that’s a fairly indirect measure.
I think future catastrophes will also not look the same as past catastrophes because a lot of the underlying ecosystem has changed (number of people, amount of money, growth of AI, etc). That’s another reason why it’s hard to predict things.
I think there are underlying generators that give a lot of power and respect to people without vetting them or caring about obvious ways in which they are low-integrity, un-principled, and unethical. … I think most people involved will not have the opportunity to have their low ethical standards be displayed so undeniably...
Would you like to say more about this? I’m curious if there are examples you can talk about publicly.
I feel like you’re implicitly saying that anything has really changed! I am finding it hard to think of a world where less would have changed after a scandal this big.
It is common the case that the exact same failure will not repeat itself. I think that the broader civilization does not have the skill of avoiding the same thing from happening (e.g. if a second covid came along I do not much expect that civilization would do more than 2x better the second time around, whereas I think one could obviously do 10x-30x better) and so the Effective Altruism movement is doing less dysfunctionally on this measure, in that there will probably not be another $8B crypto fraud. I think this is primarily just because many people have rightly lost trust in the Effective Altruism ecosystem and will not support it as much, but not because the underlying generators that were untrustworthy have been fixed.
I don’t know how to operationalize things here! I think there are underlying generators that give a lot of power and respect to people without vetting them or caring about obvious ways in which they are low-integrity, un-principled, and unethical. Most Effective Altruism orgs are in the non-profit sector. I think most people involved will not have the opportunity to have their low ethical standards be displayed so undeniably as someone involved in a crypto scam, and I do not expect there is going to be consensus about other scandals in the way there is about this one. So I don’t really know what to forecast, other than “a list of people you and I both consider high-integrity will stop participating in the Effective Altruism movement and ecosystem within the next 5 years”, but that’s a fairly indirect measure.
I think future catastrophes will also not look the same as past catastrophes because a lot of the underlying ecosystem has changed (number of people, amount of money, growth of AI, etc). That’s another reason why it’s hard to predict things.
Would you like to say more about this? I’m curious if there are examples you can talk about publicly.