I'm earning to give as a Quant Researcher at the Quantic group at Walleye Capital, a hedge fund. In my free time, I enjoy reading, discussing moral philosophy, and dancing bachata and salsa.
This is good advice. Additionally (and perhaps more controversially), if you’re a person who considers digital minds and/or animal welfare close in priority to your top AI cause area, it might be worth considering moving some funding to those cause areas, since they’ll still be proportionally more neglected relative to AI safety.
These cause areas also have their own political opportunities (like Save Our Bacon) which disproportionally benefit from individual donors.
Trump will be President until 2029. He will not sign AI safety legislation passed on Democratic party lines. Overriding his veto (or an impeachment conviction) would require 1/3 of GOP senators to cross party lines, which will never happen. Making AI safety partisan would ensure we have a 0% chance of federal AI safety legislation until at least 2029. Trump’s “paced the frontier” before by limiting Fable access when it was in his interest, and he may do it again if he perceives it to be in his interest. I understand your frustration with Trump, but there is nothing to gain and a lot to lose from partisanship here.
It’s completely fine to criticize him, but I think it’s wrong to shame him. To your point, Austin’s critics have their sincere convictions, and I would find it equally wrong for Austin to shame them.
I think it’s virtually always a bad idea to shame people for standing up for their convictions, even if you disagree with those convictions. Shaming people alienates them and entrenches them in their positions. In contrast, civil debate improves community epistemics and is far more likely to change the person’s mind.
For an example, due to rejecting person-affecting views (PAV), I don’t think there’s much of a moral difference between the work of population-reducing EA charities and, well, killing people. A few years ago, I publicly critiqued these charities for this reason, and I ended up having some civil conversations with the charity founders, who endorse PAV and sincerely care about helping people. We’re on good terms and are all still members of the EA community. I don’t think anything positive would have come out of me shaming these founders, and I’m glad I didn’t.
Similarly, my presumption is that Austin is hiring Caroline because he thinks she’s very unlikely to reoffend and he believes empathy to her as an individual is more important than the reputational damage that will result from this. I think the object-level debate on these points in the comments section is great, but shaming him for holding this perspective would be neither kind nor helpful.
On (1), on a practical level, how would you propose a community govern the hiring decisions of all affiliated orgs? At first impression, seems like only highly centralized governance could accomplish this, which would worry me more than the harm it could prevent.
I’d agree that to the degree that Hanania’s recent positive engagement with EA is downstream of your inviting him, that should abound to your credit. (I never opposed your decision to platform him, so I might be biased!)
I agree with your approach to reasoning about the chance of recidivism, and had been mulling it over much the same way when I wrote my above comment. My uninformed prior for the average ex-con recently released from prison would be cautious, just because my understanding of the literature on recidivism rates tells me that for the average person, the tendency to violate further seems to be stronger than the mark of having been held accountable.
Of course, every individual is different. If you know Caroline well enough, have done deeper research into her case, and feel you're able to be objective about the matter, it might be completely reasonable for you to be fine with hiring her for a finance role. Given that I don't know Caroline personally, nor have I dived deep into the particulars of her situation or her public statements, I currently lean towards greater caution. (In my personal experience, I've been burned by people enough times that I'm sadly in general less trusting than I was, which might play a part in this too.)
Over the next few years, if Caroline continues on a better path, I am hopeful that she will earn our trust once again.
I appreciate your post's arguments and share your sentiment about wanting to be honest about pursuit of justice and the fact that factory farming is arguably the most profound injustice perpetrated by humans today. My reticence about your conclusions has just been driven by the repeated personal experience that it is not productive to give people my honest opinion about how bad it really is to, say, eat a chicken sandwich. In contrast, making less "blame-valenced" claims like "farmed animal conditions are really bad and we should improve them" has been far more likely to lead to constructive dialogue. Does this say something awful about most of humanity? Absolutely, but I'd rather be pragmatic and actually help animals than feel good about myself and not actually help. I can't speak for everyone, but my impression is that most animal-aligned EAs are similarly on board with animal liberation but are just trying to be pragmatic.
If you've found success with a conversational formula with members of the general population around justice, animal liberation, and being honest about what you really think about meat consumption, I'd love to hear it so I can use it in my own life.
Separately, what do you make of the arguments that diet change advocacy might not be the best for animals when considering wild animal effects?
As most commenters write, hiring Caroline for a finance role does not strike me as the best decision. One thing I find missing in this conversation is putting ourselves in Austin or Caroline's shoes.
Most comments are expressing amazement that Austin would hire Caroline when it's so bad for Manifund's reputation. If anything, this strengthens my view that Austin is doing something costly--much more expensive than the $500k FTX investment Manifund is trying to keep--because he believes it's the right thing to do. We should be encouraging people to do what they believe is right even if it's unpopular. Dragging Austin through the mud for doing what he believes is right does not seem like the ideal way to express disagreement. (On the FTX clawback, that legal dispute is several years old and doesn't strike me as relevant to the recent hiring decision.)
For Caroline, imagine you're an EA who made a catastrophic moral error. You'd feel horrible about it, you'd spend years reflecting on it, and then you'd hope you can do something useful and constructive with the rest of your life. Presumably you'd want a job where you can leverage your existing skillset to do something good.
Some other commenters give me the impression that they believe Caroline is a particularly bad person. When we look at historical atrocities, slavery, the fact that most people sleep perfectly well at night contributing to factory farming, etc, the main lesson we should draw is that most people do terrible things when their surroundings excuse it, and show far less regret than Caroline has.
In general, I believe people should have a concrete rule for when they forgive others. For myself, I need to believe that everyone has a path to redemption, no matter the magnitude of their crimes. So my personal rule for forgiveness is that I need to believe the person wouldn't commit the same crime again if they were in the same position. From Caroline's statements, it seems likely to me that she sincerely regrets her actions and wouldn't do it again, so while I wouldn't hire her as a finance professional, I do forgive her on a personal level.
It'd be constructive if we spent more time thinking about what the path should look like for someone who wants to contribute to the EA project but has committed catastrophic moral errors in the past. At present, hiring this person for a finance role in an org with a fiduciary duty to donors strikes me as premature. Still, to me, anyone who's sincerely repented deserves to be able to make use of the rest of their life to make the world a better place.
This is good advice. Additionally (and perhaps more controversially), if you’re a person who considers digital minds and/or animal welfare close in priority to your top AI cause area, it might be worth considering moving some funding to those cause areas, since they’ll still be proportionally more neglected relative to AI safety.
These cause areas also have their own political opportunities (like Save Our Bacon) which disproportionally benefit from individual donors.
For reasons given here, I don’t think this case is deserving of shaming the way murder would be.
Trump will be President until 2029. He will not sign AI safety legislation passed on Democratic party lines. Overriding his veto (or an impeachment conviction) would require 1/3 of GOP senators to cross party lines, which will never happen. Making AI safety partisan would ensure we have a 0% chance of federal AI safety legislation until at least 2029. Trump’s “paced the frontier” before by limiting Fable access when it was in his interest, and he may do it again if he perceives it to be in his interest. I understand your frustration with Trump, but there is nothing to gain and a lot to lose from partisanship here.
It’s completely fine to criticize him, but I think it’s wrong to shame him. To your point, Austin’s critics have their sincere convictions, and I would find it equally wrong for Austin to shame them.
I think it’s virtually always a bad idea to shame people for standing up for their convictions, even if you disagree with those convictions. Shaming people alienates them and entrenches them in their positions. In contrast, civil debate improves community epistemics and is far more likely to change the person’s mind.
For an example, due to rejecting person-affecting views (PAV), I don’t think there’s much of a moral difference between the work of population-reducing EA charities and, well, killing people. A few years ago, I publicly critiqued these charities for this reason, and I ended up having some civil conversations with the charity founders, who endorse PAV and sincerely care about helping people. We’re on good terms and are all still members of the EA community. I don’t think anything positive would have come out of me shaming these founders, and I’m glad I didn’t.
Similarly, my presumption is that Austin is hiring Caroline because he thinks she’s very unlikely to reoffend and he believes empathy to her as an individual is more important than the reputational damage that will result from this. I think the object-level debate on these points in the comments section is great, but shaming him for holding this perspective would be neither kind nor helpful.
On (1), on a practical level, how would you propose a community govern the hiring decisions of all affiliated orgs? At first impression, seems like only highly centralized governance could accomplish this, which would worry me more than the harm it could prevent.
I’d agree that to the degree that Hanania’s recent positive engagement with EA is downstream of your inviting him, that should abound to your credit. (I never opposed your decision to platform him, so I might be biased!)
I agree with your approach to reasoning about the chance of recidivism, and had been mulling it over much the same way when I wrote my above comment. My uninformed prior for the average ex-con recently released from prison would be cautious, just because my understanding of the literature on recidivism rates tells me that for the average person, the tendency to violate further seems to be stronger than the mark of having been held accountable.
Of course, every individual is different. If you know Caroline well enough, have done deeper research into her case, and feel you're able to be objective about the matter, it might be completely reasonable for you to be fine with hiring her for a finance role. Given that I don't know Caroline personally, nor have I dived deep into the particulars of her situation or her public statements, I currently lean towards greater caution. (In my personal experience, I've been burned by people enough times that I'm sadly in general less trusting than I was, which might play a part in this too.)
Over the next few years, if Caroline continues on a better path, I am hopeful that she will earn our trust once again.
100%. Arguably worse on the frontier lab employees’ part given they’re endangering all of our lives.
I appreciate your post's arguments and share your sentiment about wanting to be honest about pursuit of justice and the fact that factory farming is arguably the most profound injustice perpetrated by humans today. My reticence about your conclusions has just been driven by the repeated personal experience that it is not productive to give people my honest opinion about how bad it really is to, say, eat a chicken sandwich. In contrast, making less "blame-valenced" claims like "farmed animal conditions are really bad and we should improve them" has been far more likely to lead to constructive dialogue. Does this say something awful about most of humanity? Absolutely, but I'd rather be pragmatic and actually help animals than feel good about myself and not actually help. I can't speak for everyone, but my impression is that most animal-aligned EAs are similarly on board with animal liberation but are just trying to be pragmatic.
If you've found success with a conversational formula with members of the general population around justice, animal liberation, and being honest about what you really think about meat consumption, I'd love to hear it so I can use it in my own life.
Separately, what do you make of the arguments that diet change advocacy might not be the best for animals when considering wild animal effects?
As most commenters write, hiring Caroline for a finance role does not strike me as the best decision. One thing I find missing in this conversation is putting ourselves in Austin or Caroline's shoes.
Most comments are expressing amazement that Austin would hire Caroline when it's so bad for Manifund's reputation. If anything, this strengthens my view that Austin is doing something costly--much more expensive than the $500k FTX investment Manifund is trying to keep--because he believes it's the right thing to do. We should be encouraging people to do what they believe is right even if it's unpopular. Dragging Austin through the mud for doing what he believes is right does not seem like the ideal way to express disagreement. (On the FTX clawback, that legal dispute is several years old and doesn't strike me as relevant to the recent hiring decision.)
For Caroline, imagine you're an EA who made a catastrophic moral error. You'd feel horrible about it, you'd spend years reflecting on it, and then you'd hope you can do something useful and constructive with the rest of your life. Presumably you'd want a job where you can leverage your existing skillset to do something good.
Some other commenters give me the impression that they believe Caroline is a particularly bad person. When we look at historical atrocities, slavery, the fact that most people sleep perfectly well at night contributing to factory farming, etc, the main lesson we should draw is that most people do terrible things when their surroundings excuse it, and show far less regret than Caroline has.
In general, I believe people should have a concrete rule for when they forgive others. For myself, I need to believe that everyone has a path to redemption, no matter the magnitude of their crimes. So my personal rule for forgiveness is that I need to believe the person wouldn't commit the same crime again if they were in the same position. From Caroline's statements, it seems likely to me that she sincerely regrets her actions and wouldn't do it again, so while I wouldn't hire her as a finance professional, I do forgive her on a personal level.
It'd be constructive if we spent more time thinking about what the path should look like for someone who wants to contribute to the EA project but has committed catastrophic moral errors in the past. At present, hiring this person for a finance role in an org with a fiduciary duty to donors strikes me as premature. Still, to me, anyone who's sincerely repented deserves to be able to make use of the rest of their life to make the world a better place.