Selective truth-telling: concerns about EA leadership communication.

I agree with the central thrust of this post, and I'm really grateful that you made it. This might be the single biggest thing I want to change about EA leaders' behavior. And relatedly, I think "be more candid, and less nervous about PR risks" is probably the biggest thing I want to change about rank-and-file EAs' behavior. Not because the risks are nonexistent, but because trying hard to avoid the risks via not-super-honest tactics tends to cause more harm than benefit. It's the wrong general policy and mindset.

Q: Is your approach utilitarian? A: It's utilitarian flavoured.

This seems like an unusually good answer to me! I'm impressed, and this updates me positively about Ben Todd's honesty and precision in answering questions like these.

I think a good description of EA is "the approach that behaves sort of like utilitarianism, when decisions are sufficiently high-stakes and there aren't ethical injunctions in play". I don't think utilitarianism is true, and it's obvious that many EAs aren't utilitarians, and obvious that utilitarianism isn't required for working on EA cause areas, or for being quantitative, systematic, and rigorous in your moral reasoning, etc. Yet it's remarkable how often our prescriptions look like the prescriptions of utilitarianism anyway.

I don't know of any better compact way of describing EA's moral perspective than "we endorse role-playing utilitarianism (at least when the stakes are high and there aren't relevant deontology-ish prohibitions)". And I think it's good and wholesome when EAs don't try to distance themselves from utilitarianism (given how useful it is as a way of summarizing a ton of different moral views we tend to endorse), but also don't oversimplify our relationship to utilitarianism.

it raises questions about Will's unadvertised relationship with a controversial public figure, and one who founded a wildly successful AI Capabilities Research Lab.

I agree that it was a terrible idea to found OpenAI, and reflects very poorly on Musk (especially given the stated reasoning at the time).

I think it's an awful idea to require every EA who's ever sent text messages to someone in Musk's reference class (or talked to him at a party, etc.) to publicly disclose the fact that they chatted. I don't see the point -- is the idea that talking to Elon Musk somehow taints you as a person?

Various MIRI staff have had conversations with Elon Musk in the past, and the idea that this fact is scandalous just sounds silly to me. I'd be more scandalized if EAs didn't talk to people like Musk, given the opportunity. (Or Bill Gates, or Demis Hassabis, or Barack Obama, etc.)

On some level I just think your whole framing here -- 'oh no, an EA talked to a Controversial Public Figure!' -- is misguided. "Controversial" is a statement about what's popular, not about what's true or good. I think that the impulse to avoid interacting in any way with people who seem Controversial is the same impulse that's behind the misguided behavior the rest of your post is talking about. It's the mindset of cancel culture, of guilt-by-association, of 'there's something unwholesome about talking to the Other Side at all, even to try to convince them to come around to doing the right thing'.

If we think that someone is doing the Wrong Thing, then by default we should talk to them and try to convince them to do things differently. EAs should primarily just be advocating for what they think is true and good, in a clear and honest voice, not playing the Six Degrees of PR Contagion game.

Furthermore, Will's tweet here about WWOTF implied to me that he didn't know Elon personally: https://twitter.com/willmacaskill/status/1554378994765574144.

Which part implied that to you? I don't see Will lying about this, and I don't see how it matters for the thread whether Will and Elon ever send each other text messages, or whether Will tries to get Elon's buy-in on a project.

AFAIK lots of EAs have tried to get Elon to help with (or ditch!) various projects over the years, though I'm unimpressed with the results.

I was pretty alarmed by this thread from Kerry Vaughan which touches on Ben Delo, a major EA donor prior to SBF with a fraud conviction: https://twitter.com/KerryLVaughan/status/1591508697372663810. The implication here is that Ben Delo's involvement with EA just quietly stopped being talked about without any kind of public reflection on what could be done better moving forwards. 

I'd still like more detail about what actually happened there, before I assume Kerry's account is correct. Various other recent Kerry-claims have turned out to be false or exaggerated, though I can't say I'm surprised if EAs responded super weirdly to the Ben Delo thing.

I am broadly glad more concerns are coming out and more information is being shared. But I think that the following attitude makes things worse rather than better:

with rumours of secret Google docs and WhatsApp groups in which the leaders of the movement discuss how to position themselves and how to hide their more controversial views or make them seem palatable

Every organization and movement has private docs and group chats. That's normal and good for the same reason it is normal and good for people to have private thoughts. Banning organizations from having private discussions makes everyone dumber and less competent.

This description could be anything from "muahaha, how do we trick the rubes into funding our math contest" to "what among our interests is most relevant to this group?" We might make guesses from their public actions, but we could make those anyway. The fact that an org doesn't publish every single document isn't nefarious.

Hey, Arden from 80k here -

It'd take more looking into stuff/thinking to talk about the other points, but I wanted to comment on something quickly: thank you for pointing out that the philosophy phd career profile and the competitiveness of the field wasn’t sufficiently highlighted on the GPR problem profile . We’ve now added a note about it in the "How to enter" section.

I wrote the career review when I'd first started at 80k, and for me it was just an oversight not to link to it and its points more prominently on the GPR problem profile.

Respectfully, I have to disagree that most of these examples are any reason to distrust communications from EA. Someone has already addressed Ben Todd's answer on whether EA is utilitarian (saying it's utilitarian-ish is the most accurate answer, it's not deceptive), so I'll comment on the career advice you saw:

Philosophy, but also not Philosophy?

I took a look at global priorities research. It was one of five top-recommended career paths on 80K's website and required researchers in philosophy. 80K website at time of writing:

> In general, for foundational global priorities research the best graduate subject is an economics PhD. The next most useful subject is philosophy

This article contrasts sharply with the 80K page on philosophy:

> the academic job market for philosophy is extremely challenging. Moreover, the career capital you acquire working toward a career in philosophy isn’t particularly transferable. For these reasons we currently believe that, for the large majority of people who are considering it, pursuing philosophy professionally is unlikely to be the best choice.

It seems like there are significant risks to pursuing further study in philosophy that 80K are well aware of, and it does not look great that they mention them in the context of general philosophical research (that they presumably don't care about their readers pursuing) but omit them when discussing a career path they are eager for their readers to pursue. Spending 7 years getting a philosophy PhD because you want to research global priorities and then failing to find a position (the overwhelmingly likely outcome) does not sound like much fun.

This is a particularly clear example of a more general experience I've had with 80K material, namely being encouraged to make major life choices without an adequate treatment of the risks involved. I think readers deserve this information upfront.

They aren't being dishonest here, they're answering two different questions. The first page says that the best background for global priorities research, one of their most-recommended career options, is economics followed by philosophy. The second page, on philosophy as a career path, correctly points out that the job market for philosophy is very challenging. They're not telling lots of people they should go into philosophy in the hopes that some of them will then do global priorities research. They're saying you should not do philosophy, but if you did, then global priorities research is a highly valuable thing your background would be suitable for, which I'd say are good recommendations all around.

Here are the less contentious parts, I hope?

"Ben Delo's involvement with EA just quietly stopped being talked about without any kind of public reflection on what could be done better moving forwards."

"Failing to share information because you suspect it will make me less supportive or more critical of your views, decisions, or actions smells of overconfidence and makes you difficult to trust, and this has regularly happened to me in my engagement with EA."

Yes, exactly. Thank you! EA Berkeley had to remove their leader just two years ago, for reasons that none of the membership there is willing to even mention - which makes it sound particularly bad, which means that 'the fact that EA is keeping that bad stuff hidden' is even worse.

Similarly, EA Berkeley members were targeted by a higher-up for blacklisting, and mentioned such in emails to me, only to go silent on the matter until I brought-up the blacklisting as an issue on their slack. At that point, they mentioned that "we've been in private talks with the Blacklister, asking them to stop their behavior" - nothing  public until absolutely necessary.

The EA houses in Berkeley, who are a magnet for EA Berkeley campus members to move-into (most residents are post-grads who were EA Berkeley prior to graduation and moving into the EA house), had repeatedly splurged unnecessarily, and when I pointed this out, the near-universal response on the EA Berkeley slack was 'well, that's them, not us. We're not responsible for anyone else in our org if they're committing petty fraud.' The slack poster Charles He even suggested that I be banned from their slack, for 'disrupting' things by bringing-up their bad behavior!

EA definitely has a brand they're protecting, and other posters seem to be bumping into other icky spots under the surface, too! (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eoLwR3y2gcZ8wgECc/hubris-and-coldness-within-ea-my-experience) & "Power dynamics: What procedures exist for protecting parties in asymmetric power relationships? Are there adequate opportunities for anonymous complaints or concerns to be raised? How are high-status individuals held accountable in the event of wrongdoing?" from (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sEpWkCvvJfoEbhnsd/the-ftx-crisis-highlights-a-deeper-cultural-problem-within)

Further: when I have posted new ideas on this forum, I was repeatedly strawmanned by EA members until other members eventually pointed-out that I was being strawmanned, and those who did so never admitted and apologized; they just downvoted every comment I made, as a team. EA protects the trolls who downvote-mafia and misrepresent, while looking for reasons to exclude 'non-aligned views'.

A trick: You can say things like "I'm going to tell you an oversimplified story, but we can dig into the details later if you want" or even "Here's one perspective of what EA is which I hope will provide a good entry point. My perspective is different, but I can tell you about it later".

Really interesting post! Thanks for sharing, I was wondering what the university pitches were like. And I had no clue about Ben Delo. 

"Ben Delo's involvement with EA just quietly stopped being talked about without any kind of public reflection on what could be done better moving forwards."

"Failing to share information because you suspect it will make me less supportive or more critical of your views, decisions, or actions smells of overconfidence and makes you difficult to trust, and this has regularly happened to me in my engagement with EA."

Yes, exactly. Thank you! EA Berkeley had to remove their leader just two years ago, for reasons that none of the membership there is willing to even mention - which makes it sound particularly bad, which means that 'the fact that EA is keeping that bad stuff hidden' is even worse.

Similarly, EA Berkeley members were targeted by a higher-up for blacklisting, and mentioned such in emails to me, only to go silent on the matter until I brought-up the blacklisting as an issue on their slack. At that point, they mentioned that "we've been in private talks with the Blacklister, asking them to stop their behavior" - nothing  public until absolutely necessary.

The EA houses in Berkeley, who are a magnet for EA Berkeley campus members to move-into (most residents are post-grads who were EA Berkeley prior to graduation and moving into the EA house), had repeatedly splurged unnecessarily, and when I pointed this out, the near-universal response on the EA Berkeley slack was 'well, that's them, not us. We're not responsible for anyone else in our org if they're committing petty fraud.' The slack poster Charles He even suggested that I be banned from their slack, for 'disrupting' things by bringing-up their bad behavior!

EA definitely has a brand they're protecting, and other posters seem to be bumping into other icky spots under the surface, too! (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eoLwR3y2gcZ8wgECc/hubris-and-coldness-within-ea-my-experience) & "Power dynamics: What procedures exist for protecting parties in asymmetric power relationships? Are there adequate opportunities for anonymous complaints or concerns to be raised? How are high-status individuals held accountable in the event of wrongdoing?" from (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sEpWkCvvJfoEbhnsd/the-ftx-crisis-highlights-a-deeper-cultural-problem-within)

Further: when I have posted new ideas on this forum, I was repeatedly strawmanned by EA members until other members eventually pointed-out that I was being strawmanned, and those who did so never admitted and apologized; they just downvoted every comment I made, as a team. EA protects the trolls who downvote-mafia and misrepresent, while looking for reasons to exclude 'non-aligned views'.

I also wonder about the hiring for AI Safety, here in the Bay: after talking to people who struggled to get hired as a PA in AI Safety, despite a background in CS and an interest in AI and safety for 5 years... while a pretty girl with a psych background got hired as PA immediately, multiple offers? It sounds like the nerds at Berkeley are hoping to hire-in a Bankman-sized polycule as PAs.