"EA" isn't one single thing with a unified voice. Many EAs have indeed denounced OpenAI.
As an EA: I hereby denounce OpenAI. They have greatly increased AI extinction risk. The founding of OpenAI is a strong candidate for the worst thing to happen in history (time will tell whether this event leads to human extinction).
If you think it's merely 'arguable' that OpenAI has had had a significant negative impact through acceleration then I think you are significantly more positive than the median EA.
I think near-term AGI is highly unlikely (specifically, I think there's significantly less than a 1 in 5,000 or 0.02% chance of AGI before the end of 2034) and I also think that claims about existential risk from AGI are poorly supported, but my impression of people in EA who do think near-term AGI is likely and do think x-risk from AGI is significant is that a lot of them have negative views on OpenAI. The EA community doesn't have an organization that typically makes position statements on behalf of the community. The most straightforward way to get something like this going would be to post an open letter on the forum and ask people to sign on. Probably some people would sign it. (I wouldn't.)
People in EA might be more reticent to denounce Anthropic, though, given that Holden Karnofsky now works there, Dustin Moskovitz of Good Ventures and Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy) is an investor, Joe Carlsmith (formerly of Coefficient Giving) now works there, Amanda Askell has worked there for a while, and so on. Also, some people see Anthropic as the white hat to OpenAI's black hat, even though there's basically no difference (i.e. both just make chatbots and everything's fine).
Karnofsky, on the Dwarkesh podcast said (emphasis mine):
I mean, you can look up our $30 million grant to OpenAI. I think it was back in 2016–– we wrote about some of the thinking behind it. Part of that grant was getting a board seat for Open Philanthropy for a few years so that we could help with their governance at a crucial early time in their development. I think some people believe that OpenAI has been net negative for the world because of the fact that they have contributed a lot to AI advancing and to AI being sort of hyped, and they think that gives us less time to prepare for it. However, I do think that all else being equal, AI advancing faster gives us less time to prepare. It is a bad thing, but I don't think it's the only consideration. I think OpenAI has done a number of good things too, and has set some important precedents. I think it's probably much more interested in a lot of the issues I'm talking about and risks from advanced AI than like the company that I would guess would exist if they didn't, would be doing similar things.
I don't really accept that the idea that OpenAI is a negative force. I think it's highly debatable. We could talk about it all day. If you look at our specific grant, it's even a completely different thing because a lot of that was not just about boosting them, but about getting to be part of their early decision making. I think that was something that there were benefits and was important. My overall view is that I don't look back on that grant as one of the better grants we've made, not one of the worse ones. But certainly we've done a lot of things that have had, you know, that have not worked out. I think there are some times shortly when we've done things that have consequences we didn't intend. No philanthropist can be free of that. What we can try and do is be responsible, seriously do our homework to try to understand things beforehand, see the risks that we're able to see, and think about how to minimize them.
That's helpful context thanks!
This makes me think a lot of EAs just believe OpenAI as a company isn't all that important in the grand scheme AI and x-risks. As in, whether OpenAI is good or bad isn't all that relevant beacuse of how minimal the impact might be given the existing market competition and race dynamics.
This has been brought up a few times before. obviously EA isn't a monolith, but i personally might like the idea of making Sam Altman a "villain" perhaps better than denouncing AI in general. But either would do. I would love for some EA orgs (not just individuals) and even meta orgs to take a step like this. Yes it would be a risk, but I think it could have huge benefits reassuring the public and EA doubters post FTX, in in addition to the obvious AI safety stuff. Many still associate EA with OpenAI which is sad.
interestingly generally this sentiment seems to get met with a little more disagreement than agreement in previous discussions.
I agree with @Saul Munn though that it could be helpful to spell out exactly who and how you think some kind of a denouncement could happen.
Thinking along similar lines as you of EA orgs making stances. And like the idea that Sam Altman or specific actors might be easier to make "targets".
But yeah, I was mainly curious to get a sense of why I haven't seen more action from EA on OpenAI if people agree (with me) that they are so bad for AI safety. Maybe people just don't think OpenAI is bad.
It's no secret, both within and outside of the community, that EA played a significant role in building OpenAI. To name a few links:
Regardless of the exact degree of affiliation, the EA movement has broadly supported OpenAI as an AI safety effort. However, OpenAI's reputation and actions as an AI safety organization have come into question over the last couple of years. I think many in the community would agree the OpenAI can no longer be taken seriously as an AI safety org, and it's arguable OpenAI has had a significant negative impact on the world by accelerating AI development while neglecting safety. Despite this tension between OpenAI's actions and EA's values, I have yet to hear any strong voices clarifying the relationship between the two. Notably,
If EA is serious about preventing the harms of AI and AGI, holding companies like OpenAI accountable is an important step. This affiliation also plays poorly for EA's brand, giving the impression of being hypocritical and irresponsible. Speaking up can also be a strategic opportunity for EA to take a stand and reinvent the brand.
So, why hasn't EA denounced OpenAI?
What, concretely, would that involve? /What, concretely, are you proposing?
I'm not completely sure, which is why I posed it as a question. I posted this mostly because I didn't see much explicit discussion of this on the Forum and found that rather strange.
But some actions might look like: