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Sam Bankman-Fried and the Effective Altruism Delusion — New Statesman
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Relevant to AI safety community because SBF and FTX were major funders of EA-aligned AI safety organizations; his conviction prompted reflection on the movement's values, funding ethics, and whether utilitarian reasoning can lead to moral hazard.
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Summary
A New Statesman long-read examining the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire and its implications for the effective altruism movement. The article, updated after his November 2023 fraud and money laundering conviction, questions whether EA's utilitarian philosophy enabled or encouraged the ethical failures at FTX. It explores whether the 'earn to give' ideology and ends-justify-means reasoning contributed to SBF's conduct.
Key Points
- •SBF was convicted of fraud and money laundering in November 2023, raising questions about the moral framework he claimed to follow.
- •The article critically examines whether effective altruism's utilitarian calculus can rationalize unethical behavior under the guise of doing good.
- •EA's 'earn to give' philosophy, partly inspired by philosopher Peter Singer, is scrutinized as a potentially dangerous moral framework.
- •The piece questions whether the EA movement can survive the reputational damage from its most prominent public figure's criminal conviction.
- •Highlights broader concerns about longtermist EA ideology funding AI safety and other cause areas with ethically compromised money.
Cited by 2 pages
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| EA Institutions' Response to the FTX Collapse | -- | 53.0 |
| Longtermism's Philosophical Credibility After FTX | -- | 50.0 |
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Sam Bankman-Fried and the effective altruism delusion - New Statesman
Editor ’ s note: This article was originally published on 20 September. On 3 November, “Crypto King ” Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty of fraud and money laundering. Sophie McBain looks at whether the idealist effective altruism philosophy will survive his conviction.
The moral philosopher met a brilliant American maths student who wanted to know how he could do the most good in the world. How about becoming a banker, the philosopher said.
No, seriously.
Think of it like this. With his high grades, the student could do pretty much anything. He could become a doctor in a poor country, and then he might perform life-saving surgery ten times a week, saving 500 lives a year. But if he became a banker he could donate enough money to finance the salaries of ten doctors, saving ten times as many lives. Plus, if he didn’t become a doctor, someone else was likely to do the same job. But if he didn’t become a banker, who else would step in to fund the doctors?
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William MacAskill, the moral philosopher, was a leading “effective altruist”, someone who thought about morality in a scientific way, crunching the numbers to determine the “best” method of helping others. He had helped found a careers-advice organisation pitched at top graduates, one that encouraged would-be aid workers to consider more lucrative work so that they could “earn to give”.
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[See also: “The biggest Ponzi of all time”: why Ben McKenzie became a crypto critic ]
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