The AI industry turns against its favorite philosophy, effective altruism | Semafor

The AI industry turns against its favorite philosophy, effective altruism | Semafor 
 Intelligence for the New World Economy Semafor World Economy The AI industry turns against its favorite philosophy

 Louise Matsakis and Reed Albergotti Updated Nov 21, 2023, 3:29pm EST Nov 21, 2023, 3:29pm EST Technology Share Semafor/Joey Pfeifer Post Email Whatsapp Copy link Sign up for Semafor Technology: What’s next in the new era of tech. Read it now .

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 One of the most prominent backers of the “effective altruism” movement at the heart of the ongoing turmoil at OpenAI, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, told Semafor he is now questioning the merits of running companies based on the philosophy.

 “The OpenAI governance crisis highlights the fragility of voluntary EA-motivated governance schemes,” said Tallinn, who has poured millions into effective altruism-linked nonprofits and AI startups. “So the world should not rely on such governance working as intended.”

 His comments are part of a growing backlash against effective altruism and its arguments about the risks AI poses to humanity, which has snowballed over the last few days into the movement’s second major crisis in a year.

 The first was caused by the downfall of convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, who was once among the leading figures of EA, an ideology that emerged in the elite corridors of Silicon Valley and Oxford University in the 2010s offering an alternative, utilitarian-infused approach to charitable giving.

 AD EA then played a role in the meltdown at OpenAI when its nonprofit board of directors — tasked solely with ensuring the company’s artificial intelligence models are “broadly beneficial” to all of humanity — abruptly fired CEO Sam Altman on Friday, creating a standoff that currently threatens its entire existence.

 Three of the six seats on OpenAI’s board are occupied by people with deep ties to effective altruism: think tank researcher Helen Toner, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, and RAND scientist Tasha McCauley. A fourth member, OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, also holds views on AI that are generally sympathetic to EA.

 Until a few days ago, OpenAI and its biggest corporate backers didn’t seem to think there was anything worrisome about this unusual governance structure. The president of Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion into OpenAI, argued earlier this month that the ChatGPT maker’s status as a nonprofit was what made it more trustworthy than competitors like Meta.

 AD “ People get hung up on structure ,” Vinod Khosla, whose venture capital firm was among the first to invest in OpenAI’s for-profit subsidiary in 2019, said at an AI conference last week. “If you’re talking about changing the world, who freaking cares?”

 Less than a week later, Khosla and other OpenAI investors are now left with shares of uncertain value. So far, it looks like M

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