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 . Email address Sign Up In this article: The Scene Know More Louise’s view Notable The Scene 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 Microsoft and Altman — a billionair

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