Summary
From the article:
As AI risk concerns have popped over the past couple of months, that’s led to more scrutiny on the EA community for IMO a mix of good and bad reasons.
I think the good reason is genuine curiosity (and maybe some healthy skepticism!) about these connections - where did the ideas of the people who are now leading giant AI companies come from? Why is everything in this world so interconnected? (My answer: it used to be a really small world - very few people were thinking about this stuff or taking it seriously until just a few years ago, so of course the ones who were found each other and started collaborating. [...])
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But I think the bad reasons are unfortunately mostly self-interested. A bunch of powerful actors stand to benefit from unchecked AI progress, and they’re doing everything in their power to demonize or dismiss anyone with concerns. This leads to disproportionate discussion of EA because EA is interested in neglected and underappreciated ways of doing good. That makes it open to weird ideas. And people, very disproportionately with a financial stake in the AI fight, are trying to make it about EA instead, because EA being weird is much safer territory for them than the rather uncomfortable fact that many of the people making the most advanced AIs think that they might kill everyone.