We need to talk about 'Effective Altruism'!

What is ‘Effective Altruism’ or EA? Is it a cult, philosophy, or just a bunch of weirdo’s living together at houses in San Fran? Kind of a mix of all three. EA has grown as a ‘philosophy’ over the last 25 years. The problem with this? Many of its acolytes permeate elite academia and Silicon Valley. Namely, OpenAI, Anthropic, the failed FTX, and the almost failed Situational Awareness. The idea behind EA is quantitative analysis to figure out how to maximize the use of money in a way to ‘save the most lives.’ The more lives you save? I don’t know, apparently there is some kind of points system? While EA purports to save the world, the people associated with this movement come off as a bunch of hypocrites that just like lavish vacations and want to be billionaires at all costs. Examples: Sam Bankman Fried and Dario Amodei. The EA subculture has embedded itself in many of the top AI companies and these employees are causing trouble. Should we be concerned with EA acolytes? Yes, we should. This episode reviewed a definition and explanation of ‘Effective Altruism’ from Wikipedia and an article from The Wall Street Journal (Subscription required) titled “Things will never be chill again: The doomers who shaped the AI safety freakout.”