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Effective Altruism: How it started, how it's going after FTX collapse — Business Insider
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Good(3)Good quality. Reputable source with community review or editorial standards, but less rigorous than peer-reviewed venues.
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Relevant background for understanding how the FTX/EA scandal affected AI safety funding ecosystems and public perception of longtermist and EA-adjacent AI safety organizations circa 2023.
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Importance: 38/100news articlenews
Summary
A Business Insider retrospective examining the origins and trajectory of the Effective Altruism (EA) movement, analyzing how the collapse of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried's fraud scandal damaged EA's reputation and finances. The piece traces EA's philosophical roots and institutional development alongside the reputational fallout from its association with crypto-fueled 'earn to give' strategies.
Key Points
- •EA movement grew from utilitarian philosophy into a major philanthropic network funding global health, animal welfare, and existential risk reduction including AI safety.
- •FTX's collapse exposed risks in EA's embrace of 'earn to give' logic, where making money by any means was justified by charitable ends.
- •Sam Bankman-Fried was closely tied to EA institutions and major EA-aligned funders, creating severe reputational and financial damage.
- •The scandal prompted internal debate within EA about ethics, epistemic humility, and whether ends-justify-means reasoning had been taken too far.
- •AI safety funding and organizations with EA ties faced scrutiny amid questions about the movement's credibility and governance.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| EA Institutions' Response to the FTX Collapse | -- | 53.0 |
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Effective Altruism: How It Started, How It's Going After FTX Collapse - Business Insider
Tech
'Effective Altruism' has been touted by tech stars from Sam Bankman-Fried to Elon Musk. Here's how it started and how it's going after FTX's implosion.
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Lakshmi Varanasi
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Sam Bankman-Fried has long been a vocal proponent of EA.
Craig Barritt/Getty Images for CARE For Special Children
2023-01-08T11:40:00.000Z
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Effective altruism is a social movement that relies on evidence and reasoning to figure out the best ways to help others.
Its supporters include major Silicon Valley tech personalities like Elon Musk, Sam Bankman-Fried, and Peter Thiel.
Amid the fallout of FTX and Alameda Research, more people are questioning its true value.
While he ran FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried lived beneath his billionaire means. He drove a Toyota Corolla, ate vegan food, and lived with several roommates — presumably due to his belief in a social movement called effective altruism.
Effective Altruism, or EA for short, stakes its claim in the idea that all lives are equally valuable and those with resources should allocate them to helping as many people as possible.
Over the past several years, it has found a strong footing in Silicon Valley, and claims tech tycoons like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel among its followers.
While EA also has its share of critics— who railed against its persistent focus on the future or its quiet acceptance of the status quo — the movement seemed to be growing. Over the course of 2021, EA-related foundations donated more than $600 million in publicly listed grants .
But th
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