Can we drop Effective Altruism and just act Responsibly??
Amit Sharma is building a transformational Gen-AI platform based out of San Francisco, California. As an ex-AI researcher and a serial entrepreneur he has rich experience in both technology and business, and advises select companies on strategy and growth in an AI-rich world. He cares deeply about using technology to maximize societal good. Find him at X.com/amitdce_tweet and linkedin.com/in/amitucla ?
Published on Economic Times Prime- online link
E/Acc and EA: a tale of two techno-philosophies
Culture and technology have always been intertwined. But recently, there is a full-on techno-cultural war raging through the digital alleyways of Silicon Valley, between the tech-philosophies of Techno-Optimism (also called e-Accelerationism or e/Acc) and Effective Altruism (or EA).
A lot has been written about how Techno-Optimism can end civilization as we know it: machines take over, sentient software causes sabotage, misinformation causes strife and war, and so on. This is called the ‘doom’ scenario by the Effective Altruists.?
But what if Effective Altruism itself turns out to have a higher chance of significantly impairing civilizational progress, possibly even totally jeopardizing the delicate balance of technical and economic innovation which ultimately drives prosperity and abundance??
This is worth discussing because this possibility is often not even considered seriously by the many well-meaning people in the EA camp. From what I can tell, they believe that their actions only amount to a reduction in ‘p(doom)’- the probability of doom for humanity.?
In this article I take up two important stories from the world of tech, and explain how EA’s doom-reduction approach can ironically become the biggest active existential risk humanity faces today.?
# 1: Techno-Optimism and the Last Person Problem
A few weeks ago, Marc Andreessen published the Techno-optimist Manifesto , making the case for technology led accelerationism, and a “call to build”.
Shortly afterwards, this article was published on TechCrunch , written in response to Marc’s, pointing out how the techno-optimist thinking might not be inclusive enough, and leaves out many from the fruits of progress. In essence- as technology advances, there are some people who are not where they should be: the overworked Amazon warehouse worker, the guy who sleeps in his Uber, the girl doing food delivery all day. In other words, rapidly evolving technology leaves out The Last Person- the least privileged human, from the rewards of technological development.?
And hence, the authors implored- step outside your ivory tower and think about the disadvantaged person who doesn’t have the same privileges as you do. And hence, rethink about your whole accelerationist philosophy.
But we know what’s wrong with this way of thinking.
Because this experiment has been done over the last 70 years in several countries around the world. And the results are out.
Centralized planning, dictates and over-regulation with an intent to “equally distribute wealth” is a value destructive mechanism. The idea of being able to calculate probabilities of success or doom by looking through some crystal ball just doesn’t work. It often only introduces the all-too familiar “license raj”- something we never thought Silicon Valley would have to seriously worry about.?
People who are too quick to put their feet on the brakes don’t realize how society looks when acceleration stops. People who complain about how the light of technology shines less brightly on some have no conception of how the world looks with that light turned off.?
Without technology acceleration, the life of The Last Person would be decidedly worse off. Many more people would be sleeping on the roads in every city, and the person currently earning basic wages with food delivery would possibly be dying of hunger.?
# 2: The OpenAI Saga.?
The widely followed OpenAI saga happened barely a week ago- complete with war cries, musical board chairs and public displays of affection. We still don’t know exactly what transpired, but by most indications there was a strong element of speed/acceleration vs. risk/deceleration involved.
Part of the problem with the formulation of EA is the use of the word Altruism, which is hard to define, harder to measure, and virtually impossible to operationalize.
So let’s use a less lofty (and more useful) word, and ask ourselves- was the OpenAI board Responsible in its actions? Consider the following:
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Clearly, a responsible leader, no matter how Accelerationist he might be, would never have dreamt of destroying all of the above. When you are aiming for the lofty notion of altruism, responsible thinking is often the first casualty.
So what’s the connection between all this? What’s the cautionary tale we need to heed?
Altruism isn’t the same as Responsibility.
I (and I think most techno-optimists) firmly believe in responsible capitalism- even in highly selective regulation- and fully understand the undesired side-effects and even malpractices of profit-centered companies. It is my firm belief that all the success and wealth we create is useless if the people whose lives we touch are worse off because of us. So this is not coming from an Ayn Rand-esque idealism of “capitalism can do no wrong”. Some checks and balances are important. It is the nature of those checks that can mean the difference between abundance and dystopia.
The key thing is to understand the difference between Responsibility and Altruism.?
As a practical exercise, think about your day-to-day work activities: when you conduct that meeting, when you decide your corporate strategy, when you need to decide on performance reviews, when you need to take tough decisions.
And now ask yourself: how many times are you able to act responsibly in a day, and contrast that with how often are you able to demonstrate genuine altruism.
See the difference? It is possible for most of us to be responsible, most of the time. However, it is virtually impossible for most people to claim true altruism- which is by definition, putting someone else’s interest over ours.
It’s perhaps more honest to say that humans are at some deep level primarily self-interested. That is to say- much of the time we all do look after our own interests. Altruism looks at this as a bug, but it probably is a feature of the machinery of progress.?
The value of capitalism is not that it functions because of the perfections of human nature; it’s that it works in spite of its imperfections. It allows flawed people to pursue their self-interests in a responsible way.
True altruism is exceedingly rare, if it even exists. Therefore, the effective altruism ideology, while ostensibly starting from a place of empathy and responsibility, ends up being a hollow construct — an oxymoronic start.
Moreover, because it is based on a false premise, very often hidden agendas hijack the mission and twist it in nefarious, poorly managed, and, ultimately, destructive ways. Like other forms of socio-communist economic theories, it ends up being an effective platform perfectly set up to achieve perfidious goals by a powerful few.
If you are an EA follower, pause and think about this. Are you part of a system that is ending up doing more damage than good? For all the talk about minimizing p(doom), is EA in fact the very force that will ironically drive us to doom — not through a grand explosion of irresponsible tech, but through a silent decay of the human spirit?
We are so back. And let’s build responsibly.?
The e/Acc community has a popular meme widely circulated on social media: “we are so back”. It indicates the resilience of human will, and the power of tech acceleration to overcome challenges and organize value out of chaos.?
For all the builders out there: there shouldn’t be any guilt in the pursuit of techno-optimistic entrepreneurship. You are not putting The Last Person on the street. You are doing the best a man can do to uplift him from the street- through your lines of code, through your product sprints, through your fundraises, and even through your failures.?
At the same time, it’s certainly important to have a deeply empathetic and moral dimension to creating new tech. However, rather than chase the phantom idea of Altruism, let’s pursue the tangible notion of everyday responsibility.?
But whatever happens, don’t stop building- it’s the most charitable thing one can do for the world.?