"Brendan Bordelon is a reporter for POLITICO on lobbying and influence in Washington, DC, by the tech industry. In late 2023, Bordelon began writing a series of articles investigating the influence of networks of non-profit/non-governmental organizations affiliated with the field of AI safety (AIS), as well as the effective altruism (EA) movement, as spearheaded by Open Philanthropy (OP), a foundation that is the primary financial backer of both causes. As of now, it’s not apparent that Bordelon or any other reporters from POLITICO have published more reports on the subject.
It’s not clear when in 2024 Bordelon’s reporting might return to a focus on influence and lobbying by the tech sector in general, beyond the auspices of just OP and EA. Additional reports from POLITICO on the subject will be added to the below list after they are published, as will be other articles or reports cited therein."
Can you share a bit about what's the reasoning behind making this list?
I'm relatively new to AI policy, and all I know about Politico is that a while ago they published an article on EA that seemed to be written in pretty bad faith. (Looking at the titles of some of the articles, I imagine this is true for some of the others as well.) I imagine many other readers of the forum have even less context than myself.
I think it's pretty amusing that much of the mainstream media thinks that EA is some coordinated illuminati-like movement, even though that is incredibly far from being the case. However, dropping a list of EA-critical articles on the forum and speculating on journalists future behaviour without any further explanation actually does make that impression - even though I think most readers of this forum will be just as confused by seeing this list as any journalist from the manisteam media would be.
(Sorry if this comment comes off as confrontational, I actually didn't mean it that way, I'm sort of just thinking out loud)
Summary: As EA remains a poorly understood movement in DC, and POLITICO is a publication that may be widely read by policymakers, it's worth those in EA and AI safety being aware of how the perception of their efforts are being shaped, whether for better or worse. To facilitate that is one of the main reasons I shared this document. Journalists who spin conspiracy theories about EA tend to do so regardless of content like this on the EA Forum. Those journalists who would bother to be whatsoever accurate will probably be apt enough to check this comment for clarification.
This list wouldn't provide that impression to most EAs. Like you, they know how false the impression is that EA is such a conspiratorial movement. To those who consider EA dubious or insidious, this linkpost might appear as though someone is surveilling journalists who tend to cover EA activities in ways many EAs dislike. Some such individuals have long presumed that without posts like this being on the EA Forum. During the last couple years, some news articles with a critical bent on EA have called the EA Forum the community’s secret platform. Meanwhile, it's accessible on the World Wide Web. Given that fact apparently won't deter those who fabricate conspiracy theories about EA anyway, the risk my linkpost will worsen the problem seems negligible.
The third likeliest alternative is that some EAs may be concerned the author of this document is someone who is trying to give an impression someone is trying to convince them there is a conspiracy among their ranks. For context, that's not the case, as I'm the one who created the document. I've participated in the EA community since 2011. Given my understanding that POLITICO is widely read by policymakers, it seemed worthwhile for more EAs to at least be aware of how they're being perceived in DC, for better or worse. That was one of the main reasons I shared the above document. As to potentially confused journalists, as much as some EAs may doubt the quality of the reporting some of them provide, many are at least savvy enough to even read deep into comments sections on the EA Forum to gain insights. I expect any journalist so determined to understand the purpose of this linkpost might read this comment, thus clearing their confusion.
I didn't mean to speculate about what the main journalist in question, Bordelon, might do next. I'm aware of others in AI safety and EA who have speculated the series of articles has been written as a series of hit pieces. He's generally one of POLITICO's main reporters on the influence of Big Tech lobbies in DC. Having read several of the articles he has written in that vein not focused on EA-affiliated organizations, it seems he tends to write a comprehensive set of reports on the stakeholders pushing various agendas in DC. His reports on EA don't seem to be more critical than others, so I doubt he's especially hostile to EA. He has written a few reports on EA that have gotten to the root of a perceived AI safety agenda as thoroughly as anyone could.
Especially as tends to be expected by editors of their reporters, I expect he will soon focus on some other lobby from Silicon Valley in his next articles. As he hasn't published another report so far in 2024, there's not yet a way to verify my expectations, or the speculations others in EA and AIS have already made. I sought to clarify for those who already have their own suspicions about his motives that there is not yet anymore evidence to confirm or deny the suspicions.
Do you remember whether:
If it was published in the last 6 months, it's probably one of the ones I've listed. If it was published before then, it may have been one about the connections between Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX, and EA. If it was something else, it's one of their articles that most EAs wouldn't be aware of.
Agreed. IMHO the only legitimate reason to make a list like this, is to prep for researching and writing one or more response pieces.
(There's a question of who would actually read those responses, and correspondingly where they'd be published, but that's a key question that all persuasive-media-creators should be answering anyway.)
I'm considering writing a reply to one or more of Bordelon's reports. To aid others who might want to do so is one of the main reasons why I shared the document. Given my understanding that POLITICO is widely read by policymakers in DC, another reason I shared it is for more EAs to at least be aware of how they're being perceived in DC, for better or worse.
If I wind up writing a response, I'm not sure where I might publish it, though the EA Forum would likely be one platform. Other than EAs, it could serve as a resource to be shared with those outside of EA.
My current thinking about this is that EAforum and Lesswrong have confused, mentally ill, or profiteering people trying to do open source research and find ways to maximize damage to EA.
As a result, aggregating criticism in an open and decentralized way will boost the adversary's epistemics in parallel, and is thus better done in an closed, in-person networked, and centralized way (I made the same mistake a couple years ago).
I'm not aware of reason to suspect any such person might be profiteering. That seems like by itself it wouldn't be lucrative to justify the effort.
Oh, sorry, by profiteers I was referring to people like forum lurkers and hostile open source researchers, not you at all.
My thinking was that this plan works fine with or without funding so long as someone (e.g. you) coordinates it, but it can't be open-source on EAforum or Lesswrong because the bad guys (not journalists, the other bad guys) would get too much information out of it.
Thanks for the consideration, though I knew you weren't referring to me. What I meant is that, while lurkers or faithless actors may have motives including profiteering in theory, in practice there isn't enough incentive to put that much effort into profiteering that way.
I'm not aware there's enough money in that kind of task for anyone to bother with the effort, compared to other ways they could make money.
Those most motivated to weaponize damaging info on EA have proven themselves savvy enough to acquire that kind of info without bothering with the EA Forum. Between critics, whistleblowers and haters, there's so great a supply for negative info on EA that there isn't enough demand that someone could earn much money off of trying to sell it.