I do think "EA is plagued with sexism, racism, and abuse" is a very very granular first approximation for what's actually going on.
A better, second approximation may look like this description of "the confluence":
"The broad community I speak of here are insular, interconnected subgroups that are involved most of these categories: tech, EA (Effective Altruists), rationalists, Burning Man camps, secret parties, and coliving houses. I’ve heard it referred to as a “clusterf**k” and “confluence”, I usually call it a community. The community is centered in the San Francisco bay area but branch out into Berlin, London/Oxford, Seattle, and New York. The group is purpose-driven, with strong allegiance to non-mainstream morals and ideas about shaping the future of society and humanity" (Source)
There is probably an even better third approximation out there.
I do think that these toxic dynamics largely got tied to EA because EA is the most coherent subculture that overlaps with "the confluence." Plus, EA was in the news cycle, which made journalists incentivized to write articles about it, especially when "SBF" and "FTX" get picked up by search engines and recommender systems. EA is a convenient tag word for a different (but overlapping) community that is far more sinister.
As I wrote in my response above, I'm mainly sad that my experience of EA was through the this distorted lens. It also seems clear to me that there are large swathes (perhaps the majority?) of EA that are healthy and well-meaning, and I am happy this has been your experience!
One of my motives for writing this post was giving people a better "second approximation" than EA itself being the problem. I do believe people put too much blame on EA, and one could perhaps make the argument that more responsibility could be put on surrounding AI companies, such as OpenAI/Anthropic, some of whose employees may be involved in these dynamics through the hacker house scene.
Thank you for your comment. I understand promoting narratives that autistic men may be more likely to be sexual predators is deeply unfair and encourages neurotype discrimination (and tracks alongside some racism narratives).
That said, I don’t think this post is saying that, nor is that the point of the post. I think it’s pointing that this has historically correlated with risk factors for all genders. I have also seen (usually wealthy, high status) men use autism as an excuse for boundary violating behavior (they may not even be autistic in the first place, lol).
I would love to find a way to talk about this that does not unfairly condemn non-predatory autistic men.
UPDATE 10/8/23
For an update on the Silicon Valley AI bad actor situation, I recommend this expose by @Mandelbrot.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/R9GbQQksznh2SwS4y/silicon-valley-s-rabbit-hole-problem
Thank you for this absolutely brilliant expose. I know too many people who have stories like these ones.
I worry about the broader effects on AI alignment, given that Silicon Valley AI is somewhat selecting for bad actors.
I have a lot more to stay but will take some time to process everything here first.
Thanks for this, this is interesting.
I am sure there are cleaner cases, like your "Bob works for BigAI" example, where taking legal action, and amplifying in media, could produce a Streisand effect that gives cultural awareness to the more ambiguous cases. Some comments:
Silicon Valley is one "big, borderless workplace"
Silicon Valley is unique in that it's one "big, borderless workplace" (quoting Nussbaum). As she puts it:
Therefore, policing along clean company lines becomes complicated really fast. Even if Bob isn't directly recruiting for BigAI (but works for BigAI), being in Bob's favor could improve your chances of working at to SmallAI, which Bob has invested in.
The "borderless workplace" nature of Silicon Valley, where company lines are somewhat illusory, and high-trust social networks are what really matter, is Silicon Valley's magic and function. But when it comes to policing bad behavior, it is Silicon Valley's downfall.
An example that's close to scenarios that I've seen
Proposal
I propose that the high-status companies and VC firms in Silicon Valley (e.g. OpenAI, Anthropic, Sequoia, etc) could make more explicit that they are aware of Silicon Valley's "big, borderless workplace" nature. Sexual harassment at industry-related hacker houses, co-working spaces, and events, even when not on direct company grounds, reflects the company to some extent, and it is not acceptable.
While I don't believe these statements will deter the most severe offenders, pressure from institutions/companies could weaken the prevalent bystander culture, which currently allows these perpetrators to continue harassing/assaulting.