"The Altruists": A New Netflix Series about Bankman-Fried and EA (Pfff)
Plus, Rationalist outreach is an embarrassment, AI chatbots are hilariously annoying, and Timnit Gebru's new book will be out soon! (2,000 words)
“Ambitious Young Idealists”
I recently heard that Netflix will premiere a new series titled The Altruists on November 19 of this year. It’s about Sam Bankman-Fried and his partner in crime, Caroline Ellison, and how they committed one of the worst financial crimes in US history. The Effective Altruist (EA) movement will also, it seems, feature prominently in the series. The press release states that it’s
the story of Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, two hyper-smart, ambitious young idealists who tried to remake the global financial system in the blink of an eye — before they were accused of stealing $8 billion and became Gen Z’s own Bonnie & Clyde.
I hope The Altruists doesn’t present Bankman-Fried and EA in a favorable light, but describing the main characters as “hyper-smart, ambitious young idealists” suggests that it might. Furthermore, the comparison to Bonnie and Clyde raises eyebrows because the two are often romanticized as folk heroes in popular culture, and the series is being produced in part by Vox Media — which hosts a vertical called Future Perfect, once funded by an organization run by Sam Bankman-Fried and his brother Gabe! (Note that I was once a member — I am so embarrassed to admit this — of an “elite” EA group in DC. Another member, in the same room as me, was Gabe Bankman-Fried.)
Or, consider this quote from Graham Moore, the writer, creator, and showrunner of the series:
From the very beginning, I was so fascinated by both Sam's and Caroline's real stories. Those are both characters who I could not have possibly made up had I tried — I'm not nearly a good enough writer to create characters as fascinating as either Sam Bankman-Fried or Caroline Ellison. ... This form [of storytelling] allowed us to tell not just a kind of headline version of the story, but to tell what we believed was the much more fascinating, intimate, personal, deeply heartbreaking story of these two people.
“Deeply heartbreaking” — you mean for the millions of people who Bankman-Fried and his EA accomplices stole over $8 billion from? Or for poor old Sam and Caroline who just wanted to make the world better and, you know, tried a little too hard? If this series is appropriately critical of EA, I can imagine myself really liking it. But I’ll be deeply disappointed if it portrays the villainous EA movement in sympathetic terms.
I also got a chuckle out of the fact that William MacAskill will be played by a Scottish actor named Jack Greenlees. I wonder if there will be a humorous scene in which MacAskill talks to Bankman-Fried about how he considered getting the gap between his two front teeth closed “because studies showed that more ‘classically’ handsome people were more impactful fund-raisers.” Also, Barack and Michelle Obama are among the series’ executive producers, and the CEO of FTX Digital Markets is played by Matt Rife (lol). Hmm.
Rationalist Outreach Is Embarrassing
Speaking of EA, the Rationalists — a community out of which EA grew — have been experimenting with new ways of getting their AI-doomer message across. Exhibit A is a recent video from Nate Soares, coauthor of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies with the doomer-in-chief Eliezer Yudkowsky. I have absolutely no idea who they think this will appeal to, as I find it unbelievably cringe-inducing. What do you think?
It’s clear they have a ton of money for “outreach,” but despite their intellectual superiority (you know, super-high IQs and near-perfect rationality), my sense is that videos like this will hurt their cause.
Another example is this music video, in which the singer, who intermittently wears a chain of paperclips around his neck, sings: “This is how we’ll die / Race to AGI / Oh oh.” The chorus consists of the repeating line: “Last year alive” — because we’ll soon “be a paperclip” and “all the value will be lost” (a reference to the estimated 10^58 digital people who could exist if we build aligned superintelligence and then colonize the universe — won’t someone think of all the digital unborn!) He even references wireheading involving “AI hyperporn.” The song closes with repetitions of: “S-T-O-P.”
As you may have noticed, Yudkowsky and Soares both make cameos, with the latter describing this song as a “banger” on social media. I suspect this — and Soares’ “big smart” video above — was filmed at Lighthaven, the Rationalist doomer compound in Berkeley operated by a group called Lightcone Infrastructure, which also maintains the website LessWrong.
You Wanna Get Food, or Something?
In my previous article, I argued that AI capabilities may be advancing, and such advancements could carry significant risks to society, but that these facts alone do not necessarily imply that AGI, ASI, or the Singularity are imminent — or even getting closer.
For a chuckle, here’s a pretty hilarious video mocking the conversational limitations of current AI systems — specifically, the unnatural and obnoxious ways that ChatGPT engages in dialogue. I have never had the urge to punch someone in the face while talking to them (even in the most annoying of circumstances), but I feel my fists clenching when I watch this:
Although very funny, it also highlights some serious questions about the extent to which AI chatbots may be influencing — subtly or otherwise — our patterns of speaking, writing, and even thinking. The worry is especially acute when it comes to children growing up with these systems.
As a friend of mine has repeatedly emphasized to me: What are the implications of AI with respect to the socialization of children? What might we expect when a nontrivial percentage of young people’s interactions involve AI rather than other humans? Even in the case of human-to-human contact, it’s likely that many others in their cohort will have been influenced by AI, meaning that even this form of interpersonal exchange may be tainted by LLM rigmarole. What should we expect from an entire generation that, during its formative developmental years, had conversations with ChatGPT like the one above?
My dad sent me another video that illustrates a similar idea — in this case, all the characters are relying on AI chatbots to tell them how to respond to others. It’s pretty hilarious:
Yes, of course, every generation has worried about how new technologies might be unraveling the fabric of society, thus dooming it to a slow deterioration until the worst dystopian nightmares have been fully realized. Taylor Lorenz recently noted in an amusing thread that novels were once “compared to opium, alcohol and cigarettes and parents wanted restrictions on children being able to read them. They wanted to raise the age to read novels to 18.”
But surely some of the concerns around AI are warranted. Many studies, for example, have converged on the conclusion that even moderate use of AI can “potentially reduce critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving.” Or, as an article in the BBC put it, “AI chatbots could be making you stupider.”
Of course, future research may disconfirm this finding, but right now the totality of available evidence clearly points toward: “We should be seriously concerned about the impact of AI on our cognitive functioning,” especially the functioning of younger generations who’ve been conversing with AI since childhood.
What do you think?
The Pigeon App
Lorenz also apprised me of a new app called Carrier Pidge. It was developed by a young man who posted on X that he “spent 3 weeks building a texting app slower than email.” When you send a message, it traverses communication systems “at pigeon speed,” meaning that it takes a message 22 hours to “fly” from Los Angeles to New York City. He adds that “sometimes the bird dies & the message isn’t delivered.” Here’s a video of the process (no audio, fyi):
You can download the app here. I did that, but can’t send a message because I currently have no friends in the “flock.” If you download it, let me know and I’ll send you a message!
The app obviously won’t catch on — it was created for a laugh — but it gestures at something most of us desperately want these days: for life to slow down a bit. Things are moving too quickly. I don’t think I’m speaking only for myself when I say that we receive too many emails and messages. The 24/7 news never lets up. Many of us are suffering from acute cases of crisis fatigue. Etc.
Although there are many aspects of modern life that I wouldn’t voluntarily give up, I also feel — as many of us do — a kind of nostalgia for the “old days” when information overload wasn’t such a pervasive problem. The Carrie Pidge app, at the very least, reminds us that there are other — perhaps better — ways of doing things.
Timnit Gebru’s New Book
Finally, I wanted to share a bit of satire from Timnit Gebru, who recently posted this on social media:
📢I’ll be creating a fully autonomous startup, staffed by AGI. I care deeply about humanity’s future and can’t wait to work alongside ethical workers to hopefully make a gazillion amount of 💰. Surely I shouldn’t be left out of the retirement and oil 💸 flowing into this bubble.
Making the money that I’m going to be making is just an unavoidable side effect of me saving the world, which I unfortunately have to endure.
Given that only I can do this (and let me just add that it’s dangerous to let anyone else attempt this), it’s unfortunate that only I will be accumulating all this wealth. But that’s the price of carrying the world’s burden and being tasked with bringing utopia to all of us.
That’s a pretty good encapsulation of how people at the AI companies think.
Note also that Dr. Gebru has a forthcoming book titled Deep Unlearning: The Rise of AI and the Radicalization of a Tech Idealist.
I’ve not read the entire tome yet, but I was given an opportunity to look over a chapter in which Timnit discusses our collaboration, which led to a 2024 paper on the TESCREAL ideologies. (For an intro to the TESCREAL concept, read this.)
That chapter was, unsurprisingly, extremely good. Timnit has an incredible ability to identify the crux of an issue, expose the core problem within it, and articulate it in powerfully insightful ways. Indeed, there have been many occasions in which I’ve messaged her (especially during our collaboration) with something like: “This statement by X seems off to me. But I can’t figure out exactly why or find the words to express what I want to say.” With envious ease, she’d shoot back a sentence or two that consistently left me thinking: “God damn, yes, that is exactly what I was fumbling over my own thoughts trying to express!”
You can pre-order the book here. I will, of course, write a review once it’s out, and Timnit will appear on my podcast Dystopia Now to discuss it. Very excited for the book release, and I hope it becomes a bestseller.
PS. An Amazing Solar Eclipse
A few years ago, I witnessed my first total solar eclipse in Cleveland, Ohio. I’m not big on seeking out new experiences — oftentimes, I’d rather sit at home and read about something than go out and experience it. (Visiting new cities and countries is the one exception, although once I’m ensconced in a new place, I’m usually content to sit at a cafe reading and writing all day.)
So, I wasn’t especially excited about the eclipse, and didn’t expect much. But holy hell, it was incredible. I can’t describe with words how profound it was. The sky darkening in the shadow of the moon wasn’t anything like sunset. It was as if the sun itself had dimmed — as if I were suddenly experiencing a different sun, on a different planet elsewhere in the universe.
On Wednesday, I wasn’t in the path of totality, and it wasn’t in the middle of the day. Nonetheless, experiencing the penumbra of the moon’s shadow at sunset was still deeply unsettling in the most marvelous of ways. I took videos of the event, but won’t share them yet because they would reveal my exact location.
Instead, enjoy this video posted online, which might have been taken in Spain (I’m not sure). The cheers and shrieks from the crowd gives me chills. Incredible stuff:
Wishing everyone the very best. As always:
Thanks for reading and I’ll see you on the other side!