Viral EA beliefs timeline: from 'AI is worth worrying about' to 'AIs may suffer'
NathanpmYoung · x · 2026-10-15
Nathan Young laid out a timeline of effective altruism beliefs that were once dismissed but went mainstream: cost/benefit philanthropy, AI and pandemics being worth worrying about, longtermism — 'you are here' — and next, plausibility of insect and AI suffering.
A quoted reply sarcastically suggests adding 'SBF is a cool trustworthy guy' to the list. The thread doubles as EA self-mockery and a marker that AI welfare is entering mainstream discourse.
Related event: Once-Mocked Effective Altruism Beliefs Are Going Mainstream(2 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- AI cost falling 54x faster than electricity ever did, five years in — LinusEkenstam · 2026-10-15
- Herbert Simon's 40-year-old advice on computers nails how to use AI today — msg · 2026-10-15
- AI researcher Thomas Dietterich debunks multi-agent analogy: 1000 copies of me can't build a toaster — tdietterich · 2026-10-15
- Scholar's long post on Anthropic's societal-challenges push: earnest aims, ecosystem worries — sethlazar · 2026-10-15
- AI Auditing Pioneer Deb Raji Joins Stanford HAI to Tackle AI Harm Accountability — StanfordHAI · 2026-10-15
- Will the frontier-lab and closed-vs-open capability gap widen in six months? — panickssery · 2026-10-15