Read “ The moral critic of the AI industry—a Q&A with Holly Elmore” in FOOM Magazine

Where we discuss my calling out of Joe Carlsmith, among other things.

Mordechai Rorvig describes how seeing me call out Joe Carlsmith for selling out to Anthropic affected his thinking on the matter:

The rising ambiguity of the AI issue has led to introspection and self-questioning in the AI safety community, chiefly concerned about existential risks for humanity. Consider what happened in November, when a prominent researcher named Joe Carlsmith, who had worked at the grantmaking organization called Open Philanthropy (recently renamed as Coefficient Giving), announced that he would be joining the leading generative AI company, Anthropic.

There was one community member on Twitter/X, named Holly Elmore, who provided a typically critical commentary: “Sellout,” she wrote, succinctly.

Prior to seeing Elmore’s post, I had felt that Carlsmith probably deserved, if not sympathy—making a decision that would presumably be highly lucrative for himself—at least a measure of understanding. He had provided, in a long post, what had seemed to me an anguished reasoning for his decision. “I think the technology being built by companies like Anthropic has a significant .. probability of destroying the entire future of the human species,” he wrote. But for Elmore, this didn’t matter. “The post is grade A cope,” she concluded.

Elmore’s response made me ask myself whether I had been overly forgiving. And in the last several years, everyone concerned about the existential risks of AI has had to ask themselves similar questions. Therefore, rather than stirring up controversy, Elmore’s perspective has tended to feel clarifying, at least for me personally. Whether you agree or disagree with her opinions, they allow you to evaluate your own opinion with greater certainty.

Read the entire interview in FOOM Magazine.