Once again on EA scandals

By Anonymous.

Content warning: sexual harassment and abuse.

Note: this post does not present a stance by Effective Altruism for Christians. This blog publishes posts by multiple authors. The views contained in the posts may sometimes be contradictory and do not necessarily reflect the views of Effective Altruism for Christians.

We are all getting tired of EA scandals, but here we are once more. Time magazine recently published a piece based on interviews of several women who accused people in the EA movement of sexual harassment and abuse. The alleged deeds themselves are obviously reprehensible, but the article also attempts to raise deeper questions about EA institutions and culture. Why did this happen, what are the consequences for the EA movement, and what should be done?

Distorted power dynamics are a central feature in the stories and the discussion they have sparked. In many of the cases in the Time article, the alleged perpetrator was a man in a position of power. In an EA forum comment, a woman who has been involved in a gender-imbalanced part of EA mentions that in her field and location, “access to collaborative workspace, networking events, and supplemental funding“ are all gated by a few men. 

Power imbalances and a closely-knit community make reporting incidents costly. The commenter mentioned in the previous paragraph reflected on why she hasn’t reported any of the many issues around gender dynamics she has experienced or heard about. One of the reasons she brings up is that there would be no hope of remaining anonymous. She feared making a fuss could harm her career. Several of the women interviewed for the Time article requested that the alleged perpetrators would not be named and that Time would shield their identities.

Tangled social, professional, and romantic dynamics in the movement feature in the stories and the surrounding discussion. The Time article describes one person’s observation: “EA members in the Bay Area seemed to work together, live together, and sleep together, often in polyamorous sexual relationships with complex professional dynamics”. Interestingly, similar allegations have been made about FTX core employees after the FTX collapse, but without any mention of sexual abuse or harassment. It should be mentioned, however, that the Time article was accused of being prejudiced against polyamorous people.

Sexual harassment hurts the victims most. But this scandal also hurts the EA movement. People are thinking whether they want to associate with the movement after these high-profile allegations. In a very highly upvoted comment in the EA Forum, an EA organiser from Denmark says he has for the first time felt ashamed to be associated with EA and unequipped to deal with the bad publicity EA has received. I’ve heard of a case where a European STEM student group was hesitant towards the local EA university group because of the Time article. In this globally connected era, inappropriate propositions in the US can hamper EA activities in the Nordics.

A disturbing undercurrent in the discussion is the fear of consequences for speaking against what are perceived as powerful people in the movement. Many people have commented with anonymous “burner accounts” on the forum. One poster defends this practice by appealing to a fear of being blacklisted for being a troublemaker. Whether the danger is real or not, for some the fear definitely is, and this is a problem for the movement. 

The allegations and surrounding issues sound shocking and unfamiliar to many people in EA. The alleged harassment seems to be largely (but not wholly) localised in certain parts of the EA community, geographically or otherwise. One of the women mentioned in the article commented on the EA Forum and said the issues may be geographically concentrated. Another person mentioned in the article also said that most but not all of the incidents were from the same location. To me, some descriptions of the EA scene from the article and in the forum comments sound very different from my experience in EA, for example a former EA data scientist’s estimate in the Time article that about 30% of EA would be polyamorous. It seems likely a lot of the issues are concentrated in certain subgroups, but these are subgroups that hold a lot of power and prestige in their part of the EA movement.

As a previous post on this Substack observed after the FTX crisis, from a Christian perspective sin is not a surprise. There is no reason to suppose people in the EA movement would be free from it. But this scandal is different from the FTX crisis in that FTX was not an EA organisation and Sam Bankman-Fried was a single individual. In the Time article, the alleged misdeeds are connected with the EA movement. They are related to wider power dynamics in EA. Still, the same overall principle applies. There’s no reason to suppose the EA movement would be free of sin. Even institutions that strive to do good fail. Christians churches have failed countless times.

Questions about what to do are different when we’re talking about the social realities of a group rather than the choices of one or few individuals. If the picture that emerges from the Time article and some of the surrounding discussion is accurate, a part of the EA movement may need to reflect on their power dynamics and make tangible changes. Merely a shrug and platitudes about how we all fail won’t be enough. But if this is the case, we should resist the impulse to think the solution is easy. Complex social dynamics and the social, romantic, and work life of several people are involved. Untangling problems like this might not be simple.

I’m not certain of this, but more checks on those in power and a culture setting clearer boundaries between personal and professional lives of people seem helpful. “Checks on those in power should be seen as a relief, not an obstacle”, says an EA forum post titled On living without idols. A person involved in a case mentioned in the Time article also recommended “creat[ing] systems of checks and balances that do not allow for conflicts of interest to enable biased decisions“ in a forum comment.

This isn’t the first scandal, and it won’t be the last. It is not just individuals but also communities that shouldn’t be put on a pedestal. “It’s kind of disorienting, but it might be freeing, as we could individually embrace the ideas of EA without feeling the need to defend the EA movement as much”, the previously mentioned post observes. Not idolising individuals or communities is something Christians can get behind, especially because many Christians involved in EA broadly agree with the basic ideas behind effective altruism but feel ambiguous about identifying with all parts of the movement. It should be possible for Christians in EA to acknowledge and lament the harm in scandals (both to those directly hurt and also to the community), seek and advocate for effective means of change,* and at the same time stay grounded in their faith in God who is bigger than EA or any human movement.

*) Related to this, I was informed that EACH is a signatory in the recent EA Community Builders’ Commitment to Anti-Racism & Anti-Sexism.