Effective Altruism

As Washington grapples with the rise of artificial intelligence, a small army of adherents to “effective altruism” has descended on the nation’s capital and is dominating how the White House, Congress and think tanks approach the technology.

The Silicon Valley-based movement is backed by tech billionaires and began as a rationalist approach to solving human suffering. But some observers say it has morphed into a cult obsessed with the coming AI doomsday.

The most ardent advocates of effective altruism, or EA, believe researchers are only months or years away from building an AI superintelligence able to outsmart the world’s collective efforts to control it. Through either its own volition or via terrorists seeking to develop deadly bioweapons, such an AI could wipe out humanity, they say. And some, including noted EA thinker Eliezer Yudkowsky, believe even a nuclear holocaust would be preferable to an unchecked AI future.

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