Aidan Gomez, CEO of the startup Cohere, which operates in the sphere of artificial intelligence, in his letter addressed to the employees of this company, in negative terms criticized the movement for effective altruism.
The head of the firm opposes what he defines as a movement for self-righteousness. The media, with reference to the main theses of the mentioned letter, report that Aidan Gomez warns against potential extreme actions that can be committed as part of the implementation in the material environment of various concepts based on the said paradigm of thinking.
The journalists said that the representative of the startup confirmed the authenticity of the contents of the message of the head of the company. However, the Cohere employee did not comment on Aidan Gomez’s theses.
The movement for effective altruism over the past ten years has become something like a widespread ideology in Silicon Valley and the artificial intelligence industry. This concept of thinking defines the greatest benefit for humanity as the main goal of the work of specialists in the said sphere. Also, supporters of this ideology, which is a kind of paradigm for the perception of advanced technologies as an entity that affects human life, often talk about the potential danger of machine intelligence. Adherents of this system of ideas and values are, among others, persons who were on the board of OpenAI, which created the world’s most popular chatbot based on artificial intelligence called ChatGPT.
Aidan Gomez claims that the movement for effective altruism has become dogmatic and self-aggrandizing. He also expressed concern about the fact that some people consider themselves specialists with unique qualifications that can benefit humanity or save it. In his opinion, persons with a similar self-perception may be prone to extreme actions to achieve their goals.
Aidan Gomez stated that Cohere still follows its concept of activity without being distracted by various eschatological scenarios. He also criticized startups in the sphere of artificial intelligence that cooperate with cloud providers. Aidan Gomez noted that his company had the opportunity to receive significant investment funds from the mentioned providers, but decided not to take money to maintain independence.
As we have reported earlier, AI Startup Cohere Reportedly Taps JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs for Financing.
