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A pro-AI meme campaign is rolling out on government social media accounts, casting “effective altruist” as a slur as the White House doubles down on its regulatory light touch.
Amid an international reckoning over the capabilities and dangers of high-level AI, the Trump administration is casting effective altruists — who focus on reducing harm from the tech and heavily weigh advancement versus risk — as the enemy.
Images of a fist-pumping Trump and “Americanism, Not Effective Altruism!” are appearing on X posts from the Pentagon. The Federal Communications Commission posted a Western-esque graphic with the text “Choose the Frontier — Never Doom.” An account run by the Centre for Effective Altruism replied to one post, “Thanks for the mention.”
One person working in AI policy who has been associated with effective altruism told Semafor: “This is the best publicity EA has gotten in years.”
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Not all AI safety experts and advocates identify as effective altruists, and different groups working on the topic have disparate goals, funding, and membership. Average people who have concerns about the direction of AI development are not likely to even know what effective altruism is.
Using the term as an insult may not prove an effective long-term message for the government, especially since Trump is increasingly alone in his stance that AI companies can figure out how to regulate themselves.
“It would be a mistake to pigeonhole the emerging pro-human movement,” said Michael Kleinman, head of US policy for the Future of Life Institute (which, he said, is not an effective altruist organization).
His organization helped put on this week’s Pro-Human Summit featuring both Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon: “It’s become crystal-clear that the coalition of people who care about the risks of AI is extraordinarily broad.”