This is so fucked up.
- Millions saw tweets falsely accusing AI safety nonprofits of astroturfing.
- Only one SPECIFIC accusation was made. It was deleted. Nobody saw that.
- The video itself showed PROOF that Big AI's lobbyists did ACTUAL undisclosed astroturfing and ZERO evidence of astroturfing from AI safety nonprofits.
In her video, Sabine literally showed the OpenAI/a16z lobbying arm paying influencers to make videos spreading the "acclerate AI or we'll lose to China" message - UNDISCLOSED.
But then she looked up FLI's website and saw grants disclosed *right in front of her eyes* for everyone to see, and somehow the implication was... that this was evidence of undisclosed astroturfing??
THE CORE PROBLEM: The VIBE of the video was 'dark money' - and most people reacted to the VIBE.
And her title/tweet implied only ONE side was doing it, so all the AI lobby blew up her tweet.
(They desperately need to stoke the narrative that the AI backlash is all fake.)
- Reminder, David Sachs is running the Big Tobacco playbook - he literally produced Thank You For Smoking (about the Big Tobacco playbook).
They spent a FORTUNE pushing fake stories like this to discredit the anti-smoking activists.
- How dirty are these guys?
OpenAI/a16z's SuperPAC got caught - and even ADMITTED (!) - making fake accounts *pretending to be AI safety advocates* that call for violence. Their goal was to discredit the movement.
(Btw, she got this one wrong, but Taylor does great work calling out stuff like this in general. She did reply to an old tweet issuing a retraction, but nobody sees those.)
- CAIS, FLI and ControlAI provide grants to creators to make videos about AI safety. Like.. of course they do! This is normal for advocacy orgs!
For example, the Carnegie Foundation provides grants to Hank Green to make educational videos about the risks of nuclear war.
Also, btw, despite what the AI lobbyists want you to believe, the amounts are TINY, especially compared to the insane money the Big Tech is throwing around.
(a16z and OpenAI's Greg Brockman - billionaires - are the biggest donors in the midterms, both fighting against regulation.)