He was already getting enough donations and attention from being an AI booster, enough to pay himself and pay a research team, so why would he suddenly start spouting AI doom before he had any way of knowing that doomsaying would also bring in donations? (There were no AI doomsayers that Eliezer could learn that from when Eliezer started his AI doomsaying: Bill Joy wrote an article in 2000, but never followed it up by asking for donations.)
Actually, my guess is that doomsaying never did bring in as much as AI boosterism: his org is still living off of donations made many years ago by crypto investors and crypto founders, who don't strike me as the doom-fearing type: I suspect they had fond memories of him from his optimistic AI-boosterism days and just didn't read his most recent writings before they donated.
I thought someone would bring that up, so I attempted to head it off in the second paragraph of this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42904625
He was already getting enough donations and attention from being an AI booster, enough to pay himself and pay a research team, so why would he suddenly start spouting AI doom before he had any way of knowing that doomsaying would also bring in donations? (There were no AI doomsayers that Eliezer could learn that from when Eliezer started his AI doomsaying: Bill Joy wrote an article in 2000, but never followed it up by asking for donations.)
Actually, my guess is that doomsaying never did bring in as much as AI boosterism: his org is still living off of donations made many years ago by crypto investors and crypto founders, who don't strike me as the doom-fearing type: I suspect they had fond memories of him from his optimistic AI-boosterism days and just didn't read his most recent writings before they donated.