As Chief Financial Officer for CFAR, I can say all the following with some authority:
CFAR used donated funds to pay for Yudkowsky’s time in writing HPMoR.
Absolutely false. To my knowledge we have never paid Eliezer anything. Our records indicate that he has never been an employee or contractor for us, and that matches my memory. I don’t know for sure how he earned a living while writing HPMOR, but at a guess it was as an employed researcher for MIRI.
It is my understanding also that Yudkowsky is working on a rationality textbook for release by CFAR (not the sequences which was released by MIRI).
I’m not aware of whether Eliezer is writing a rationality textbook. If he is, it’s definitely not with any agreement on CFAR’s part to release it, and we’re definitely not paying him right now whether he’s working on a textbook or not.
And given that further donations to CFAR are likely to pay for the completion of this work…
Not a single penny of CFAR donations go into paying Eliezer.
I cannot with authority promise that will never happen. I want to be clear that I’m making no such promise on CFAR’s behalf.
But we have no plans to pay him for anything to the best of my knowledge as the person in charge of CFAR’s books and financial matters.
So the source of the confusion is the Author’s notes to HPMoR. Eliezer promotes both CFAR and MIRI workshops and donation drives, and is ambiguous about his full employment status—it’s clear that he’s a researcher at MIRI, but if was ever explicitly mentioned who was paying for his rationality work, I missed it. Googling “CFAR site:hpmor.com″ does show that on http://hpmor.com/applied-rationality/, a page I never read he discloses not having a financial relationship with CFAR. But he notes many times elsewhere that “his employer” has been paying for him to write a rationality textbook, and at times given him paid sabbaticals to finish writing HPMOR because he was able to convince his employer that it was in their interest to fund his fiction writing.
As I said I can understand the argument that it would be beneficial to an organization like CFAR to have as fun and interesting an introduction to rationality as HPMOR is, ignoring for a moment the flaws in this particular work I pointed out elsewhere. It makes very little sense for MIRI to do so—I would frankly be concerned about them losing their non-profit status as a result, as writing rationality textbooks let alone harry potter fanfics is so, so far outside of MIRI’s mission.
But anyway, it appears that I assumed it was CFAR employing him, not MIRI. I wonder if I was alone in this assumption.
EDIT: To be clear, MIRI and CFAR have shared history—CFAR is an offshoot of MIRI, and both organizations have shared offices and staff in the past. You staff page lists Eliezer Yudkowsky as a “Curriculum Consultant” and specifically mentions his work on HPMOR. I’ll take your word that none of it was done with CFAR funding, but that’s not the expectation a reasonable person might have from your very own website. If you want to distance yourself from HPMOR you might want to correct that.
To be clear, I can understand where your impression came from. I don’t blame you. I spoke up purely to crush a rumor and clarify the situation.
I’ll take your word that none of it was done with CFAR funding, but that’s not the expectation a reasonable person might have from your very own website. If you want to distance yourself from HPMOR you might want to correct that.
That’s a good point. I’ll definitely consider it.
We’re not trying to distance ourselves from HPMOR, by the way. We think it’s useful, and it does cause a lot of people to show interest in CFAR.
But I agree, as a nonprofit it might be a good idea for us to be clearer about whom we are and are not paying. I’ll definitely think about how to approach that.
As Chief Financial Officer for CFAR, I can say all the following with some authority:
Absolutely false. To my knowledge we have never paid Eliezer anything. Our records indicate that he has never been an employee or contractor for us, and that matches my memory. I don’t know for sure how he earned a living while writing HPMOR, but at a guess it was as an employed researcher for MIRI.
I’m not aware of whether Eliezer is writing a rationality textbook. If he is, it’s definitely not with any agreement on CFAR’s part to release it, and we’re definitely not paying him right now whether he’s working on a textbook or not.
Not a single penny of CFAR donations go into paying Eliezer.
I cannot with authority promise that will never happen. I want to be clear that I’m making no such promise on CFAR’s behalf.
But we have no plans to pay him for anything to the best of my knowledge as the person in charge of CFAR’s books and financial matters.
Thank you for correcting me on this.
So the source of the confusion is the Author’s notes to HPMoR. Eliezer promotes both CFAR and MIRI workshops and donation drives, and is ambiguous about his full employment status—it’s clear that he’s a researcher at MIRI, but if was ever explicitly mentioned who was paying for his rationality work, I missed it. Googling “CFAR site:hpmor.com″ does show that on http://hpmor.com/applied-rationality/, a page I never read he discloses not having a financial relationship with CFAR. But he notes many times elsewhere that “his employer” has been paying for him to write a rationality textbook, and at times given him paid sabbaticals to finish writing HPMOR because he was able to convince his employer that it was in their interest to fund his fiction writing.
As I said I can understand the argument that it would be beneficial to an organization like CFAR to have as fun and interesting an introduction to rationality as HPMOR is, ignoring for a moment the flaws in this particular work I pointed out elsewhere. It makes very little sense for MIRI to do so—I would frankly be concerned about them losing their non-profit status as a result, as writing rationality textbooks let alone harry potter fanfics is so, so far outside of MIRI’s mission.
But anyway, it appears that I assumed it was CFAR employing him, not MIRI. I wonder if I was alone in this assumption.
EDIT: To be clear, MIRI and CFAR have shared history—CFAR is an offshoot of MIRI, and both organizations have shared offices and staff in the past. You staff page lists Eliezer Yudkowsky as a “Curriculum Consultant” and specifically mentions his work on HPMOR. I’ll take your word that none of it was done with CFAR funding, but that’s not the expectation a reasonable person might have from your very own website. If you want to distance yourself from HPMOR you might want to correct that.
To be clear, I can understand where your impression came from. I don’t blame you. I spoke up purely to crush a rumor and clarify the situation.
That’s a good point. I’ll definitely consider it.
We’re not trying to distance ourselves from HPMOR, by the way. We think it’s useful, and it does cause a lot of people to show interest in CFAR.
But I agree, as a nonprofit it might be a good idea for us to be clearer about whom we are and are not paying. I’ll definitely think about how to approach that.