Your dedication to acting morally is admirable. However, I think the underlying mindset behind this post is a bit counterproductive. First of all, you did not steal the money in any meaningful sense. If someone robbed a bank and used some of the money to buy dinner from Outback Steakhouse, nobody would accuse the steakhouse of robbing money from the bank. Furthermore, you did everything a reasonable person would do in your shoes, emailing the FTX estate, calling them, ect. It’s not like you have done nothing to return the funds, or are just using them to fulfill your personal interests.
Your argument about the global economy is similarly overly idealistic. Yes, theft affects the economy in negative ways by reducing trust, but there is no way that your actions would contribute to this. The vast majority of people would agree that you have fulfilled your duty.
Thus, I think simply donating the money to a valid cause is the best thing you can do with the money at this point. You have done right by most potential deontological/ virtue ethics frameworks of ethics already, so there is no reason not to lean into utilitarianism and do the most good instead of contorting yourself into avoiding all things that FTX may have thought was good. As long as people who benefited from FTX attempted to return their unspent funds before donating it to charity, that would get a full pass from me.
Furthermore, if we extend the principle that you can’t use money derived from unethical sources further, you would not be able to spend any money, as much money is derived from arguably more unethical sources. People who run massive factor farms that cause mass suffering to animals contribute lots of money to the economy. Defense contractors who sell weapons to oppressive governments also do so. Refusing to use any “tainted money” could rationally commit you to refusing to accept payments from such workers, which is obviously flawed, as you doing so has little bearing on their actions, and would be very difficult to implement in practice.
Thanks for stating your objection to my argument. I agree with you and that is why I argue for the formation of a centrist party with AI Safety as an important issue, rather than a party which literally only speaks about AI, as the latter party would come across as unserious (even the Green Party does not do this with climate change). You can see the “What about other issues?” section about some general positions I think a party should take.
I also think an effective political party could grow support for AI Safety by leveraging media coverage in order to bring to light the dangers of AI and the necessity of regulation, so even if it starts as a fringe prospect, it will gain momentum over time.
To your second point about existing parties being able to adopt this as part of the platform, along with the potential bad optics of EAs/AI doomers “invading” existing parties, I think it is simply harder to succeed in political party primaries than as a third party candidate due to political party primaries having an unlevel playing field which favors catering to the idiosyncrasies of the party’s base and major party players.
To back this up, I do not see Chase Oliver getting anywhere as a Republican nominee, but he did gain some notoriety as a third party candidate. While it is in theory possible for pro-AI Safety rationalists to gain power through traditional parties, I feel like this would take a very long time and is less likely to succeed.
Ultimately, however, even if you think this has a slim chance of succeeding, I see some electoral effort as the only plausible way of achieving necessary government support for AI Safety, so I feel like something like this is still worth it if there is not a clear alternative.