Oxford shuts down institute run by Elon Musk-backed philosopher

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Abstraction: Oxford closes Future of Humanity Institute after 19 years amid scandals

Key points:

FHI closed April 2024 after 19 years; Musk donated £1m in 2015; Bostrom's book Superintelligence blurbed by Musk, Sam Altman, and Bill Gates
Oxford froze FHI hiring and fundraising in 2020; philosophy faculty declined contract renewals in late 2023; Bostrom calls it "death by bureaucracy"
Bostrom issued a 2023 apology for a 1990s email claiming "Blacks are more stupid than whites" but was criticized for evasiveness on eugenics
EA movement hit by: SBF's multibillion-dollar fraud, sexual harassment reports, and EA board members briefly ousting Sam Altman at OpenAI
Bostrom proposed a universal "freedom tag" AI surveillance device in one paper; longtermism criticized for ignoring present-day problems like climate change
FHI received £13.3m from Open Philanthropy (Dustin Moskovitz) in 2018

Connections: Future Of Humanity Institute · Nick Bostrom · Elon Musk · Longtermism · Effective Altruism · AI Safety