Conjecture: e/acc, effective altruism, and the documented breaks
Bounded public-source inquiry, 5 September 2026. No outreach. Seven principal source URLs, counting the original debate video separately from its publisher's readable podcast description. This is a chronology of affiliations, statements and disputes, not a judgment on the truth of the participants' risk models.
The supported sequence is: EleutherAI/open-source roots; a safety-focused startup with venture investors; discussions and later conflict with parts of the EA/technical-safety community; public opposition to e/acc; then Leahy's transition into ControlAI. No reviewed primary statement establishes that Conjecture or Leahy was formerly an e/acc member. A break with EA is explicitly attested. These labels must remain distinct.
Dated evidence
| Date | Observed event | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|
| 8 Apr 2022 | Conjecture's launch identifies founders Connor Leahy, Sid Black and Gabriel Alfour, with founders/early employees largely drawn from EleutherAI. Its stated mission was alignment research, including work with models while avoiding advancing the capabilities frontier. It adopted internal review of disclosures. | A contemporaneous safety mission and open-source personnel roots, not an e/acc origin. S01 |
| Aug 2022, recalled in a Jun 2023 reply | Conjecture's C-Suite says it discussed plans with approximately 15 regrantors and the FTX Future Fund team. | A directly acknowledged EA funding-network discussion. It does not establish a grant award, amount, or present relationship. S03 |
| Approximately end of Conjecture year one | In 2026 Leahy says he severed EA ties around the end of the first year. He dates company kickoff to 1 Mar 2022, making late 2022/early 2023 an approximate inference, not a documented resignation date. | Leahy's retrospective account of a break with core EA; no named list of severed relationships. S02 |
| 26 Dec 2022 | The e/acc newsletter published an explainer, incorporating August 2022 posts. Its program explicitly included building AGI, increasing energy use, growth and expanding civilization. | A dated account of e/acc's own agenda. This retrieved page does not name Conjecture or Leahy as members; it does not establish the movement's exact founding date. S04 |
| 12 Jun 2023, with revisions through 16 Jun | A critical EA Forum post includes a signed Conjecture C-Suite response. Conjecture says it opposed EA actors' support for AGI laboratories, GPT-4's release, and ARC's evaluation role; it advocated stopping superintelligence development. | Contemporaneous public strategic conflict within the broader safety world. Its criticism of those actors is its stated position, not independently established wrongdoing. The anonymous critics disputed Conjecture's explanation of their motives. S03 |
| Early Feb 2024 | MLST published Leahy debating Guillaume Verdon/Beff Jezos. The publisher portrays Leahy as challenging accelerationism and arguing for regulation, with Verdon emphasizing growth and opposing excessive centralized control. | Direct public adversarial engagement with e/acc's founder. No prior membership or organizational divorce follows. Readable podcast page dated 3 Feb; secondary video indexes report 2 Feb. S05/S06 |
| 26 Mar 2026 | Leahy publishes a closing retrospective, describes Conjecture's unsuccessful technical/product effort, and announces joining ControlAI US. He criticizes both core EA and accelerationism, while thanking early investor Nat. | His public account of institutional and ideological transition. It does not show all former investors or colleagues breaking with him. S02 |
What broke, and with whom?
The clearest documented rupture is Leahy/Conjecture leadership versus parts of the EA-linked technical AI safety establishment. The 2023 response is contemporaneous evidence of disagreements over whether laboratories should keep developing increasingly capable AI and whether safety evaluations legitimize that development. The opposing post also raised research-quality and governance concerns. This is evidence that the dispute existed; its contested accusations are not findings of this inquiry. [S03]
His EleutherAI origins are a different relationship: founders and colleagues carried technical experience from an open-source collective into a company publicly committed to safety research. Work on open models can have acceleration effects without amounting to membership in effective accelerationism. Likewise, a later disagreement with e/acc does not tell us whether there was an earlier organizational tie. [S01/S05]
Investors: documented money connection, unestablished faction membership
The April 2022 announcement names venture backing from Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, Patrick and John Collison, Arthur Breitman, Andrej Karpathy and Sam Bankman-Fried, among others. It says the founders retained complete company control. The dates, amounts and present status of individual stakes are undisclosed there. [S01]
This pass found no adequate dated primary source establishing which of those investors self-identified as e/acc when investing in Conjecture. Search results included retrospective commentary and third-party ideological labels; these were not promoted to evidence. Even a verified investor's accelerationist views would establish that investor's position, not automatic faction membership for Conjecture. No investor exit or repudiation caused by the EA/e/acc disputes was established.
Source ledger and reading status
| ID | Exact URL | Date | Status / scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| S01 | https://www.conjecture.dev/research/we-are-conjecture-a-new-alignment-research-startup | 8 Apr 2022 | Primary organization announcement, opened/read. Founders, roots, investors, mission and claimed founder control. |
| S02 | https://www.ettf.land/p/conjecture-a-retrospective | 26 Mar 2026 | Primary first-person retrospective, opened/read. EA rupture, approximate timing, company closure and ControlAI transition. Retrospective self-report, not independent verification of motives. |
| S03 | https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gkfMLX4NWZdmpikto/critiques-of-prominent-ai-safety-labs-conjecture | 12 Jun 2023; revisions through 16 Jun | Opened/read. Primary dispute record: pseudonymous Omega criticism and the reproduced, signed Conjecture C-Suite reply. The reply is first-party testimony hosted by critics; allegations remain attributed. |
| S04 | https://effectiveaccelerationism.substack.com/p/what-the-f-is-eacc | 26 Dec 2022; embeds Aug 2022 posts | Primary movement publication, opened/read. Explicit program and dated public use of e/acc label. |
| S05 | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/showdown-between-e-acc-leader-and-doomer-connor-leahy/id1510472996?i=1000644059086 | 3 Feb 2024, 21:00 UTC | Publisher-provided episode description and chapter list opened/read; audio not transcribed/listened. Direct evidence of invited debate and advertised disagreement. |
| S06 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zxi0xSBOaQ | Linked original episode; secondary indexes date 2 Feb 2024 | Original video URL recovered from readable publisher source; web retrieval yielded title only. No transcript read. |
| S07 | https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-18/ai-insiders-eacc-movement-speeding-up-tech/103464258 | 18 Feb 2024 | Secondary contemporaneous reporting opened/read, corroborates public opposition. Not needed for claims about former affiliation or founding motives. |
Typed relationships
| From | To | Type | Period | Source | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leahy, Black, Alfour / early Conjecture staff | EleutherAI | prior professional/community roots | Before Apr 2022 | S01 | No e/acc inference |
| Named venture investors | Conjecture | disclosed investment | Apr 2022 announcement | S01 | Amounts and ideological conditions unknown |
| Conjecture C-Suite | FTX Future Fund team / approximately 15 regrantors | acknowledged strategy/funding discussions | Aug 2022 | S03 | Discussion is not an award |
| Leahy | core EA | self-described severance of ties | Approximate end of company year one, stated Mar 2026 | S02 | Individual/organizational scope unspecified |
| Conjecture C-Suite | parts of EA/Bay Area technical-safety leadership | public strategic dispute | Jun 2023 | S03 | Does not make all EA actors one faction |
| Leahy | Guillaume Verdon / Beff Jezos | adversarial public debate | Early Feb 2024 | S05/S06 | Opposition, not proof of earlier membership |
| Leahy | ControlAI US | announced leadership move | Mar 2026 | S02 | Transition already verified in separate current-role research |
The remaining branch is narrow: a dated self-identification, membership statement, organizational partnership, or explicit first-person account of leaving e/acc would be needed to establish the hypothesized early e/acc connection and subsequent break. None was located in this bounded pass. The EA split and open-source roots have substantially stronger evidence.