Most of them sure (even if they don't, most at least outwardly present as so), but Musk seems to be a bit not even that these days:

  Elon Musk
  Yeah, I mean, yes, pretty much. Let's, let's enjoy the ride. I think my philosophy at this point because I mean honestly there seems to be just an inexorable progress here in Al and, and in robots that even if I wanted to stop it, and I don't, I couldn't.

  Zanny Minton Beddoes
  Do you think there's still a 10 to 20% chance that killer robots mean the end of humanity?
  That's a high P doom, as they say.

- https://elonmuskarchive.org/video/economist-elon-musk-2026-0...

▲ eqvinox a day ago | parent [-]

Arguably, being a billionaire and being a compassionate human being are mutually exclusive. You'd spend your wealth and not be a billionaire anymore.

The only question is how much of a grey zone is there between these 2 points.

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ben_w a day ago | parent [-]

Everyone's somewhere in the grey zone, even the beatified within Catholicism are imperfect mere mortals by Catholic standards.

Philanthropy is always hard to place exactly. When you're a normal person, it's just how much money you can give to charity; when you're rich, you have to ask questions like "will my donation break something?" (Mansa Musa) or "is it better to spend all of my money at a shot to eliminate some problem forever, or put all the money in a charitable trust which pays out the dividends it earns each year forever, without ever fully fixing it but always at least helping?" (how is the Gates foundation doing with all the recent stuff about the guy himself?)

I think Richard Branson is generally considered to be a decent person?

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eqvinox 18 hours ago | parent [-]

Oh no, if only you could pay someone to figure out ethics concerns for you… maybe if universities offered majoring in Philosophy or Ethics?

(Richard Branson is "only" worth about $3B btw)

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ben_w 17 hours ago | parent [-]

People indeed do so. However, that leads to a lot of suspicion that they're paying someone to philanthro-wash whatever they wanted to do anyway.

> (Richard Branson is "only" worth about $3B btw)

Yes? And?

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eqvinox 16 hours ago | parent [-]

> > (Richard Branson is "only" worth about $3B btw)

> Yes? And?

And if that's how far down the list one needs to go to find a billionaire of good repute, that's not a good sign for billionaires.

	▲	ben_w 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's not meant to be an exclusive list, he was just the most famous billionaire in the UK (where I grew up) while I was growing up. If I look at e.g. this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World's_Billionaires_2015 (chosen because it's the most recent one on Wikipedia that's not summarised to a top 10), most of those people I've never heard of and know nothing about. I recognise perhaps a fifth of the names, know little about even most of the names I do recognise, and and that includes the ones (Musk, Bezos, Murdoch, Zuckerberg, the Koch brothers, and Ellison) who are infamously colossal dicks. Richard Branson, in the UK, is mostly known for being a serial entrepreneur and using the word "Virgin" in all brands even where this is silly (Virgin Maternity Wards, Virgin Brides).