I think that the most likely strongly negative outcome is that AI safety becomes attached to some standard policy tug-o-war and mostly people learn to read it as a standard debate between republicans and democrats
I don’t think this is very likely (see my other comment) but also want to push back on the idea that this is “strongly negative”.
Plenty of major policy progress has come from partisan efforts. Mobilizing a major political faction provides a lot of new support. This support is not limited to legislative measures, but also to small bureaucratic steps and efforts outside the government. When you have a majority, you can establish major policy; when you have a minority, you won’t achieve that but still have a variety of tools at your disposal to make some progress. Even if the government doesn’t play along, philanthropy can still continue doing major work (as we see with abortion and environmentalism, for instance).
A bipartisan idea is more agreeable, but also more likely to be ignored.
Holding everything equal, it seems wise to prefer being politically neutral, but it’s not nearly clear enough to justify refraining from making policy pushes. Do we refrain from supporting candidates who endorse any other policy stance, out of fear that they will make it into something partisan? For instance, would you say this about Yang’s stance to require second-person authorization for nuclear strikes?
It’s an unusual view, and perhaps reflects people not wanting their personal environments to be sucked into political drama more than it reflects shrewd political calculation.
I don’t think this is very likely (see my other comment) but also want to push back on the idea that this is “strongly negative”.
Plenty of major policy progress has come from partisan efforts. Mobilizing a major political faction provides a lot of new support. This support is not limited to legislative measures, but also to small bureaucratic steps and efforts outside the government. When you have a majority, you can establish major policy; when you have a minority, you won’t achieve that but still have a variety of tools at your disposal to make some progress. Even if the government doesn’t play along, philanthropy can still continue doing major work (as we see with abortion and environmentalism, for instance).
A bipartisan idea is more agreeable, but also more likely to be ignored.
Holding everything equal, it seems wise to prefer being politically neutral, but it’s not nearly clear enough to justify refraining from making policy pushes. Do we refrain from supporting candidates who endorse any other policy stance, out of fear that they will make it into something partisan? For instance, would you say this about Yang’s stance to require second-person authorization for nuclear strikes?
It’s an unusual view, and perhaps reflects people not wanting their personal environments to be sucked into political drama more than it reflects shrewd political calculation.