“I think the second view is basically correct for policy in general, although I don’t have a strong view yet of how it applies to AI governance specifically. One thing that’s become clear to me as I’ve gotten more involved in institution-focused work and research is that large governments and other similarly impactful organizations are huge, sprawling social organisms, such that I think EAs simultaneously underestimate and overestimate the amount of influence that’s possible in those settings.”
This is a problem I’ve spoken often about, and I’m currently writing an essay on for this forum based on some research I co-authored.
People wildly underestimate how hard it is to not only pass governance, but make sure it is abided to, and to balance the various stakeholders that are required. The AI Governance field has a massive sociological, socio-legal, and even ops-experience gap that means a lot of very good policy and governance ideas die in their infancy because no-one who wrote them have any idea how to enact them feasibly. My PhD is on the governance end of this and I do a bunch of work within government AI policy, and I see a lot of very good governance pitches go splat against the complex, ever-shifting beast that is the human organisation purely because the researchers never thought to consult a sociologist, or incorporate any socio-legal research methods.
This is a problem I’ve spoken often about, and I’m currently writing an essay on for this forum based on some research I co-authored.
People wildly underestimate how hard it is to not only pass governance, but make sure it is abided to, and to balance the various stakeholders that are required. The AI Governance field has a massive sociological, socio-legal, and even ops-experience gap that means a lot of very good policy and governance ideas die in their infancy because no-one who wrote them have any idea how to enact them feasibly. My PhD is on the governance end of this and I do a bunch of work within government AI policy, and I see a lot of very good governance pitches go splat against the complex, ever-shifting beast that is the human organisation purely because the researchers never thought to consult a sociologist, or incorporate any socio-legal research methods.