This is inconsistent with my impressions and recollections. Most clearly, my sense is that CSET was (maybe still is, not sure) known for being very anti-escalatory towards China, and did substantial early research debunking hawkish views about AI progress in China, demonstrating it was less far along than ways widely believed in DC (and that EAs were involved in this, because they thought it was true and important, because they thought current false fears in the greater natsec community were enhancing arms race risks) (and this was when Jason was leading CSET, and OP supporting its founding). Some of the same people were also supportive of export controls, which are more ambiguous-sign here.
The export controls seemed like a pretty central example of hawkishness towards China and a reasonable precursor to this report. The central motivation in all that I have written related to them was about beating China in AI capabilities development.
Of course no one likes a symmetric arms race, but the question is did people favor the “quickly establish overwhelming dominance towards China by investing heavily in AI” or the “try to negotiate with China and not set an example of racing towards AGI” strategy. My sense is many people favored the former (though definitely not all, and I am not saying that there is anything like consensus, my sense is it’s a quite divisive topic).
To support your point, I have seen much writing from Helen Toner on trying to dispel hawkishness towards China, and have been grateful for that. Against your point, at the recent “AI Security Forum” in Vegas, many x-risk concerned people expressed very hawkish opinions.
Yeah re the export controls, I was trying to say “I think CSET was generally anti-escalatory, but in contrast, the effect of their export controls work was less so” (though I used the word “ambiguous” because my impression was that some relevant people saw a pro of that work that it also mostly didn’t directly advance AI progress in the US, i.e. it set China back without necessarily bringing the US forward towards AGI). To use your terminology, my impression is some of those people were “trying to establish overwhelming dominance over China” but not by “investing heavily in AI”.
This is inconsistent with my impressions and recollections. Most clearly, my sense is that CSET was (maybe still is, not sure) known for being very anti-escalatory towards China, and did substantial early research debunking hawkish views about AI progress in China, demonstrating it was less far along than ways widely believed in DC (and that EAs were involved in this, because they thought it was true and important, because they thought current false fears in the greater natsec community were enhancing arms race risks) (and this was when Jason was leading CSET, and OP supporting its founding). Some of the same people were also supportive of export controls, which are more ambiguous-sign here.
The export controls seemed like a pretty central example of hawkishness towards China and a reasonable precursor to this report. The central motivation in all that I have written related to them was about beating China in AI capabilities development.
Of course no one likes a symmetric arms race, but the question is did people favor the “quickly establish overwhelming dominance towards China by investing heavily in AI” or the “try to negotiate with China and not set an example of racing towards AGI” strategy. My sense is many people favored the former (though definitely not all, and I am not saying that there is anything like consensus, my sense is it’s a quite divisive topic).
To support your point, I have seen much writing from Helen Toner on trying to dispel hawkishness towards China, and have been grateful for that. Against your point, at the recent “AI Security Forum” in Vegas, many x-risk concerned people expressed very hawkish opinions.
Yeah re the export controls, I was trying to say “I think CSET was generally anti-escalatory, but in contrast, the effect of their export controls work was less so” (though I used the word “ambiguous” because my impression was that some relevant people saw a pro of that work that it also mostly didn’t directly advance AI progress in the US, i.e. it set China back without necessarily bringing the US forward towards AGI). To use your terminology, my impression is some of those people were “trying to establish overwhelming dominance over China” but not by “investing heavily in AI”.