I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I agree with all of these points. Another route would be selling AI Safety solutions to non-AI safety firms. This solves many of the issues raised in the post but introduces new ones. As you mentioned in the Infertile Idea Space section, companies often start with a product idea, talk to potential customers, and then end up building a different product to solve a bigger problem that the customer segment has. In this context that could look like offering a product with an alignment tax, customers not being willing to pay it, pivoting to something accelerationist instead. You might think “I would never do that!” but it can be very easy to fool yourself into thinking you are still having a positive impact when the alternative is the painful process of firing your employees and telling your investors (who are often your friends and family) that you lost their money.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I agree with all of these points. Another route would be selling AI Safety solutions to non-AI safety firms. This solves many of the issues raised in the post but introduces new ones. As you mentioned in the Infertile Idea Space section, companies often start with a product idea, talk to potential customers, and then end up building a different product to solve a bigger problem that the customer segment has. In this context that could look like offering a product with an alignment tax, customers not being willing to pay it, pivoting to something accelerationist instead. You might think “I would never do that!” but it can be very easy to fool yourself into thinking you are still having a positive impact when the alternative is the painful process of firing your employees and telling your investors (who are often your friends and family) that you lost their money.