In terms of feedback/reaction: I work on AI alignment, game theory, and cooperative AI, so Moloch is basically my key concern. And from that position, I highly approve of the overall talk, and of all of the content in particular—except for one point, where I felt a bit so-so. And that is the part about what the company leaders can do to help the situation.
The key thing is 9:58-10:09 (“We need leaders who are willing to flip the Moloch’s playbook. …”) , but I think this part then changes how people interpret 10:59-10:11 (“Perhaps companies can start competing over who … ”). I don’t mean to say that I strongly disagree here—rather, I mean that this part seems objectively speculative, which was in contrast with everything else in the talk (which seemed super solid).
More specifically, the talk’s formulation suggested to me that the key thing is whether the leaders would be willing to not play the Moloch game. In contrast, it seems quite possible that this by itself wouldn’t help at all, for example because they would just get fired if they tried. My personal guess is that “the key thing” is affordance the leaders have for not playing the Moloch game / the costs they incur for doing so. Or perhaps the combination of this and the willingness to not play the Moloch game. And this is also how I would frame the 10:59-10:11 part—that we should try to make it such that the companies can compete on those other things that turn this into a race to the top. (As opposed to “the companies should compete on those other things”.)
In terms of feedback/reaction: I work on AI alignment, game theory, and cooperative AI, so Moloch is basically my key concern. And from that position, I highly approve of the overall talk, and of all of the content in particular—except for one point, where I felt a bit so-so. And that is the part about what the company leaders can do to help the situation.
The key thing is 9:58-10:09 (“We need leaders who are willing to flip the Moloch’s playbook. …”) , but I think this part then changes how people interpret 10:59-10:11 (“Perhaps companies can start competing over who … ”). I don’t mean to say that I strongly disagree here—rather, I mean that this part seems objectively speculative, which was in contrast with everything else in the talk (which seemed super solid).
More specifically, the talk’s formulation suggested to me that the key thing is whether the leaders would be willing to not play the Moloch game. In contrast, it seems quite possible that this by itself wouldn’t help at all, for example because they would just get fired if they tried. My personal guess is that “the key thing” is affordance the leaders have for not playing the Moloch game / the costs they incur for doing so. Or perhaps the combination of this and the willingness to not play the Moloch game. And this is also how I would frame the 10:59-10:11 part—that we should try to make it such that the companies can compete on those other things that turn this into a race to the top. (As opposed to “the companies should compete on those other things”.)