If an alignment-minded person is currently doing capabilities work under the assumption that they’d be replaced by an equally (or more) capable researcher less concerned about alignment, I think that’s badly mistaken. The number of people actually pushing the frontier forward is not all that large. Researchers at that level are not fungible; the differences between the first-best and second-best available candidates for roles like that are often quite large. The framing of an arms race is mistaken; the prize for “winning” is that you die sooner. Dying later is better. If you’re in a position like that I’d be happy to talk to you, or arrange for you to talk to another member of the Lightcone team.
I do not significantly credit the possibility that Google (or equivalent) will try to make life difficult for people who manage to successfully convince the marginal capabilities researcher to switch tracks, absent evidence. I agree that historical examples of vaguely similar things exist, but the ones I’m familiar with don’t seem analogous, and we do in fact have fairly strong evidence about the kinds of antics that various megacorps get up to, which seem to be strongly predicted by their internal culture.
I’d be interested in the historical record for similar industries, could you quickly list some examples that come to your mind? No need to elaborate much.
If an alignment-minded person is currently doing capabilities work under the assumption that they’d be replaced by an equally (or more) capable researcher less concerned about alignment, I think that’s badly mistaken. The number of people actually pushing the frontier forward is not all that large. Researchers at that level are not fungible; the differences between the first-best and second-best available candidates for roles like that are often quite large. The framing of an arms race is mistaken; the prize for “winning” is that you die sooner. Dying later is better. If you’re in a position like that I’d be happy to talk to you, or arrange for you to talk to another member of the Lightcone team.
I do not significantly credit the possibility that Google (or equivalent) will try to make life difficult for people who manage to successfully convince the marginal capabilities researcher to switch tracks, absent evidence. I agree that historical examples of vaguely similar things exist, but the ones I’m familiar with don’t seem analogous, and we do in fact have fairly strong evidence about the kinds of antics that various megacorps get up to, which seem to be strongly predicted by their internal culture.
I’d be interested in the historical record for similar industries, could you quickly list some examples that come to your mind? No need to elaborate much.