Yep it’s all meant to be disjunctive and yep it could have been clearer. FWIW this essay went through multiple major revisions and at one point I was trying to make the disjunctivity of it super clear but then that got de-prioritized relative to other stuff. In the future if/when I write about this I think I’ll be able to organize things significantly better
Hmm, AI safety is probably easy implies that slowing AI is lower-stakes but doesn’t obviously imply much about whether it’s net-positive. It’s not obvious to me what alignment optimism has to do with the pause debate, and I don’t think you discuss this.
It’s not obvious to me what alignment optimism has to do with the pause debate
Sorry, I thought it would be fairly obvious how it’s related. If you’re optimistic about alignment then the expected benefits you might hope to get out of a pause (whether or not you actually do get those benefits) are commensurately smaller, so the unintended consequences should have more relative weight in your EV calculation.
To be clear, I think slowing down AI in general, as opposed to the moratorium proposal in particular, is a more reasonable position that’s a bit harder to argue against. I do still think the overhang concerns apply in non-pause slowdowns but in a less acute manner.
Given alignment optimism, the benefits of pause are smaller—but the unintended consequences for alignment are smaller too. I guess alignment optimism suggests pause-is-bad if e.g. your alignment optimism is super conditional on smooth progress...
Yep it’s all meant to be disjunctive and yep it could have been clearer. FWIW this essay went through multiple major revisions and at one point I was trying to make the disjunctivity of it super clear but then that got de-prioritized relative to other stuff. In the future if/when I write about this I think I’ll be able to organize things significantly better
Hmm, AI safety is probably easy implies that slowing AI is lower-stakes but doesn’t obviously imply much about whether it’s net-positive. It’s not obvious to me what alignment optimism has to do with the pause debate, and I don’t think you discuss this.
Sorry, I thought it would be fairly obvious how it’s related. If you’re optimistic about alignment then the expected benefits you might hope to get out of a pause (whether or not you actually do get those benefits) are commensurately smaller, so the unintended consequences should have more relative weight in your EV calculation.
To be clear, I think slowing down AI in general, as opposed to the moratorium proposal in particular, is a more reasonable position that’s a bit harder to argue against. I do still think the overhang concerns apply in non-pause slowdowns but in a less acute manner.
Given alignment optimism, the benefits of pause are smaller—but the unintended consequences for alignment are smaller too. I guess alignment optimism suggests pause-is-bad if e.g. your alignment optimism is super conditional on smooth progress...
Could you say more about what you see as the practical distinction between a “slow down AI in general” proposal vs. a “pause” proposal?