Is Bernieās AI sovereign wealth fund proposal good or bad for AI safety?
(Iām deliberately sidelining the details of how exactly to establish an AI SWF because I donāt think it is important this early in the conversation.)
On the pro side, a SWF is a good answer to intelligence curse issues. It may also give an higher chance of AI risks (ānear-termā or ālong-termā) being weighted into AIcosā decisions (particularly those who are supposed to be PBCs), for the same reason the LTFF and OpenAI Foundation are beneficial and dilution through IPOs might be dangerous and lead them to act more like any publicly listed company.
A more subtle pro would be that with the more immediate and intense social fear of corporate domination subsiding, this would leave room for the more complicated issues, including existential risk, to enter the public debate.
On the anti side, there has been an argument floating around that the government owning AI stocks might discourage it from taking measures that might hurt AI profits.
I think this argument is very weak, the economy is already quite dependent on AI companies doing well, and oil SWFs donāt seem to have been an issue for Norway and even the Gulf taking the green transition seriously.
Iām not even sure e.g. a pause would be a bad thing economically for AI companies? Training increasingly large models is the whole reason they canāt make a profit right now.
The more interesting anti argument is that, badly constructed (in particular, if the influence of the āunitary executiveā is stronger than the influence of the bipartisan, deliberative congress), this could serve as a move toward greater centralization into a small group, which would neutralize most of the pros I discussed earlier. This part is certainly more worrisome considering the current levels of corruption going on.
(Iām deliberately sidelining the details of how exactly to establish an AI SWF because I donāt think it is important this early in the conversation.)
On the pro side, a SWF is a good answer to intelligence curse issues. It may also give an higher chance of AI risks (ānear-termā or ālong-termā) being weighted into AIcosā decisions (particularly those who are supposed to be PBCs), for the same reason the LTFF and OpenAI Foundation are beneficial and dilution through IPOs might be dangerous and lead them to act more like any publicly listed company.
A more subtle pro would be that with the more immediate and intense social fear of corporate domination subsiding, this would leave room for the more complicated issues, including existential risk, to enter the public debate.
On the anti side, there has been an argument floating around that the government owning AI stocks might discourage it from taking measures that might hurt AI profits.
I think this argument is very weak, the economy is already quite dependent on AI companies doing well, and oil SWFs donāt seem to have been an issue for Norway and even the Gulf taking the green transition seriously.
Iām not even sure e.g. a pause would be a bad thing economically for AI companies? Training increasingly large models is the whole reason they canāt make a profit right now.
The more interesting anti argument is that, badly constructed (in particular, if the influence of the āunitary executiveā is stronger than the influence of the bipartisan, deliberative congress), this could serve as a move toward greater centralization into a small group, which would neutralize most of the pros I discussed earlier. This part is certainly more worrisome considering the current levels of corruption going on.