As far as I know it’s true that there isn’t much of this sort of work happening at any given time, though over the years there has been a fair amount of non-public work of this sort, and it has usually failed to convince people who weren’t already sympathetic to the work’s conclusions (about which intermediate goals are vs. aren’t worth aiming for, or about the worldview cruxes underlying those disagreements). There isn’t even consensus about intermediate goals such as the “make government generically smarter about AI policy” goals you suggested, though in some (not all) cases the objection to that category is less “it’s net harmful” and more “it won’t be that important / decisive.”
Thank you Luke – great to hear this work is happening but still surprised by the lack of progress and would be keen to see more such work out in public!
(FWIW Minor point but I am not sure I would phrase a goal as “make government generically smarter about AI policy” just being “smart” is not good. Ideally want a combination of smart + has good incentives + has space to take action. To be more precise when planning I often use COM-B models, as used in international development governance reform work, to ensure all three factors are captured and balanced.)
As far as I know it’s true that there isn’t much of this sort of work happening at any given time, though over the years there has been a fair amount of non-public work of this sort, and it has usually failed to convince people who weren’t already sympathetic to the work’s conclusions (about which intermediate goals are vs. aren’t worth aiming for, or about the worldview cruxes underlying those disagreements). There isn’t even consensus about intermediate goals such as the “make government generically smarter about AI policy” goals you suggested, though in some (not all) cases the objection to that category is less “it’s net harmful” and more “it won’t be that important / decisive.”
Thank you Luke – great to hear this work is happening but still surprised by the lack of progress and would be keen to see more such work out in public!
(FWIW Minor point but I am not sure I would phrase a goal as “make government generically smarter about AI policy” just being “smart” is not good. Ideally want a combination of smart + has good incentives + has space to take action. To be more precise when planning I often use COM-B models, as used in international development governance reform work, to ensure all three factors are captured and balanced.)