Wanted to respond to one specific paragraph from this. Kids famously ask “why?” over and over until their parents go insane.
LLMs tirelessly answer “why?” just for you. Is that curiosity still inside the average adult?
Ways LLMs improve coordination:
Helping people define problems (many of which we all share)
Pointing out stable solutions involving coordination when they exist and are described by literature
Suggesting coordination mechanisms
GPT-5 can do all three of these to a useful degree today, even if no further progress was made. It’s not a PhD level thinker, but it can connect you to PhD level ideas. Sycophancy is a problem, as is distraction. Either could kill the concept. Maybe we get the Wall-E world. But I think people want to know “why?”.
What LLMs don’t do:
Make everyone agree (although disagreements may converge to cruxes faster, enabling better understanding [or more direct conflict?])
Quorum sensing[1] - the ability to detect when enough actors are willing to cooperate to make cooperation effective. People often avoid being the first to move, unless they know they have support.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and would appreciate links to further reading. OP[2], you should look into Pol.is if you haven’t already. It’s on my reading list. Also, see Nepal [3] for some tech-enabled coordination on a large scale.
On “LLMs as Tools for Alignment”:
Wanted to respond to one specific paragraph from this. Kids famously ask “why?” over and over until their parents go insane.
LLMs tirelessly answer “why?” just for you. Is that curiosity still inside the average adult?
Ways LLMs improve coordination:
Helping people define problems (many of which we all share)
Pointing out stable solutions involving coordination when they exist and are described by literature
Suggesting coordination mechanisms
GPT-5 can do all three of these to a useful degree today, even if no further progress was made. It’s not a PhD level thinker, but it can connect you to PhD level ideas. Sycophancy is a problem, as is distraction. Either could kill the concept. Maybe we get the Wall-E world. But I think people want to know “why?”.
What LLMs don’t do:
Make everyone agree (although disagreements may converge to cruxes faster, enabling better understanding [or more direct conflict?])
Quorum sensing[1] - the ability to detect when enough actors are willing to cooperate to make cooperation effective. People often avoid being the first to move, unless they know they have support.
I have been thinking about this a lot, and would appreciate links to further reading. OP[2], you should look into Pol.is if you haven’t already. It’s on my reading list. Also, see Nepal [3] for some tech-enabled coordination on a large scale.
For things like collective bargaining, voting behaviors, and civic coordination.
As an aside, parts of this read like they were written by an LLM, and I’d expect more engagement if you added more of your voice throughout.
I do not necessarily expect Nepal to go well.