I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to respond, Mikhail!
<I would like to note that none of that had been met with corporations willing to spend potentially dozens of billions of dollars on lobbying>
I don’t think this is true, for GMOs, fossil fuels, or nuclear power. It’s important total lobbying capacity/potential, from actual amount spent on lobbying.… Total annual total technology lobbying is in the order hundreds of million: the amount allocated for AI lobbying is, by definition, less. This is a similar to total annual lobbying (or I suspect lower) than than biotechnology spending for GMOs. Annual climate lobbying over £150 million per yearas I mentioned in my piece. The stakes are also high for nuclear power. As mentioned in my piece, legislation in Germany to extend plant lifetimes in 2010 offered around €73 billion in extra profits for energy companies, some firms sued for billions of Euros after Germany’s reversal. (Though, I couldn’t find an exact figure for nuclear lobbying).
< none of these clearly stand out to policymakers as something uniquely important from the competitiveness perspective >
I also feel this is too strong. Reagan’s national security advisors were reluctant about his arms control efforts in 1980s because of national security concerns. Some politicians in Sweden believed nuclear weapons were uniquely important for national security. If your point is that AI is more strategically important than these other examples, then I would agree with you. Though your phrasing is overly strong.
< AI is more like railroads >
I don’t know if this is true … I wonder how strategically important railroads were? I also wonder how profitable they were? Seems to be much more state involvement in railroads versus AI… Though, this could be an interesting case study project!
< AI is more like CFCs in the eyes of policymakers, but for that, you need a clear scientific consensus on the existential threat from AI >
I agree you need scientific input, but CFCs also saw widespread public mobilisation (as described in the piece).
< incentivising them to address the public’s concerns won’t lead to the change we need >
This seems quite confusing. Surely, this depends on what the public’s concerns are?
< the loudest voices are likely to make claims that the policymakers will know to be incorrect >
This also seems confusing to me. If you believe that policymakers regularly sort the “loudest voices” from real scientists, in general, why do you think that regulations with “substantial net-negative impact” passed wrt GMOs/nuclear?
< Also, I’m not sure there’s an actual moratorium on GM crops in Europe >
Yes, with “moratorium” I’m referring to a de-facto moratorium on new approvals of GMOs 1999-2002. In general, though, Europe grows a lot less GMOs than other countries: 0.1 million hectares annually versus >70 million hectares in US. I wasn’t aware Europe imports GMOs from abroad.
Widespread public mobilisation certainly helps to get more policymakers on board with regulation, but the mobilisation has to be caused by a scientific consensus and be pointing at the scientific consensus
If you believe that policymakers regularly sort the “loudest voices” from real scientists
I was talking about the loudest of the activist voices: I’m worried policymakers might hear the public is concerned about hugely beneficial technology instead the public being concerned about the technical reasons for doom and pointing at the scientists to listen to who can explain these reasons
a de-facto moratorium on new approvals
For the context, I want lots of narrow AI to be allowed; I also want things with potential to kill everyone to be prevented from being created, with no chance of someone getting through, anywhere in the planet.
I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to respond, Mikhail!
<I would like to note that none of that had been met with corporations willing to spend potentially dozens of billions of dollars on lobbying>
I don’t think this is true, for GMOs, fossil fuels, or nuclear power. It’s important total lobbying capacity/potential, from actual amount spent on lobbying.… Total annual total technology lobbying is in the order hundreds of million: the amount allocated for AI lobbying is, by definition, less. This is a similar to total annual lobbying (or I suspect lower) than than biotechnology spending for GMOs. Annual climate lobbying over £150 million per year as I mentioned in my piece. The stakes are also high for nuclear power. As mentioned in my piece, legislation in Germany to extend plant lifetimes in 2010 offered around €73 billion in extra profits for energy companies, some firms sued for billions of Euros after Germany’s reversal. (Though, I couldn’t find an exact figure for nuclear lobbying).
< none of these clearly stand out to policymakers as something uniquely important from the competitiveness perspective >
I also feel this is too strong. Reagan’s national security advisors were reluctant about his arms control efforts in 1980s because of national security concerns. Some politicians in Sweden believed nuclear weapons were uniquely important for national security. If your point is that AI is more strategically important than these other examples, then I would agree with you. Though your phrasing is overly strong.
< AI is more like railroads >
I don’t know if this is true … I wonder how strategically important railroads were? I also wonder how profitable they were? Seems to be much more state involvement in railroads versus AI… Though, this could be an interesting case study project!
< AI is more like CFCs in the eyes of policymakers, but for that, you need a clear scientific consensus on the existential threat from AI >
I agree you need scientific input, but CFCs also saw widespread public mobilisation (as described in the piece).
< incentivising them to address the public’s concerns won’t lead to the change we need >
This seems quite confusing. Surely, this depends on what the public’s concerns are?
< the loudest voices are likely to make claims that the policymakers will know to be incorrect >
This also seems confusing to me. If you believe that policymakers regularly sort the “loudest voices” from real scientists, in general, why do you think that regulations with “substantial net-negative impact” passed wrt GMOs/nuclear?
< Also, I’m not sure there’s an actual moratorium on GM crops in Europe >
Yes, with “moratorium” I’m referring to a de-facto moratorium on new approvals of GMOs 1999-2002. In general, though, Europe grows a lot less GMOs than other countries: 0.1 million hectares annually versus >70 million hectares in US. I wasn’t aware Europe imports GMOs from abroad.
I appreciate the reply!
Widespread public mobilisation certainly helps to get more policymakers on board with regulation, but the mobilisation has to be caused by a scientific consensus and be pointing at the scientific consensus
I was talking about the loudest of the activist voices: I’m worried policymakers might hear the public is concerned about hugely beneficial technology instead the public being concerned about the technical reasons for doom and pointing at the scientists to listen to who can explain these reasons
For the context, I want lots of narrow AI to be allowed; I also want things with potential to kill everyone to be prevented from being created, with no chance of someone getting through, anywhere in the planet.
$957m in the US alone in 2023 on tech (less on AI): https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/02/ai-lobbying-spikes-nearly-200percent-as-calls-for-regulation-surge.html