Hello :) thank you for the thoughtful comment on my old post. I really appreciate you taking the time to engage with it, and you’re spot on—it was a high-level, abstract vision.
It’s funny you ask for the “gears-level” design, because I did spend a long time trying to build it out. That effort resulted in a massive (and honestly, monstrously complex and still naive/amateur) paper on the G-CCACS architecture (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28673576.v5).
However, my own perspective has shifted significantly since then. Really.
My current diagnosis, detailed in my latest work “Warped Wetware” (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29183669.v13) and in this latest article “The Engine of Foreclosure” (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6be7xQHFREPYJKmyE/the-engine-of-foreclosure) is that the AI control problem is formally intractable. Not because we can’t design clever technical architectures, but because the global human system (i call it “Distributed Human Optimizer”) is structurally wired to reject them. The evidence, from the 100:1 (or even 400+ to 1) capability-vs-safety funding gap to the failure of every governance paradigm we’ve tried, seems conclusive.
This has led me to a stark conclusion: focusing on purely technical solutions like G-CCACS, while intellectually interesting, feels dangerously naive until we confront these underlying systemic failures. The best blueprint in the world is uselessif the builders are locked in a race to the bottom.
That’s why my work has pivoted entirely to the Doctrine of Material Friction—pragmatic, physical interventions designed to slow the system down rather than “solve” alignment. Your point about “memetic stickiness” was incredibly sharp, and it’s even more of a challenge for this grimmer diagnosis.
Anyway, thanks again for the great feedback. It’s exactly the kind of clear-eyed engagement this field needs.
Hello :) thank you for the thoughtful comment on my old post. I really appreciate you taking the time to engage with it, and you’re spot on—it was a high-level, abstract vision.
It’s funny you ask for the “gears-level” design, because I did spend a long time trying to build it out. That effort resulted in a massive (and honestly, monstrously complex and still naive/amateur) paper on the G-CCACS architecture (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28673576.v5).
However, my own perspective has shifted significantly since then. Really.
My current diagnosis, detailed in my latest work “Warped Wetware” (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29183669.v13) and in this latest article “The Engine of Foreclosure” (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6be7xQHFREPYJKmyE/the-engine-of-foreclosure) is that the AI control problem is formally intractable. Not because we can’t design clever technical architectures, but because the global human system (i call it “Distributed Human Optimizer”) is structurally wired to reject them. The evidence, from the 100:1 (or even 400+ to 1) capability-vs-safety funding gap to the failure of every governance paradigm we’ve tried, seems conclusive.
This has led me to a stark conclusion: focusing on purely technical solutions like G-CCACS, while intellectually interesting, feels dangerously naive until we confront these underlying systemic failures. The best blueprint in the world is useless if the builders are locked in a race to the bottom.
That’s why my work has pivoted entirely to the Doctrine of Material Friction—pragmatic, physical interventions designed to slow the system down rather than “solve” alignment. Your point about “memetic stickiness” was incredibly sharp, and it’s even more of a challenge for this grimmer diagnosis.
Anyway, thanks again for the great feedback. It’s exactly the kind of clear-eyed engagement this field needs.