Given the already existing support of the public for going slowly and deliberately, there seems to be a decent case that instead of trying to build public support, we should directly target the policymakers.
I think “public support” is ambiguous, and by some definitions, it isn’t there yet.
One definition is something like “Does the public care about this when they are asked directly?” and this type of support definitely exists, per data like the YouGov poll showing majority support for AI pause.
But there are also polls showing that almost half of U.S. adults “support a ban on factory farming.” I think the correct takeaway from those polls is that there’s a gap between vaguely agreeing with an idea when asked vs. actually supporting specific, meaningful policies in a proactive way.
So I think the definition of “public support” that could help the safety situation, and which is missing right now, is something like “How does this issue rank when the public is asked what causes will inform their voting decisions in the next election cycle?”
But there are also polls showing that almost half of U.S. adults “support a ban on factory farming.” I think the correct takeaway from those polls is that there’s a gap between vaguely agreeing with an idea when asked vs. actually supporting specific, meaningful policies in a proactive way.
I broadly agree with the conclusion as stated. But I think there are at least a couple of important asymmetries between the factory farming question and the AI question, which mean that we shouldn’t expect there to be a gap of a similar magnitude between stated public support and actual public support regarding AI.
Ending factory farming ban is in direct conflict with most respondents’ (perceived) self-interest in a way that a pause on AI is not (since those respondents willingly continue to consume animal products).
Questions about support for factory farming are more likely to elicit socially desirable responding than questions about the AI pause, since most of those respondents believe factory farming is bad and widely viewed as such, so actively supporting factory farming seems bad. I would expect this to be much less the case regarding AI (we looked into this briefly here and found no evidence of socially desirable responding in either direction).
I think both of these factors conduce to a larger gap between stated attitudes and actual support in the animal farming case. That said, I think this is an ameliorable problem: in our replications of the SI animal farming results, we found substantially lower support (close to 15%).
So, I think the conclusion to draw is that polling certain questions can find misleadingly high support for different issues (even if you ask a well known survey panel to run the questions), but not that very high support found in surveys just generally doesn’t mean anything. [Not that you said this, but I wanted to explain why I don’t think it is the case anyway]
Agree, and I want to add that you need to keep up awareness to keep what support we do have from slipping. Even if and when we have legislative victories, there’s going to be opposition from industry for the foreseeable future, so there’s going to be a role for AI Safety advocacy.
I think “public support” is ambiguous, and by some definitions, it isn’t there yet.
One definition is something like “Does the public care about this when they are asked directly?” and this type of support definitely exists, per data like the YouGov poll showing majority support for AI pause.
But there are also polls showing that almost half of U.S. adults “support a ban on factory farming.” I think the correct takeaway from those polls is that there’s a gap between vaguely agreeing with an idea when asked vs. actually supporting specific, meaningful policies in a proactive way.
So I think the definition of “public support” that could help the safety situation, and which is missing right now, is something like “How does this issue rank when the public is asked what causes will inform their voting decisions in the next election cycle?”
I broadly agree with the conclusion as stated. But I think there are at least a couple of important asymmetries between the factory farming question and the AI question, which mean that we shouldn’t expect there to be a gap of a similar magnitude between stated public support and actual public support regarding AI.
Ending factory farming ban is in direct conflict with most respondents’ (perceived) self-interest in a way that a pause on AI is not (since those respondents willingly continue to consume animal products).
Questions about support for factory farming are more likely to elicit socially desirable responding than questions about the AI pause, since most of those respondents believe factory farming is bad and widely viewed as such, so actively supporting factory farming seems bad. I would expect this to be much less the case regarding AI (we looked into this briefly here and found no evidence of socially desirable responding in either direction).
I think both of these factors conduce to a larger gap between stated attitudes and actual support in the animal farming case. That said, I think this is an ameliorable problem: in our replications of the SI animal farming results, we found substantially lower support (close to 15%).
So, I think the conclusion to draw is that polling certain questions can find misleadingly high support for different issues (even if you ask a well known survey panel to run the questions), but not that very high support found in surveys just generally doesn’t mean anything. [Not that you said this, but I wanted to explain why I don’t think it is the case anyway]
Agree, and I want to add that you need to keep up awareness to keep what support we do have from slipping. Even if and when we have legislative victories, there’s going to be opposition from industry for the foreseeable future, so there’s going to be a role for AI Safety advocacy.