Stephen—this all sounds reasonable, if the actual goal of ‘Pause AI’ (which I strongly support) was just to shape policy and regulation.
But, IMHO, that’s not the actual goal. Policy and regulation are weak, slow, noisy, often ineffective ways to de-fang dangerous technologies.
From my perspective, some key implicit benefits of the Pause AI are (1) raising public awareness about the extinction risks from AI, and (2) promoting public stigmatization of the AI industry, to undermine its funding, talent pool, status, prestige, and public support. As I argued here, moral stigmatization can be much stronger, faster, and effective than formal regulation.
(Note that a lot of Pause AI organizers and supporters might disagree with me about these benefits, and might argue that Pause AI really is all about getting better formal regulation. That’s fine, and I respect their view. But what I see on social media platforms such as Twitter/X is that Pause AI is succeeding much better at the consciousness-raising and moral-stigmatizing than it is at policy updating—which in my opinion is actually a good thing.)
I think the only actually feasible way to slow down the AI arms race is through global moral stigmatization of the AI industry. No amount of regulation will do it. No amount of clever policy analysis will do it. No amount of ‘technical AI alignment work’ will help.
The EA movement needs to be crystal clear about the extinction risks the AI industry is imposing on humanity, without our consent. The time for playing nice with the AI industry is over. We need to call them out as evil, and help the public understand why their reckless hubris could end us all.
Stephen—this all sounds reasonable, if the actual goal of ‘Pause AI’ (which I strongly support) was just to shape policy and regulation.
But, IMHO, that’s not the actual goal. Policy and regulation are weak, slow, noisy, often ineffective ways to de-fang dangerous technologies.
From my perspective, some key implicit benefits of the Pause AI are (1) raising public awareness about the extinction risks from AI, and (2) promoting public stigmatization of the AI industry, to undermine its funding, talent pool, status, prestige, and public support. As I argued here, moral stigmatization can be much stronger, faster, and effective than formal regulation.
(Note that a lot of Pause AI organizers and supporters might disagree with me about these benefits, and might argue that Pause AI really is all about getting better formal regulation. That’s fine, and I respect their view. But what I see on social media platforms such as Twitter/X is that Pause AI is succeeding much better at the consciousness-raising and moral-stigmatizing than it is at policy updating—which in my opinion is actually a good thing.)
I think the only actually feasible way to slow down the AI arms race is through global moral stigmatization of the AI industry. No amount of regulation will do it. No amount of clever policy analysis will do it. No amount of ‘technical AI alignment work’ will help.
The EA movement needs to be crystal clear about the extinction risks the AI industry is imposing on humanity, without our consent. The time for playing nice with the AI industry is over. We need to call them out as evil, and help the public understand why their reckless hubris could end us all.