a pause might make multipolar scenarios more likely by giving more groups time to build AGI
That wouldn’t really be a pause! A proper Pause (or moratorium) would include a global taboo on AGI research to the point where as few people would be doing it as are working on eugenics now (and they would be relatively easy to stop).
A pause would still give more groups more time catch up on existing research and to build infrastructure for AGI (energy, datacenters), right? Then when the pause is lifted, we could have more players at the research frontier and ready to train frontier models.
Couldn’t a country just opt out unilaterally, and then others follow suit? And should we trust their assessment of s-risks even if proceeding by global consensus?
That wouldn’t really be a pause! A proper Pause (or moratorium) would include a global taboo on AGI research to the point where as few people would be doing it as are working on eugenics now (and they would be relatively easy to stop).
A pause would still give more groups more time catch up on existing research and to build infrastructure for AGI (energy, datacenters), right? Then when the pause is lifted, we could have more players at the research frontier and ready to train frontier models.
Any realistic Pause would not be lifted absent a global consensus on proceeding with whatever risk remains.
Couldn’t a country just opt out unilaterally, and then others follow suit? And should we trust their assessment of s-risks even if proceeding by global consensus?
Having the superpowers on board is the main thing. If others opt out, then enforcement against them can be effective in that case.
No, but it’s far better than what we have now.