(Edit to add: The below is operating entirely in the world where we don’t get an indefinite moratorium initially. I strongly agree about the preferability of an idefinite governance regime, though I think that during a multi-year pause with review mechanisms we’ll get additional evidence that either safety is possible, and find a path, or conclude that we need a much longer time, or it’s not possible at all.)
If you grant that a pause increases danger by reducing the ability of society and safety researchers to respond, and you don’t think doom is very, very likely even with extreme effort, then it’s reasonable that we would prefer, say, a 50% probability of success controlling AI given 3 years over a 10% probability of success given a 2-year pause then only 18 months. Of course, if you’re 99.95% sure that we’re doomed given 3 years, it makes sense to me that the extra 6 months of survival moving the probability to 99.99% would seem more worth it. But I don’t understand how anyone gets that degree of confidence making predictions. (Superforecasters who have really fantastic predictive accuracy and calibration tend to laugh at claims like that.)
That said, I strongly agree that this isn’t an acceptable bet to make. We should not let anyone play Russian roulette with all of humanity, and even if you think it’s only a 0.05% probability of doom (again, people seem very obviously overconfident about their guesses about the future,) that seems like a reason to insist that other people get to check your work in saying the system is safe.
Finally, I don’t think that you can buy time to get governments to step in quite the way you’re suggesting, after a pause. That is, if we get a pause that then expires, we are going to need tons of marginal evidence after that point to get an even stronger response, even once it’s in the Overton window. But the evidence we’d need is presumably not showing up, or not showing up as quickly, because there isn’t as much progress. So either the pause is extended indefinitely without further evidence, or we’ll see a capabilities jump, and that increases risks.
And once we see the capabilities jump after a pause expires, it seems plausible that any stronger response will be far too slow. (It might be OK, they might re-implement the pause, but I don’t see a reason for confidence in their ability or willingness to do so.) And in general, unless there are already plans in place that they can just execute, governments react on timescales measured in years.
(Note for everyone reading that all of this assumes, as I do, that the risk is large and will become more obvious as time progresses and we see capabilities continue to outpace reliable safety. If safety gets solved during a pause, I guess it was worth it, or maybe even unnecessary. But I’m incredibly skeptical.)
(Edit to add: The below is operating entirely in the world where we don’t get an indefinite moratorium initially. I strongly agree about the preferability of an idefinite governance regime, though I think that during a multi-year pause with review mechanisms we’ll get additional evidence that either safety is possible, and find a path, or conclude that we need a much longer time, or it’s not possible at all.)
If you grant that a pause increases danger by reducing the ability of society and safety researchers to respond, and you don’t think doom is very, very likely even with extreme effort, then it’s reasonable that we would prefer, say, a 50% probability of success controlling AI given 3 years over a 10% probability of success given a 2-year pause then only 18 months. Of course, if you’re 99.95% sure that we’re doomed given 3 years, it makes sense to me that the extra 6 months of survival moving the probability to 99.99% would seem more worth it. But I don’t understand how anyone gets that degree of confidence making predictions. (Superforecasters who have really fantastic predictive accuracy and calibration tend to laugh at claims like that.)
That said, I strongly agree that this isn’t an acceptable bet to make. We should not let anyone play Russian roulette with all of humanity, and even if you think it’s only a 0.05% probability of doom (again, people seem very obviously overconfident about their guesses about the future,) that seems like a reason to insist that other people get to check your work in saying the system is safe.
Finally, I don’t think that you can buy time to get governments to step in quite the way you’re suggesting, after a pause. That is, if we get a pause that then expires, we are going to need tons of marginal evidence after that point to get an even stronger response, even once it’s in the Overton window. But the evidence we’d need is presumably not showing up, or not showing up as quickly, because there isn’t as much progress. So either the pause is extended indefinitely without further evidence, or we’ll see a capabilities jump, and that increases risks.
And once we see the capabilities jump after a pause expires, it seems plausible that any stronger response will be far too slow. (It might be OK, they might re-implement the pause, but I don’t see a reason for confidence in their ability or willingness to do so.) And in general, unless there are already plans in place that they can just execute, governments react on timescales measured in years.
(Note for everyone reading that all of this assumes, as I do, that the risk is large and will become more obvious as time progresses and we see capabilities continue to outpace reliable safety. If safety gets solved during a pause, I guess it was worth it, or maybe even unnecessary. But I’m incredibly skeptical.)