Acting too late destroys all of the value in the future. Is there a commensurate cost to acting too quickly? (I’ll assume for now that you don’t think there is one, and are just acknowledging nonzero cost.)
I don’t think there is.
For the sake of having a comprehensive list of arguments (at least ones above some quality threshold), I have seen reasonable people consider (though not necessarily strongly defend) the following view: Alignment research is bottlenecked by our still low level of AI capabilities, so there’s value in pausing at the right moment.
Of course, this just shifts the question to “when is the right moment?” I think it’s way more plausible that the answer is “a year ago” rather than “not yet.”
I don’t think there is.
For the sake of having a comprehensive list of arguments (at least ones above some quality threshold), I have seen reasonable people consider (though not necessarily strongly defend) the following view: Alignment research is bottlenecked by our still low level of AI capabilities, so there’s value in pausing at the right moment.
Of course, this just shifts the question to “when is the right moment?” I think it’s way more plausible that the answer is “a year ago” rather than “not yet.”
I recently wrote a document on why I think slowing down now is very unlikely to be too early, where I try to address some of the counterarguments. I’m linking it here, but please note that I didn’t spend much time on it, so the points are a bit disorganized.