Lixiang—thanks for your post; I can see how it may look like EA over-emphasizes AI alignment over other issues.
I guess one way to look at this is, as you note, ‘AI alignment’ is a very broad umbrella term that covers a wide variety of possible problems and failure modes for advanced cognitive technologies. Just as ‘AI’ is a very broad umbrella term that covers a wide variety of emerging cognitive technologies that have extremely broad uses and implications.
Insofar as 21st century technological progress might be dominated by these emerging cognitive technologies, ‘AI’ basically boils down to ‘almost every new computer-based technology that might have transformative effects on human societies’ ((Which is NOT just restricted to Artificial General Intelligence’). And ‘AI alignment’ boils down to ‘almost everything that could go wrong (or right) with all of the emerging technologies’.
Viewed that way, ‘AI alignment’ is basically the problem of surviving the most transformative information technologies in this century.
Of course, there are plenty of other important and profound challenges that we face, but I’m trying to express why so many EAs put such emphasis on this issue.
Lixiang—thanks for your post; I can see how it may look like EA over-emphasizes AI alignment over other issues.
I guess one way to look at this is, as you note, ‘AI alignment’ is a very broad umbrella term that covers a wide variety of possible problems and failure modes for advanced cognitive technologies. Just as ‘AI’ is a very broad umbrella term that covers a wide variety of emerging cognitive technologies that have extremely broad uses and implications.
Insofar as 21st century technological progress might be dominated by these emerging cognitive technologies, ‘AI’ basically boils down to ‘almost every new computer-based technology that might have transformative effects on human societies’ ((Which is NOT just restricted to Artificial General Intelligence’). And ‘AI alignment’ boils down to ‘almost everything that could go wrong (or right) with all of the emerging technologies’.
Viewed that way, ‘AI alignment’ is basically the problem of surviving the most transformative information technologies in this century.
Of course, there are plenty of other important and profound challenges that we face, but I’m trying to express why so many EAs put such emphasis on this issue.