As AI improves, there’s a window for people to get involved and make changes regarding AI alignment and policy.
The window arguably starts small, then widens as it becomes clearer what to do.
But at some point it gets too close to TAI, I expect that the window narrows. The key decisions get made by a smaller and smaller group of people, and these people have less ability get help from others, given the quickening pace of things.
For example, at T minus 1 month, there might ultimately be a group of 10 people with key decision-making authority on the most powerful and dangerous AI project. The ‘room where it happens’ has become quite small.
This is somewhat similar to tech projects. An ambitious initiative will start with a few people, then slowly expand to hundreds. But over time decisions get locked into place. Eventually the project goes into “bug fixing” stage, then a marketing/release phase, after which the researchers will often get re-allocated. Later execs can decide to make decisions like killing the project.
One thing this means is that I expect that there could be a decent amount of time where many of us have “basically nothing to do” about AI safety, even though TAI still hasn’t happened. I imagine it could still be good for many people to try to grow capital and influence other people in order to create positive epistemics/lock-in, but the key AI safety issues belong to a narrow group.
If it is the case that TAI will happen in 2 years, for example, I imagine very few people will be able to do much at all at this point, for the key aspects of AI alignment, especially if you’re not actively working in the field.
Obviously, roles working on legislation with at 5+ time horizon will stop being relevant relevant over 5 years before TAI. And people working in tech at non-leading labs might not be relevant once it’s clear these are non-leading labs.
(I don’t mean to discourage people. Rather, I think it’s important to realize when one should strive hard, and when one should chill out a bit and focus on other issues. Personally I’m sort of looking forward to the time where I’m extremely confident that I can’t contribute much to the most major things. It’s basically the part of the project where it’s ‘in someone else’s hands’.)
Hmm maybe it could still be good to try things in case timelines are a bit longer or an unexpected opportunity arises? For example, what if you thought it was 2 years but actually 3-5?
I wasn’t trying to make the argument that it would definitely be clear when this window closes. I’m very unsure of this. I also expect that different people have different beliefs, and that it makes sense for them to then take corresponding actions.
As AI improves, there’s a window for people to get involved and make changes regarding AI alignment and policy.
The window arguably starts small, then widens as it becomes clearer what to do.
But at some point it gets too close to TAI, I expect that the window narrows. The key decisions get made by a smaller and smaller group of people, and these people have less ability get help from others, given the quickening pace of things.
For example, at T minus 1 month, there might ultimately be a group of 10 people with key decision-making authority on the most powerful and dangerous AI project. The ‘room where it happens’ has become quite small.
This is somewhat similar to tech projects. An ambitious initiative will start with a few people, then slowly expand to hundreds. But over time decisions get locked into place. Eventually the project goes into “bug fixing” stage, then a marketing/release phase, after which the researchers will often get re-allocated. Later execs can decide to make decisions like killing the project.
One thing this means is that I expect that there could be a decent amount of time where many of us have “basically nothing to do” about AI safety, even though TAI still hasn’t happened. I imagine it could still be good for many people to try to grow capital and influence other people in order to create positive epistemics/lock-in, but the key AI safety issues belong to a narrow group.
If it is the case that TAI will happen in 2 years, for example, I imagine very few people will be able to do much at all at this point, for the key aspects of AI alignment, especially if you’re not actively working in the field.
Obviously, roles working on legislation with at 5+ time horizon will stop being relevant relevant over 5 years before TAI. And people working in tech at non-leading labs might not be relevant once it’s clear these are non-leading labs.
(I don’t mean to discourage people. Rather, I think it’s important to realize when one should strive hard, and when one should chill out a bit and focus on other issues. Personally I’m sort of looking forward to the time where I’m extremely confident that I can’t contribute much to the most major things. It’s basically the part of the project where it’s ‘in someone else’s hands’.)
Hmm maybe it could still be good to try things in case timelines are a bit longer or an unexpected opportunity arises? For example, what if you thought it was 2 years but actually 3-5?
I wasn’t trying to make the argument that it would definitely be clear when this window closes. I’m very unsure of this. I also expect that different people have different beliefs, and that it makes sense for them to then take corresponding actions.