Sorry for not being super clear in my comment, it was hastily written. Let me try to correct:
I agree with your point that we might not need to invest in govt “do something” under your assumptions (your (1)).
I think the point I disagree with is the implicit suggestion that we are doing much of what would be covered by (1). I think your view is already the default view.
In my perception, when I look at what we as a community are funding and staffing, > 90% of this is only about (2) -- think tanks and other Beltway type work that is focused on make actors do the right thing, not just salience raising, or, alternatively having these clear conversations.
Somewhat casually but to make the point, I think your argument would change more if Pause AI sat on 100m to organize AI protests, but we would not fund CSET/FLI/GovAI etc.
Note that even saying “AI risk is something we should think about as an existential risk” is more about “what to do” than “do something”, it is saying “now that there is this attention to AI driven by ChatGPT, let us make sure that AI policy is not only framed as, say, consumer protection or a misinformation in elections problem, but also as an existential risk issue of the highest importance.”
This is more of an aside, but I think by default we err on the side of too much of “not getting involved deeply into policy, being afraid to make mistakes” and this itself seems very risky to me. Even if we have until 2030 until really critical decisions are to be made, the policy and relationships built now will shape what we can do then (this was laid out more eloquently by Ezra Klein in his AI risk 80k podcast).
Sorry for not being super clear in my comment, it was hastily written. Let me try to correct:
I agree with your point that we might not need to invest in govt “do something” under your assumptions (your (1)).
I think the point I disagree with is the implicit suggestion that we are doing much of what would be covered by (1). I think your view is already the default view.
In my perception, when I look at what we as a community are funding and staffing, > 90% of this is only about (2) -- think tanks and other Beltway type work that is focused on make actors do the right thing, not just salience raising, or, alternatively having these clear conversations.
Somewhat casually but to make the point, I think your argument would change more if Pause AI sat on 100m to organize AI protests, but we would not fund CSET/FLI/GovAI etc.
Note that even saying “AI risk is something we should think about as an existential risk” is more about “what to do” than “do something”, it is saying “now that there is this attention to AI driven by ChatGPT, let us make sure that AI policy is not only framed as, say, consumer protection or a misinformation in elections problem, but also as an existential risk issue of the highest importance.”
This is more of an aside, but I think by default we err on the side of too much of “not getting involved deeply into policy, being afraid to make mistakes” and this itself seems very risky to me. Even if we have until 2030 until really critical decisions are to be made, the policy and relationships built now will shape what we can do then (this was laid out more eloquently by Ezra Klein in his AI risk 80k podcast).