I think you (Michael Dickens) are probably one of my favorite authors on your side of this, and I’m happy to see this discussion—though I myself am more on the other side.
Some quick responses > I don’t think government competence is what’s holding us back from having good AI regulations, it’s government willingness.
I assume it can clearly be a mix of both. Right now we’re in a situation where many people barely trust the US government to do anything. A major argument for why the US government shouldn’t regulate AI is that they often mess up things they try to regulate. This is a massive deal in a lot of the back-and-forth I’ve seen on the issue on Twitter.
I’d expect that if the US government were far more competent, people would trust it to take care of many more things, including high-touch AI oversight.
> Increasing government dependency on AI systems could make policy-makers more reluctant to place restrictions on AI development because they would be hurting themselves by doing so. This is a very bad incentive.
This doesn’t seem like a major deal to me. Like, the US government uses software a lot, but I don’t see them “funding/helping software development”, even though I really think they should. If I were them, I would have invested far more in open-source systems, for instance.
My quick impression is that a competent oversight and guiding of AI systems, carefully working through the risks and benefits, would be incredibly challenging, and I’d expect any human-lead government to make gigantic errors in it. Even attempts to “slow down AI” could easily backfire if not done well. For example, I think that Democratic attempts to increase migration in the last few years might have massively backfired.
I agree with a good portion of your comment but I still don’t think increasing government competence (on AI) is worth prioritizing:
SB-1047 was adequately competently written (AFAICT). If we get more regulations at a similar level of competence, that would be reasonable.
Good AI regulations will make things harder on AI companies. AI leaders / tech accelerationists will be unhappy about regulations regardless of how competently written they are. On the other hand, the general population mostly supports AI regulations (according to AIPI polls). Getting regulators on board with what people want seems to me to be the best path to getting regulations in place.
Like, the US government uses software a lot, but I don’t see them “funding/helping software development”
Suppose it turned out Microsoft Office was dangerous. Surely the fact that Office is so embedded in government procedures would make it less likely to get banned?
IIRC you see similar phenomena (although I can’t recall any examples off hand) where some government-mandated software has massive security flaws but nobody does anything about it because the software is too entrenched.
SB-1047 was adequately competently written (AFAICT). If we get more regulations at a similar level of competence, that would be reasonable.
Agreed
Getting regulators on board with what people want seems to me to be the best path to getting regulations in place.
I don’t see it as either/or. I agree that pushing for regulations is a bigger priority than AI in government. Right now the former is getting dramatically more EA resources and I’d expect that to continue. But I think the latter are getting almost none, and that doesn’t seem right to me.
Suppose it turned out Microsoft Office was dangerous. Surely the fact that Office is so embedded in government procedures would make it less likely to get banned?
I worry we’re getting into a distant hypothetical. I’d equate this to, “Given the Government is using Microsoft Office, are they likely to try to make sure that future versions of Microsoft Office are better? Especially, in a reckless way?”
Naively I’d expect a government that uses Microsoft Office to be one with a better understanding of the upsides and downsides of Microsoft Office.
I’d expect that most AI systems the Government would use would be fairly harmless (in terms of the main risks we care about). Like, things a few years old (and thus tested a lot in industry), with less computing power than would be ideal, etc.
Related, I think that the US military has done good work to make high-reliability software, due to their need for it. (Though this is a complex discussion, as they obviously do a mix of things.)
IIRC you see similar phenomena (although I can’t recall any examples off hand) where some government-mandated software has massive security flaws but nobody does anything about it because the software is too entrenched.
I’d expect that if the US government were far more competent, people would trust it to take care of many more things, including high-touch AI oversight.
This is probably true, but improving competence throughout the government would be a massive undertaking, would take a long time and also have a long lag before public opinion would update. Seems like an extremely circuitous route to impact.
I previously was addressing Michael’s more limited point, “I don’t think government competence is what’s holding us back from having good AI regulations, it’s government willingness.”
All that said, separately, I think that “increasing government competence” is often a good bet, as it just comes with a long list of benefits.
But if one believes that AI will happen soon, and that a major bottleneck is “getting the broad public to trust the US government more, with the purpose of then encouraging AI reform”, that seems like a dubious strategy.
I think you (Michael Dickens) are probably one of my favorite authors on your side of this, and I’m happy to see this discussion—though I myself am more on the other side.
Some quick responses
> I don’t think government competence is what’s holding us back from having good AI regulations, it’s government willingness.
I assume it can clearly be a mix of both. Right now we’re in a situation where many people barely trust the US government to do anything. A major argument for why the US government shouldn’t regulate AI is that they often mess up things they try to regulate. This is a massive deal in a lot of the back-and-forth I’ve seen on the issue on Twitter.
I’d expect that if the US government were far more competent, people would trust it to take care of many more things, including high-touch AI oversight.
> Increasing government dependency on AI systems could make policy-makers more reluctant to place restrictions on AI development because they would be hurting themselves by doing so. This is a very bad incentive.
This doesn’t seem like a major deal to me. Like, the US government uses software a lot, but I don’t see them “funding/helping software development”, even though I really think they should. If I were them, I would have invested far more in open-source systems, for instance.
My quick impression is that a competent oversight and guiding of AI systems, carefully working through the risks and benefits, would be incredibly challenging, and I’d expect any human-lead government to make gigantic errors in it. Even attempts to “slow down AI” could easily backfire if not done well. For example, I think that Democratic attempts to increase migration in the last few years might have massively backfired.
I agree with a good portion of your comment but I still don’t think increasing government competence (on AI) is worth prioritizing:
SB-1047 was adequately competently written (AFAICT). If we get more regulations at a similar level of competence, that would be reasonable.
Good AI regulations will make things harder on AI companies. AI leaders / tech accelerationists will be unhappy about regulations regardless of how competently written they are. On the other hand, the general population mostly supports AI regulations (according to AIPI polls). Getting regulators on board with what people want seems to me to be the best path to getting regulations in place.
Suppose it turned out Microsoft Office was dangerous. Surely the fact that Office is so embedded in government procedures would make it less likely to get banned?
IIRC you see similar phenomena (although I can’t recall any examples off hand) where some government-mandated software has massive security flaws but nobody does anything about it because the software is too entrenched.
Thanks for the responses!
Agreed
I don’t see it as either/or. I agree that pushing for regulations is a bigger priority than AI in government. Right now the former is getting dramatically more EA resources and I’d expect that to continue. But I think the latter are getting almost none, and that doesn’t seem right to me.
I worry we’re getting into a distant hypothetical. I’d equate this to, “Given the Government is using Microsoft Office, are they likely to try to make sure that future versions of Microsoft Office are better? Especially, in a reckless way?”
Naively I’d expect a government that uses Microsoft Office to be one with a better understanding of the upsides and downsides of Microsoft Office.
I’d expect that most AI systems the Government would use would be fairly harmless (in terms of the main risks we care about). Like, things a few years old (and thus tested a lot in industry), with less computing power than would be ideal, etc.
Related, I think that the US military has done good work to make high-reliability software, due to their need for it. (Though this is a complex discussion, as they obviously do a mix of things.)
Tyler Technologies.
But this is local government not federal.
This is probably true, but improving competence throughout the government would be a massive undertaking, would take a long time and also have a long lag before public opinion would update. Seems like an extremely circuitous route to impact.
I mainly agree.
I previously was addressing Michael’s more limited point, “I don’t think government competence is what’s holding us back from having good AI regulations, it’s government willingness.”
All that said, separately, I think that “increasing government competence” is often a good bet, as it just comes with a long list of benefits.
But if one believes that AI will happen soon, and that a major bottleneck is “getting the broad public to trust the US government more, with the purpose of then encouraging AI reform”, that seems like a dubious strategy.