It seems plausible that some people should be focused on areas other than AGI, even if only because these areas could ultimately influence AGI deployment.
You’ve already mentioned ‘building influence in politics’. But this could include things like nuclear weapons policy.
For example, if a nuclear-armed state believes a rival state is close to deploying AGI, they may decide they have no option but to attack with nukes first (or at least threaten to attack) in order to try to prevent this.
Yes, that’s right, but it’s very different to be somewhere and by chance affect AGI and to be somewhere because you think that it’s your best way to affect AGI. And I think that if you’re optimizing the latter, you’re not very likely to end up working in nuclear weapons policy (even if there might be a few people for who it is be the best fit)
It seems plausible that some people should be focused on areas other than AGI, even if only because these areas could ultimately influence AGI deployment.
You’ve already mentioned ‘building influence in politics’. But this could include things like nuclear weapons policy.
For example, if a nuclear-armed state believes a rival state is close to deploying AGI, they may decide they have no option but to attack with nukes first (or at least threaten to attack) in order to try to prevent this.
Yes, that’s right, but it’s very different to be somewhere and by chance affect AGI and to be somewhere because you think that it’s your best way to affect AGI.
And I think that if you’re optimizing the latter, you’re not very likely to end up working in nuclear weapons policy (even if there might be a few people for who it is be the best fit)