1. Yeah I think this is a fair point. However, my understanding is that climate action is reasonably popular with the publicâeven in the US (https://ââourworldindata.org/ââclimate-change-support). Itâs only really when it comes to taking action that the parties differ. So if you advocated for restrictions on large training runs for climate reasons Iâm not sure it is obvious that it would necessarily have a downside risk, only that you might get more upside benefits with a democratic administration.
2. Yes, I think the argument doesnât make sense if you believe large training runs will be beneficial. Higher emissions seem like a reasonable price to pay for an aligned superintelligence. However, if you think large training runs will result in huge existential risks or otherwise not have upside benefits then that makes them worth avoidingâas the AI slowdown advocacy community arguesâand the costs of emissions are clearly not worth paying.
I think in general most people (and policymakers) are not bought into the idea that advanced AI will cause a technological singularity or be otherwise transformative. The point of this strategy would be to get those people (and policymakers) to take a stance on this issue that aligns with AI safety goals without having to be bought into the transformative effects of AI.
So while a âPro-AIâ advocate might have to convince people of the transformative power of AI to make a counter-argument, we as âAnti-AIâ advocates would only have to point non-AI affiliated people towards the climate effects of AI without having to âAI pillâ the public and policymakers. (PauseAI apparently has looked into this already and has a page which gives a sense of what the strategy in this post might look like in practice (https://ââpauseai.info/ââenvironmental))
3. Yes but the questionâas @Stephen McAleese notedââis whether this indirect approach would be more effective than or at least complementary to a more direct approach that advocates explicit compute limits and communicates risks from misaligned AI.â So yes national security /â competitiveness considerations may regularly trump climate considerations, but if they are trumped less than by safety considerations then theyâre the better bet. I donât know what the answer to this is but I donât think itâs obvious.
Thanks, spelling these kind of things out is what I was trying to get at, this could make the case stronger working through them.
I donât have time to go through these points here one by one, but I think the one thing I would point out is that this strategy should be risk-reducing in those cases where the risk is real, i.e. not arguing from current public opinion etc.
I.e. in the worlds where we have the buy-in and commercial interest to scale up AI that much that it will meaningfully matter for electricity demand, I think in those worlds climate advocates will be side-lined. Essentially, I buy the Shulmanerian point that if the prize from AGI is observably really large then things that look inhibiting nowâlike NIMBYism and environmentalistsâwill not matter as much as one would think if one extrapolated from current political economy.
Thanks for the details of your disagreement : )
1. Yeah I think this is a fair point. However, my understanding is that climate action is reasonably popular with the publicâeven in the US (https://ââourworldindata.org/ââclimate-change-support). Itâs only really when it comes to taking action that the parties differ. So if you advocated for restrictions on large training runs for climate reasons Iâm not sure it is obvious that it would necessarily have a downside risk, only that you might get more upside benefits with a democratic administration.
2. Yes, I think the argument doesnât make sense if you believe large training runs will be beneficial. Higher emissions seem like a reasonable price to pay for an aligned superintelligence. However, if you think large training runs will result in huge existential risks or otherwise not have upside benefits then that makes them worth avoidingâas the AI slowdown advocacy community arguesâand the costs of emissions are clearly not worth paying.
I think in general most people (and policymakers) are not bought into the idea that advanced AI will cause a technological singularity or be otherwise transformative. The point of this strategy would be to get those people (and policymakers) to take a stance on this issue that aligns with AI safety goals without having to be bought into the transformative effects of AI.
So while a âPro-AIâ advocate might have to convince people of the transformative power of AI to make a counter-argument, we as âAnti-AIâ advocates would only have to point non-AI affiliated people towards the climate effects of AI without having to âAI pillâ the public and policymakers. (PauseAI apparently has looked into this already and has a page which gives a sense of what the strategy in this post might look like in practice (https://ââpauseai.info/ââenvironmental))
3. Yes but the questionâas @Stephen McAleese notedââis whether this indirect approach would be more effective than or at least complementary to a more direct approach that advocates explicit compute limits and communicates risks from misaligned AI.â So yes national security /â competitiveness considerations may regularly trump climate considerations, but if they are trumped less than by safety considerations then theyâre the better bet. I donât know what the answer to this is but I donât think itâs obvious.
Thanks, spelling these kind of things out is what I was trying to get at, this could make the case stronger working through them.
I donât have time to go through these points here one by one, but I think the one thing I would point out is that this strategy should be risk-reducing in those cases where the risk is real, i.e. not arguing from current public opinion etc.
I.e. in the worlds where we have the buy-in and commercial interest to scale up AI that much that it will meaningfully matter for electricity demand, I think in those worlds climate advocates will be side-lined. Essentially, I buy the Shulmanerian point that if the prize from AGI is observably really large then things that look inhibiting nowâlike NIMBYism and environmentalistsâwill not matter as much as one would think if one extrapolated from current political economy.