I was curious about who would be the firm’s opponent in this scenario, i.e. the actor trying to legally implement the Windfall Clause.
In a world where a Windfall of this order of magnitude is possible, I would anticipate a number of additional actors of somewhat comparable magnitude. I’d also expect states to have more wealth too (even if the AI company didn’t pay tax, an AI advanced enough to generate Windfall profits is likely to grow the economy dramatically). If this were true, I might expect there to be incentives (or the possibility of providing incentives) for sufficiently wealthy states or other actors to use their resources to keep the legal offense-defence ratio more manageable.
That being said, I’m very uncertain about the above. There is certainly precedence for companies to become dramatically richer than some states. Moreover, states benefiting considerably from transformative AI may not necessarily see defending a Windfall Clause as a priority. Nevertheless, I do think there’s merit in thinking carefully about what kind of actors might exist in a world where the Windfall Clause looks like it will soon trigger.
Agreed, and in part why I’m not very sold on this critique.
I was curious about who would be the firm’s opponent in this scenario, i.e. the actor trying to legally implement the Windfall Clause.
This is underdetermined by the concept of the WC itself, but is a very important design consideration.
The worst-case scenario for this failure mode is that some very large number of people are plaintiffs in their individual capacity. Coordinating to enforce would be hard for them, but class action mechanisms (of which I’m not an expert!) could probably help.
A better approach would be to have some identifiable small number (including one) of recipients. This is in fact what we suggest in the report (Appendix II). This helps that actor internalize the costs of seeking to enforce the WC.
I think we can improve on that too, as suggested in the report to some degree. For example, I strongly believe the WC should include fee-shifting provisions for exactly this reason, so that the AI developer would be on the hook for legal fees from those trying to enforce the WC. And a variety of standard covenants in debt arrangements—such as accounting, indemnification, and domicile requirements—could further reduce risk. I also think the gold standard is securitizing the WC payment instrument, which would probably make enforcement easier for a variety of reasons.
Thanks for sharing this critique, Cullen.
I was curious about who would be the firm’s opponent in this scenario, i.e. the actor trying to legally implement the Windfall Clause.
In a world where a Windfall of this order of magnitude is possible, I would anticipate a number of additional actors of somewhat comparable magnitude. I’d also expect states to have more wealth too (even if the AI company didn’t pay tax, an AI advanced enough to generate Windfall profits is likely to grow the economy dramatically). If this were true, I might expect there to be incentives (or the possibility of providing incentives) for sufficiently wealthy states or other actors to use their resources to keep the legal offense-defence ratio more manageable.
That being said, I’m very uncertain about the above. There is certainly precedence for companies to become dramatically richer than some states. Moreover, states benefiting considerably from transformative AI may not necessarily see defending a Windfall Clause as a priority. Nevertheless, I do think there’s merit in thinking carefully about what kind of actors might exist in a world where the Windfall Clause looks like it will soon trigger.
Agreed, and in part why I’m not very sold on this critique.
This is underdetermined by the concept of the WC itself, but is a very important design consideration.
The worst-case scenario for this failure mode is that some very large number of people are plaintiffs in their individual capacity. Coordinating to enforce would be hard for them, but class action mechanisms (of which I’m not an expert!) could probably help.
A better approach would be to have some identifiable small number (including one) of recipients. This is in fact what we suggest in the report (Appendix II). This helps that actor internalize the costs of seeking to enforce the WC.
I think we can improve on that too, as suggested in the report to some degree. For example, I strongly believe the WC should include fee-shifting provisions for exactly this reason, so that the AI developer would be on the hook for legal fees from those trying to enforce the WC. And a variety of standard covenants in debt arrangements—such as accounting, indemnification, and domicile requirements—could further reduce risk. I also think the gold standard is securitizing the WC payment instrument, which would probably make enforcement easier for a variety of reasons.