Nathan Calvin
(sincere post) I have a message for people who previously dismissed catastrophic AI alignment risks as sci-fi, speculative, and fundamentally not worth worrying about: It is ok to change your mind when presented with new evidence. I have been wrong about many important things in the past, I will be wrong about many important things in the future. Many people who dismissed these risks previously will be extremely necessary for helping society navigate them now. You also may have had a point that it is challenging to work on these problems before the problems become clear - but for better or worse, the problem is now extremely clear! For instance, in Marc Andreessen's article "Why AI will Save the World" he says "In short, AI doesn’t want, it doesn’t have goals... AI is a machine – is not going to come alive any more than your toaster will... My response is that their position is non-scientific – What is the testable hypothesis? What would falsify the hypothesis? How do we know when we are getting into a danger zone?" While it was difficult to specify before hand, I would say it is pretty clear we are now getting into a danger zone! There are going to be many complexities before us after we do acknowledge these problems are real. Competition with China, powerful open weight models, which powers to entrust to governments that sometimes do not earn our trust are all complex and challenging wrinkles that make addressing these risks productively a wicked problem. Agreeing AI alignment risks are deadly serious and real does not mean you have to support a specific piece of legislation, or have a positive feeling about a specific person or organization. I argue all the time with people who think these problems are real about what we should collectively do about it. But I am now really really really profoundly sure these risks are serious and real. And I think anyone weighing the evidence objectively should agree. While I cannot speak for everyone, I personally intend to fully accept previous skeptics who now face these concerns with open arms into the cause of AI safety and security (yes this even includes Marc Andreessen). I may be frustrated by their overconfident prior dismissals, but we can have plenty of time to adjudicate over who was right or wrong about what after us and those we love all make it out of this perilous moment safely. Please come and use your talents to help us do so.
Andrew Curran
Life finds a way.
