This is a linkpost for https://futureoflife.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/FLI_Policymaking_In_The_Pause.pdf
this policy brief provides policymakers with concrete recommendations for how governments can manage AI risks.
Policy recommendations:
1. Mandate robust third-party auditing and certification.
2. Regulate access to computational power.
3. Establish capable AI agencies at the national level.
4. Establish liability for AI-caused harms.
5. Introduce measures to prevent and track AI model leaks.
6. Expand technical AI safety research funding.
7. Develop standards for identifying and managing AI-generated content and recommendations.
I think an extremely dangerous failure mode for AI safety research would be to prioritize 'hardcore-quantitative people' trying to solve AI alignment using clever technical tricks, without understanding much about the 8 billion ordinary humans they're trying to align AIs with.
If behavioral scientists aren't involved in AI alignment research -- and as skeptics about whether 'alignment' is even possible -- it's quite likely that whatever 'alignment solution' the hardcore-quantitative people invent is going to be brittle, inadequate, and risky.
Trevor -- yep, reasonable points. Alignment might be impossible, but it might be extra impossible with complex black box networks with hundreds of billions of parameters & very poor interpretability tools.