You think “EAs should’ve been more cautious about waking up various external groups like the public, academia, industry, governments” and “EAs should’ve been less power-seeking because other people will notice those power-seeking patterns and there will be a backlash”. Maybe there’s a tension there.
I do think there’s been something a bit sloppy about my use of “power-seeking” (especially in this old post). I think the way I actually want to cash it out is more like “seeking a level of power that’s disproportionate to how ethical you are” (where I mean ethical to mean being honest, high-integrity, courageous, etc, rather than altruistic).
I don’t agree with the specific tension you highlight, though, because there are strategies which neither wake people up, nor seek (much) power—most notably trying to actually just solve the alignment problem on a technical level.
You think “EAs should’ve been more cautious about waking up various external groups like the public, academia, industry, governments” and “EAs should’ve been less power-seeking because other people will notice those power-seeking patterns and there will be a backlash”. Maybe there’s a tension there.
I do think there’s been something a bit sloppy about my use of “power-seeking” (especially in this old post). I think the way I actually want to cash it out is more like “seeking a level of power that’s disproportionate to how ethical you are” (where I mean ethical to mean being honest, high-integrity, courageous, etc, rather than altruistic).
I don’t agree with the specific tension you highlight, though, because there are strategies which neither wake people up, nor seek (much) power—most notably trying to actually just solve the alignment problem on a technical level.