One other thing is that I’d have guessed that the sign uncertainty of historical work on AI safety and AI governance is much more related to the inherent chaotic nature of social and political processes rather than a particular deficiency in our concepts for understanding them.
I’m sceptical that pure strategy research could remove that side uncertainty, and I wonder if it would take something like the ability to run loads of simulations of societies like ours.
inherent chaotic nature of social and political processes
Everything seems inherently chaotic until you understand it well! The motion of the planets across the sky seems very arbitrary until you understand Kepler’s laws, and so on.
Re “simulations”, the easiest way to build a simulation of something is to have a principled model/theory of it.
One other thing is that I’d have guessed that the sign uncertainty of historical work on AI safety and AI governance is much more related to the inherent chaotic nature of social and political processes rather than a particular deficiency in our concepts for understanding them.
I’m sceptical that pure strategy research could remove that side uncertainty, and I wonder if it would take something like the ability to run loads of simulations of societies like ours.
Everything seems inherently chaotic until you understand it well! The motion of the planets across the sky seems very arbitrary until you understand Kepler’s laws, and so on.
Re “simulations”, the easiest way to build a simulation of something is to have a principled model/theory of it.
But things can be inherently chaotic too!
Agree it’s unclear how much is inherent.