There are two roles that don’t show up in your trip planning example but which I think are important and valuable in AI safety: the Time Buyer and the Trip Canceler.
It’s not at all clear how long it will take Alice to solve the central bottleneck (or for that matter if she’ll be able to solve it at all). The Time Buyer tries to find solutions that may not generalize to the hardest version of the problem but will hold off disaster long enough for the central bottleneck to be solved.
The Trip Canceler tries to convince everyone to cancel the trip so that the fully general solution isn’t needed at all (or at least to delay it long enough for Alice to have plenty of time to work.
They may seem less like the hero of the story, but they’re both playing vital roles.
(Much belated comment, but:)
There are two roles that don’t show up in your trip planning example but which I think are important and valuable in AI safety: the Time Buyer and the Trip Canceler.
It’s not at all clear how long it will take Alice to solve the central bottleneck (or for that matter if she’ll be able to solve it at all). The Time Buyer tries to find solutions that may not generalize to the hardest version of the problem but will hold off disaster long enough for the central bottleneck to be solved.
The Trip Canceler tries to convince everyone to cancel the trip so that the fully general solution isn’t needed at all (or at least to delay it long enough for Alice to have plenty of time to work.
They may seem less like the hero of the story, but they’re both playing vital roles.