And one can also argue that capability restraint is net good both from the perspective of safety and from the perspective of concerns about concentrations of power
I think this is true, yeah. There’s a lot to say but the basic argument is pretty straightforward: Restraining AI development means more time for various other AGI projects to catch up (i.e. more projects at the frontier, competing with each other, instead of 1-3 dominating) and it also means more time for parts of society that aren’t themselves AGI projects to wake up and start to build checks and balances etc. such as regulation. And, like you said, more time for the rest of society to prepare, in general. I suppose there’s another argument too, which is that AGI is an inherently power-concentrating technology relative to the technology available today...
I think this is true, yeah. There’s a lot to say but the basic argument is pretty straightforward: Restraining AI development means more time for various other AGI projects to catch up (i.e. more projects at the frontier, competing with each other, instead of 1-3 dominating) and it also means more time for parts of society that aren’t themselves AGI projects to wake up and start to build checks and balances etc. such as regulation. And, like you said, more time for the rest of society to prepare, in general. I suppose there’s another argument too, which is that AGI is an inherently power-concentrating technology relative to the technology available today...