I have done a lot of thinking about punishment for systemically harmful actors. In general, I have landed on the principle that justice is about prevention of future harm more than exacting vengeance and some kind of “eye for an eye” justice. As satisfying as it seems, most of history is fairly bleak on the prospects of using executions and other forms of violent punishment to deter future people from endangering society. This is quite difficult to stomach, however, in the face of people who are seemingly recklessly leading us in a dance on the edge of a volcano. I also don’t really buy the whole “give the universe to Sam Altman/POTUS and then hope he leaves everyone else some scraps” model of universal governance.
I think, in light of this, that the open investment model could work, on two conditions:
A) Regulatory intervention happens to ensure that most of the investment is reinvested in the company’s safety R&D efforts rather than to enrich its owners e.g. with stock buybacks. There is precedent for this, Amazon famously reinvested lots of money into improving its infrastructure to the point of making a loss for decades.
B) The ownership shares of existing shareholders are massively diluted or redistributed to prevent concentration of voting rights in a few early stakeholders.
If these companies are as critical to humanity’s future as we say they are, we should start acting like it.
I have done a lot of thinking about punishment for systemically harmful actors. In general, I have landed on the principle that justice is about prevention of future harm more than exacting vengeance and some kind of “eye for an eye” justice. As satisfying as it seems, most of history is fairly bleak on the prospects of using executions and other forms of violent punishment to deter future people from endangering society. This is quite difficult to stomach, however, in the face of people who are seemingly recklessly leading us in a dance on the edge of a volcano. I also don’t really buy the whole “give the universe to Sam Altman/POTUS and then hope he leaves everyone else some scraps” model of universal governance.
I think, in light of this, that the open investment model could work, on two conditions:
A) Regulatory intervention happens to ensure that most of the investment is reinvested in the company’s safety R&D efforts rather than to enrich its owners e.g. with stock buybacks. There is precedent for this, Amazon famously reinvested lots of money into improving its infrastructure to the point of making a loss for decades.
B) The ownership shares of existing shareholders are massively diluted or redistributed to prevent concentration of voting rights in a few early stakeholders.
If these companies are as critical to humanity’s future as we say they are, we should start acting like it.