Oh, I had a very different read on this. In this article, Kissinger (or possibly people ghost-writing for him), seemed remarkably clear on several of the most important bits of AI safety. I think it’s unlikely he’d have run into those bits if he *hadn’t* ended up talking to people involved with actual AI safety.
I currently think it more-likely-than-not that he’s spoken to some combination of Stuart Russell, Max Tegmark and/or Nick Bostrom.
(This is based in part on some background knowledge that some of those people have gotten to talk to heads of state before).
The fact that he doesn’t drill into the latest gritty details (either of the MIRI camp, the OpenAI camp, or anyone else), or mention any specific organizations, strikes me as having way less to do with how informed he is, and way more to do with his goals for the article (which is more to lend his cred to the basic ideas behind AI risk, and to build momentum towards some kind of intervention. As noted elsewhere I’m cautious about government involvement, but if you take that goal at face value, I think this article basically hits the notes I’d want it to hit)
(My guess is he’s not fully informed on everything, just because there’s a lot to be fully informed on, but the degree to which he’s showing an understanding of the issue here has me relatively happy – expecting that when it comes time to Actually Policy Wonk on this, that he’d connected with the right people and make at least a better-than-average* effort to be informed)
*this is not a claim that better-than-average would be good enough, just, good enough that it doesn’t feel correct to draw the conclusion that the AI Safety community has utterly failed at marketing.
Oh, I had a very different read on this. In this article, Kissinger (or possibly people ghost-writing for him), seemed remarkably clear on several of the most important bits of AI safety. I think it’s unlikely he’d have run into those bits if he *hadn’t* ended up talking to people involved with actual AI safety.
I currently think it more-likely-than-not that he’s spoken to some combination of Stuart Russell, Max Tegmark and/or Nick Bostrom.
(This is based in part on some background knowledge that some of those people have gotten to talk to heads of state before).
The fact that he doesn’t drill into the latest gritty details (either of the MIRI camp, the OpenAI camp, or anyone else), or mention any specific organizations, strikes me as having way less to do with how informed he is, and way more to do with his goals for the article (which is more to lend his cred to the basic ideas behind AI risk, and to build momentum towards some kind of intervention. As noted elsewhere I’m cautious about government involvement, but if you take that goal at face value, I think this article basically hits the notes I’d want it to hit)
(My guess is he’s not fully informed on everything, just because there’s a lot to be fully informed on, but the degree to which he’s showing an understanding of the issue here has me relatively happy – expecting that when it comes time to Actually Policy Wonk on this, that he’d connected with the right people and make at least a better-than-average* effort to be informed)
*this is not a claim that better-than-average would be good enough, just, good enough that it doesn’t feel correct to draw the conclusion that the AI Safety community has utterly failed at marketing.