As to your second point, you’re right. There were two things with my second paragraph that require further explanation;
1- What I meant by “there may be things that can work”, I specifically intended to mean (which wasn’t obvious) the treaty to “stop the race to ASI” wouldn’t be agreeable by most countries. The countries might agree to significantly milder treaties, like creating a system to alert other countries when you see signs of misalignment. This what what I meant by “the things that can work”.
2- I never said “details” should be put forward, just the general idea of what was going to be discussed upon, and the “stop the AI development” isn’t good enough. The countries wouldn’t want to do that, and simply wouldn’t sit to the table because of that. If you contend that “non-desctuction of humanity as a common goal” is enough to ensure everyone will agree to “stop the AI development” then I disagree that it’s the case, and I find it pretty self-evident. By that logic no disagreements in treaties should ever happen because everyone shares the good of humanity as a common goal anyway.
There are two different arguments that it’s important not to conflate, and which I did not do a good enough job of clarifying. The first, which you are talking about in #1, is that the incentives are such that countries might not sign a given treaty. I think this is true in the real world primarily because people are failing to understand the risk, and secondarily because the dynamics if ASI isn’t a threat are such that a race would make sense. The second, which you kind-of are talking about in #2, is whether the treaty will work to stop the creation of misaligned ASI. That goal was reasonably clear in the post, I think, and yes, I do think it is the case that rational actors would agree to mutually beneficial not-everyone-dying treaties, and think that it’s obvious that such treaties are possible to specify. To the extent that countries fall short of being rational actors, this goes back to question #1, which, again, I didn’t clearly distinguish but wasn’t trying to address—but IABIED was.
What “goals”?
As to your second point, you’re right. There were two things with my second paragraph that require further explanation;
1- What I meant by “there may be things that can work”, I specifically intended to mean (which wasn’t obvious) the treaty to “stop the race to ASI” wouldn’t be agreeable by most countries. The countries might agree to significantly milder treaties, like creating a system to alert other countries when you see signs of misalignment. This what what I meant by “the things that can work”.
2- I never said “details” should be put forward, just the general idea of what was going to be discussed upon, and the “stop the AI development” isn’t good enough. The countries wouldn’t want to do that, and simply wouldn’t sit to the table because of that. If you contend that “non-desctuction of humanity as a common goal” is enough to ensure everyone will agree to “stop the AI development” then I disagree that it’s the case, and I find it pretty self-evident. By that logic no disagreements in treaties should ever happen because everyone shares the good of humanity as a common goal anyway.
There are two different arguments that it’s important not to conflate, and which I did not do a good enough job of clarifying. The first, which you are talking about in #1, is that the incentives are such that countries might not sign a given treaty. I think this is true in the real world primarily because people are failing to understand the risk, and secondarily because the dynamics if ASI isn’t a threat are such that a race would make sense. The second, which you kind-of are talking about in #2, is whether the treaty will work to stop the creation of misaligned ASI. That goal was reasonably clear in the post, I think, and yes, I do think it is the case that rational actors would agree to mutually beneficial not-everyone-dying treaties, and think that it’s obvious that such treaties are possible to specify. To the extent that countries fall short of being rational actors, this goes back to question #1, which, again, I didn’t clearly distinguish but wasn’t trying to address—but IABIED was.