I think the government can speed up alignment more than the government can speed up capabilities, assuming it starts to care much more about both. Why?
AI safety spending is only $0.1 billion while AI capabilities spending is $200 billion. AI safety spending can easily increase by many orders of magnitude, but AI capabilities spending cannot since it already rivals the US military budget.
Also, would you still agree with the “Statement on AI Inconsistency,” or disagree with it too?
Statement on AI Inconsistency (v1.0us):
1: ASI threatens the US (and NATO) as much as all military threats combined. Why does the US spend $800 billion/year on its military but less than $0.1 billion/year on AI alignment/safety?
2: ASI being equally dangerous isn’t an extreme opinion: the median superforecaster sees a 2.1% chance of an AI catastrophe (killing 1 in 10 people), the median AI expert sees 5%-12%, other experts see 5%, and the general public sees 5%. To justify 8000 times less spending, you must be 99.999% sure of no AI catastrophe, and thus 99.95% sure that you won’t realize you were wrong and the majority of experts were right (if you studied the disagreement further).
3: “But military spending isn’t just for protecting NATO, it protects other countries far more likely to be invaded.” Even they are not 8000 times less likely to be attacked by ASI. US foreign aid—including Ukrainian aid—is only $100 billion/year, so protecting them can’t be the real reason for military spending.
4: The real reason for the 8000fold difference is habit, habit, and habit. Foreign invasion concerns have decreased decade by decade, and ASI concerns have increased year by year, but budgets remained within the status quo, causing a massive inconsistency between belief and behaviour.
5: Do not let humanity’s story be so heartbreaking.
I think the government can speed up alignment more than the government can speed up capabilities, assuming it starts to care much more about both. Why?
AI safety spending is only $0.1 billion while AI capabilities spending is $200 billion. AI safety spending can easily increase by many orders of magnitude, but AI capabilities spending cannot since it already rivals the US military budget.
Also, would you still agree with the “Statement on AI Inconsistency,” or disagree with it too?
(Copied from my post A better “Statement on AI Risk?”)