In 2018 I recall being at a private talk hosted by ~2 people that OpenPhil worked closely with and/or thought of as senior advisors, on AI. It was a confidential event so I can’t say who or any specifics, but they were saying that they wanted to take seriously short AI timelines but demanded confidentiality about this, because they felt that being open about their thoughts on this would influence other actors to believe that AI was important to get involved with, but not that the risk was high. I think this confidentiality about their beliefs was a significant part of the dynamics around OpenPhil’s beliefs and signaling at the time.
In 2018 I recall being at a private talk hosted by ~2 people that OpenPhil worked closely with and/or thought of as senior advisors, on AI. It was a confidential event so I can’t say who or any specifics, but they were saying that they wanted to take seriously short AI timelines but demanded confidentiality about this, because they felt that being open about their thoughts on this would influence other actors to believe that AI was important to get involved with, but not that the risk was high. I think this confidentiality about their beliefs was a significant part of the dynamics around OpenPhil’s beliefs and signaling at the time.
This makes me wish people would more often publish hashes of their beliefs they can’t publish.