Every country has some influence with other countries. If governments around the world push for a treaty between the US and China on AI, that makes it more likely that such a treaty will occur. Australia, for example, has relatively good relations with the US and is a major trading partner of China. We have some capacity to influence those nations on this issue.
Is this guaranteed? No. My gut feeling from the start was that there was about a 15% chance of a pause treaty happening. Recent events have increased that in my thinking, but it is still nowhere near 50%.
Naturally countries have influence on each other, but there’s a penalty factor, and the question is, how big is that penalty?
Route 1: US advocacy convinces US policy-makers to establish a treaty
Route 2: Australian advocacy convinces Australian policy-makers to establish a treaty (where the most important parties are the US and China)
My intuition is that route 2 has maybe a 3:1 penalty, i.e. a treaty is 3x more likely to go through if it originates from US policy-makers rather than Australian ones. I have no evidence on what the real number is, and I’m not sure where I’d get evidence from.
I think the binding constraint is getting the US and China to sign, and there, non-aligned actors can present options that don’t get pre-framed as capitulation or unilateral constraint. Australian advocacy wouldn’t sway the large actors unilaterally, to my patriotic regret, but advancing its interests under a coalition might. This is true for others, too; Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore are all non-aligned states without active security disputes with either major power.
This feels like a useful alternate path off-ramp rather than relying on the two superpowers most tempted by arms race dynamics to de-escalate.
I agree that approaching US policy makers directly is best. But, as an Australian, that option is not open to me, at least! ;) I work alongside people from ControlAI also, and they are directly working on US policy makers. So it is a push by allies across many countries. Of course, if you are deciding where to fund, that does make things tricky. It is a good question for PauseAI’s leadership.
Every country has some influence with other countries. If governments around the world push for a treaty between the US and China on AI, that makes it more likely that such a treaty will occur. Australia, for example, has relatively good relations with the US and is a major trading partner of China. We have some capacity to influence those nations on this issue.
Is this guaranteed? No. My gut feeling from the start was that there was about a 15% chance of a pause treaty happening. Recent events have increased that in my thinking, but it is still nowhere near 50%.
Naturally countries have influence on each other, but there’s a penalty factor, and the question is, how big is that penalty?
Route 1: US advocacy convinces US policy-makers to establish a treaty
Route 2: Australian advocacy convinces Australian policy-makers to establish a treaty (where the most important parties are the US and China)
My intuition is that route 2 has maybe a 3:1 penalty, i.e. a treaty is 3x more likely to go through if it originates from US policy-makers rather than Australian ones. I have no evidence on what the real number is, and I’m not sure where I’d get evidence from.
I think the binding constraint is getting the US and China to sign, and there, non-aligned actors can present options that don’t get pre-framed as capitulation or unilateral constraint. Australian advocacy wouldn’t sway the large actors unilaterally, to my patriotic regret, but advancing its interests under a coalition might. This is true for others, too; Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore are all non-aligned states without active security disputes with either major power.
This feels like a useful alternate path off-ramp rather than relying on the two superpowers most tempted by arms race dynamics to de-escalate.
I agree that approaching US policy makers directly is best. But, as an Australian, that option is not open to me, at least! ;) I work alongside people from ControlAI also, and they are directly working on US policy makers. So it is a push by allies across many countries. Of course, if you are deciding where to fund, that does make things tricky. It is a good question for PauseAI’s leadership.