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.
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.