That’s a reasonable concern, but I don’t think it’s healthy to ruminate too much about it. You made a courageous and virtuous move, and it’s impossible to perfectly predict all possible futures from that point onward. If this fails, I presume failure was overdetermined, and your actions wouldn’t really matter.
The only mistake you and your team made, in my opinion, was writing the slowdown scenario for AI-2027. While I know that wasn’t your intention, a lot of people interpreted it as a 50% chance of ‘the US wins global supremacy and achieves utopia,’ which just added fuel to the fire (‘See, even the biggest doomers think we can win! LFG!!!!’).
It also likely hyperstitionized increased suspicion among other leading countries that the US would never negotiate in good faith, making it significantly harder to strike a deal with China and others.
Right yeah the slowdown ending was another possible mistake. (Though I would be highly surprised if it has a noticeable negative effect on ability to make deals with China—surely the CCP does not have much trust for the US currently. Best path forward is for a deal to be based on verification and mutual self-interest, rather than trust.)
I do think it’s kinda funny that, afaict, the world’s best, most coherent account of how the AGI transition could be fine for most people is our own slowdown ending…
That’s a reasonable concern, but I don’t think it’s healthy to ruminate too much about it. You made a courageous and virtuous move, and it’s impossible to perfectly predict all possible futures from that point onward. If this fails, I presume failure was overdetermined, and your actions wouldn’t really matter.
The only mistake you and your team made, in my opinion, was writing the slowdown scenario for AI-2027. While I know that wasn’t your intention, a lot of people interpreted it as a 50% chance of ‘the US wins global supremacy and achieves utopia,’ which just added fuel to the fire (‘See, even the biggest doomers think we can win! LFG!!!!’).
It also likely hyperstitionized increased suspicion among other leading countries that the US would never negotiate in good faith, making it significantly harder to strike a deal with China and others.
Thanks.
Right yeah the slowdown ending was another possible mistake. (Though I would be highly surprised if it has a noticeable negative effect on ability to make deals with China—surely the CCP does not have much trust for the US currently. Best path forward is for a deal to be based on verification and mutual self-interest, rather than trust.)
I do think it’s kinda funny that, afaict, the world’s best, most coherent account of how the AGI transition could be fine for most people is our own slowdown ending…