It’s hard for me to reconcile “we take catastrophic risks seriously”, “we believe they could occur within 1-3 years”, and “we don’t believe in pre-harm enforcement or empowering an FMD to give the government more capacity to understand what’s going on.”
It’s also notable that their letter does not mention misalignment risks (and instead only points to dangerous cyber or bio capabilities).
That said, I do like this section a lot:
Catastrophic risks are important to address. AI obviously raises a wide range of issues, but in our assessment catastrophic risks are the most serious and the least likely to be addressed well by the market on its own.As noted earlier in this letter, we believe AI systems are going to develop powerful capabilities in domains like cyber and bio which could be misused– potentially in as little as 1-3 years. In theory, these issues relate to national security and might be best handled at the federal level, but in practice we are concerned that Congressional action simply will not occur in the necessary window of time. It is also possible for California to implement its statutes and regulations in a way that benefits from federal expertise in national security matters: for example the NIST AI Safety Institute will likely develop non-binding guidance on national security risks based on its collaboration with AI companies including Anthropic, which California can then utilize in its own regulations.
I think you’re eliding the difference between “powerful capabilities” being developed, the window of risk, and the best solution.
For example, if Anthropic believes “_we_ will have it internally in 1-3 years, but no small labs will, and we can contain it internally” then they might conclude that the warrant for a state-level FMD is low. Alternatively, you might conclude, “we will have it internally in 1-3 years, other small labs will be close behind, and an American state’s capabilities won’t be sufficient, we need DoD, FBI, and IC authorities to go stompy on this threat”, and thus think a state-level FMD is low-value-add.
Very unsure I agree with either of these hypos to be clear! Just trying to explore the possibility space and point out this is complex.
It’s hard for me to reconcile “we take catastrophic risks seriously”, “we believe they could occur within 1-3 years”, and “we don’t believe in pre-harm enforcement or empowering an FMD to give the government more capacity to understand what’s going on.”
It’s also notable that their letter does not mention misalignment risks (and instead only points to dangerous cyber or bio capabilities).
That said, I do like this section a lot:
I think you’re eliding the difference between “powerful capabilities” being developed, the window of risk, and the best solution.
For example, if Anthropic believes “_we_ will have it internally in 1-3 years, but no small labs will, and we can contain it internally” then they might conclude that the warrant for a state-level FMD is low. Alternatively, you might conclude, “we will have it internally in 1-3 years, other small labs will be close behind, and an American state’s capabilities won’t be sufficient, we need DoD, FBI, and IC authorities to go stompy on this threat”, and thus think a state-level FMD is low-value-add.
Very unsure I agree with either of these hypos to be clear! Just trying to explore the possibility space and point out this is complex.