[Question] What are the major underlying divisions in AI safety?

[Chris_Leong]

I’ve recently been thinking about how different researchers have wildly different conceptions of what needs to be done in order to solve alignment and what projects are net-positive.

I started making a list of core divisions;

• Empiricism vs conceptual research: Which is more valuable or do we need both?

• Take-off speeds: How fast will it be?

• Ultimate capability level: What level of intelligence will AI’s reach? How much of an advantage does this provide them?

• Offense-defense balance: Which has the advantage?

• Capabilities externalities: How bad are these?

Are there any obvious ones that I’ve missed?

[weverka]

Is it likely to do more good than harm?

[Charlie Steiner]

Gosh, someone made a gigantic flowchart of AI Alignment and posted it on here a few months back. But I can’t remember who it was at the moment.

Fortunately, I am a good googler: https://​​www.alignmentforum.org/​​s/​​aERZoriyHfCqvWkzg

If you’re interested in categorizing all the things, you might imagine generating dichotomies by extremizing notes or relationships in such a flowchart.