the argument is that the US federal government is controlled by the US general public (“us”)
I find this breathtakingly naive, especially given the regime most recently voted in by the US general public. I certainly wouldn’t expect better of any government than the current leaders of the major AI companies, and in fact, considerably worse.
Politics warning:
The Trumpists will bleed the goose to line their own pockets, while the Dems (if they ever get back in) will wring its neck for having the effrontery to be laying golden eggs without their permission.
I agree there’s a substantial chance that any government would perform worse than the current leaders of major AI companies in the short term, esp. navigating the transition into widespread AGI or ASI. But once we reach a stable state, I’d rather have some kind of ownership/legitimized feedback mechanism available to humanity at large, and that may be more likely if there isn’t narrow private ownership of AGI/ASI beforehand. (Democratic republics are, as the saying goes, the worst solution for maintaining the common good, except for all the other ones we’ve tried. Obviously actually good solutions rely on AGI/ASI just coming up with something better, but it would be kind of nice if we could then accept that idea democratically...)
I find this breathtakingly naive, especially given the regime most recently voted in by the US general public. I certainly wouldn’t expect better of any government than the current leaders of the major AI companies, and in fact, considerably worse.
Politics warning:
The Trumpists will bleed the goose to line their own pockets, while the Dems (if they ever get back in) will wring its neck for having the effrontery to be laying golden eggs without their permission.
I agree there’s a substantial chance that any government would perform worse than the current leaders of major AI companies in the short term, esp. navigating the transition into widespread AGI or ASI. But once we reach a stable state, I’d rather have some kind of ownership/legitimized feedback mechanism available to humanity at large, and that may be more likely if there isn’t narrow private ownership of AGI/ASI beforehand. (Democratic republics are, as the saying goes, the worst solution for maintaining the common good, except for all the other ones we’ve tried. Obviously actually good solutions rely on AGI/ASI just coming up with something better, but it would be kind of nice if we could then accept that idea democratically...)