Do you know the Hide your strength, bide your time quote (commonly attributed to Deng Xiaoping, who didn’t actually say it (his successor did) but did apply a similar policy)? If we apply an instrumental convergence / deceptive alignment lens on this, we have to conclude that we can’t really make any conclusions based on surface behavior, about how “aligned” (peaceful or warlike) a country is, while it’s below some capabilities threshold, at least if it’s collectively smart enough.
(I thought of mentioning this analogy in my previous comment, but it seemed too obvious to spell out explicitly. Did I underestimate the inferential distance? Do you still disagree?)
No country is aligned, and in particular neither China nor the US is aligned to me (a Russian emigrant). They’d both treat me badly if it was in their nationalist interests.
Mostly I’m trying to make the same point as the OP: many people, including LWers, are fanning up the military and AI arms race on the US side, and in my opinion there’s no strong justification for this.
Mostly I’m trying to make the same point as the OP: many people, including LWers, are fanning up the military and AI arms race on the US side, and in my opinion there’s no strong justification for this.
I agree that there’s no strong justification for this, but would make other arguments in this direction rather than point out the data that you did (China caused fewer deaths in external wars), mainly that AGI/ASI is likely to be either unaligned/uncontrollable or radically change the power structure and/or values of whatever country “wins” the AI race, so we can’t form strong judgments based on past evidence.
BTW who on LW is fanning this race? If I try to recall what I’ve seen, it’s mostly about trying to slow China down (through things like export controls and securing American AI labs) rather than speed the US up, which seems unobjectionable? Do you see LWers doing more than this, or think this is objectionable too?
If Alice and Bob are doing something that might be plausibly interpreted as a race, and Alice is not
[doing the things that you’d expect her to do, if she wanted to move faster, if she thought about the situation as a race],
but she is
[doing the things that you’d expect her to do, if she wanted to slow Bob down, if she thought about the situation as a race],
then this should make an impartial observer Charlie increase his credence that at the very least Alice (if not Bob) is thinking about the situation as a race.
Do you know the Hide your strength, bide your time quote (commonly attributed to Deng Xiaoping, who didn’t actually say it (his successor did) but did apply a similar policy)? If we apply an instrumental convergence / deceptive alignment lens on this, we have to conclude that we can’t really make any conclusions based on surface behavior, about how “aligned” (peaceful or warlike) a country is, while it’s below some capabilities threshold, at least if it’s collectively smart enough.
(I thought of mentioning this analogy in my previous comment, but it seemed too obvious to spell out explicitly. Did I underestimate the inferential distance? Do you still disagree?)
No country is aligned, and in particular neither China nor the US is aligned to me (a Russian emigrant). They’d both treat me badly if it was in their nationalist interests.
Mostly I’m trying to make the same point as the OP: many people, including LWers, are fanning up the military and AI arms race on the US side, and in my opinion there’s no strong justification for this.
I agree that there’s no strong justification for this, but would make other arguments in this direction rather than point out the data that you did (China caused fewer deaths in external wars), mainly that AGI/ASI is likely to be either unaligned/uncontrollable or radically change the power structure and/or values of whatever country “wins” the AI race, so we can’t form strong judgments based on past evidence.
BTW who on LW is fanning this race? If I try to recall what I’ve seen, it’s mostly about trying to slow China down (through things like export controls and securing American AI labs) rather than speed the US up, which seems unobjectionable? Do you see LWers doing more than this, or think this is objectionable too?
If Alice and Bob are doing something that might be plausibly interpreted as a race, and Alice is not
[doing the things that you’d expect her to do, if she wanted to move faster, if she thought about the situation as a race],
but she is
[doing the things that you’d expect her to do, if she wanted to slow Bob down, if she thought about the situation as a race],
then this should make an impartial observer Charlie increase his credence that at the very least Alice (if not Bob) is thinking about the situation as a race.