For things like solving coordination problems, or societal resilience against violent takeover, I think it can be important that most people, or even virtually all people, are making good foresighted decisions. For example, if we’re worried about a race-to-the-bottom on AI oversight, and half of relevant decisionmakers allow their AI assistants to negotiate a treaty to stop that race on their behalf, but the other half think that’s stupid and don’t participate, then that’s not good enough, there will still be a race-to-the-bottom on AI oversight. Or if 50% of USA government bureaucrats ask their AIs if there’s a way to NOT outlaw testing people for COVID during the early phases of the pandemic, but the other 50% ask their AIs how best to follow the letter of the law and not get embarrassed, then the result may well be that testing is still outlawed.
For example, in this comment, Paul suggests that if all firms are “aligned” with their human shareholders, then the aligned CEOs will recognize if things are going in a long-term bad direction for humans, and they will coordinate to avoid that. That doesn’t work unless EITHER the human shareholders—all of them, not just a few—are also wise enough to be choosing long-term preferences and true beliefs over short-term preferences and motivated reasoning, when those conflict. OR unless the aligned CEOs—again, all of them, not just a few—are injecting the wisdom into the system, putting their thumbs on the scale, by choosing, even over the objections of the shareholders, their long-term preferences and true beliefs over short-term preferences and motivated reasoning.
For things like solving coordination problems, or societal resilience against violent takeover, I think it can be important that most people, or even virtually all people, are making good foresighted decisions. For example, if we’re worried about a race-to-the-bottom on AI oversight, and half of relevant decisionmakers allow their AI assistants to negotiate a treaty to stop that race on their behalf, but the other half think that’s stupid and don’t participate, then that’s not good enough, there will still be a race-to-the-bottom on AI oversight. Or if 50% of USA government bureaucrats ask their AIs if there’s a way to NOT outlaw testing people for COVID during the early phases of the pandemic, but the other 50% ask their AIs how best to follow the letter of the law and not get embarrassed, then the result may well be that testing is still outlawed.
For example, in this comment, Paul suggests that if all firms are “aligned” with their human shareholders, then the aligned CEOs will recognize if things are going in a long-term bad direction for humans, and they will coordinate to avoid that. That doesn’t work unless EITHER the human shareholders—all of them, not just a few—are also wise enough to be choosing long-term preferences and true beliefs over short-term preferences and motivated reasoning, when those conflict. OR unless the aligned CEOs—again, all of them, not just a few—are injecting the wisdom into the system, putting their thumbs on the scale, by choosing, even over the objections of the shareholders, their long-term preferences and true beliefs over short-term preferences and motivated reasoning.