I feel scared about this phenomenon. More generally I feel scared because in recent months the vibe from several Anthropic safety people has shifted toward “alignment is easy” or at least “several other problems are similarly important for making the transition go well” and I don’t know why and I’m worried it’s unjustified/random and this is (1) directly bad and (2) a bad sign about intra-Anthropic epistemics.
Yes, I am doubtful of the understanding that Anthropic shows of the alignment problem. Though reading Dario’s essay, the expectations shouldn’t have been too high.
I briefly chatted with an Anthropic employee a few months ago; they said (in my paraphrase) that Anthropic has engaged a lot with alignment pessimists, to the point where further discussion didn’t seem that helpful—by which they that Anthropic people hand engaged a lot with written material, and had been rubbed the wrong way by in person meetings. I tried to explain why a live conversation might be needed for subtle / complex things like this, but the conversational bandwidth was limited.
I feel scared about this phenomenon. More generally I feel scared because in recent months the vibe from several Anthropic safety people has shifted toward “alignment is easy” or at least “several other problems are similarly important for making the transition go well” and I don’t know why and I’m worried it’s unjustified/random and this is (1) directly bad and (2) a bad sign about intra-Anthropic epistemics.
Yes, I am doubtful of the understanding that Anthropic shows of the alignment problem. Though reading Dario’s essay, the expectations shouldn’t have been too high.
I briefly chatted with an Anthropic employee a few months ago; they said (in my paraphrase) that Anthropic has engaged a lot with alignment pessimists, to the point where further discussion didn’t seem that helpful—by which they that Anthropic people hand engaged a lot with written material, and had been rubbed the wrong way by in person meetings. I tried to explain why a live conversation might be needed for subtle / complex things like this, but the conversational bandwidth was limited.