Based on these I don’t think my statement was wildly inaccurate
Sorry, you’re correct that by the usual standards your statement isn’t wildly inaccurate, just misleading. I have been spoiled by my personal walled garden.
Fwiw (and I agree this is a nitpick) I wouldn’t phrase it as “The idea that harms from speeding up AI capabilities progress can be largely offset by benefits from preventing capabilities overhangs”. Fundamentally what’s going on is a decomposition and analysis of the overall consequences of an action (certain kinds of safety research), where you cannot easily separate the consequences from each other and only do some of them. This is not an “offset”. It’s also not sufficient to overcome the harms; it’s important that there is some other benefit for the action to actually become positive.
My phrasing would be something like “The idea that side effects of speeding up AI capabilities are not as bad as might be assumed at first glance because of the reduction in capabilities overhangs”.
Sorry, you’re correct that by the usual standards your statement isn’t wildly inaccurate, just misleading. I have been spoiled by my personal walled garden.
Fwiw (and I agree this is a nitpick) I wouldn’t phrase it as “The idea that harms from speeding up AI capabilities progress can be largely offset by benefits from preventing capabilities overhangs”. Fundamentally what’s going on is a decomposition and analysis of the overall consequences of an action (certain kinds of safety research), where you cannot easily separate the consequences from each other and only do some of them. This is not an “offset”. It’s also not sufficient to overcome the harms; it’s important that there is some other benefit for the action to actually become positive.
My phrasing would be something like “The idea that side effects of speeding up AI capabilities are not as bad as might be assumed at first glance because of the reduction in capabilities overhangs”.