Ben Pace

Karma: 41,045

I’m an admin of LessWrong. Here are a few things about me.

I generally feel more hopeful about a situation when I understand it better.
I have signed no contracts nor made any agreements whose existence I cannot mention.
I believe it is good to take responsibility for accurately and honestly informing people of what you believe in all conversations; and also good to cultivate an active recklessness for the social consequences of doing so.
It is deontologically prohibited to directly work on causing the end of the world. Even if you are fatalistic about what is going to happen.

Randomly: If you ever want to talk to me about anything you like for an hour, I am happy to be paid $1k for an hour of doing that.

(Longer bio.)

Ben Pace 15 Sep 2026 6:32 UTC
8 points
−12
in reply to: Zack_M_Davis’s comment on: 307th’s Shortform
I think that’s fair, though I do think it is often (sadly) the case that fringe political views get taken up by outcasts and outsiders who are themselves unmentionables for good reason. Personally I have seen many cases of someone being politically ousted with merit, only to now be able to see valid critiques of sacred cows that make them more valuable to listen to, whilst also still being idiots in many regards or worth avoiding socially. I predict that Eliezer also had to deal with idiots who were neoreactionaries and this was a substantial factor in his choosing to castigate the philosophy.

Ben Pace 15 Sep 2026 4:40 UTC
8 points
4
in reply to: Zack_M_Davis’s comment on: 307th’s Shortform
(I recall him seeming low-integrity / unprincipled on trans pronoun & identity issues and your many tribulations regarding that, I am interested briefly in checking if there are also other subjects you have in mind.)

Ben Pace 15 Sep 2026 4:33 UTC
16 points
0
in reply to: 307th’s comment on: 307th’s Shortform
I think you are unaware the Dustin Moskovitz required Open Philanthropy to not fund anything associated with right-wing politics? Whilst not telling anyone and obfuscating this fact? And also that their big policy bet was to fund Jason Matheny to the tune of ~$80M, who is in with the Democratic coalition and lost power when the Republicans won? This all involved picking a side, and sometimes in extremely low integrity ways.

Ben Pace 12 Sep 2026 16:58 UTC
9 points
10
in reply to: David Matolcsi’s comment on: Personal statement on joining the OpenAI nonprofit board
You seem to not be getting that I wasn’t writing about groups! I criticized Paul’s communications practices and then I was accused of waging group-conflict! If we are going to be able to have healthy discourse then I need to be able to criticize someone without going “Hm, I wonder how this affects various group dynamics, and how it will be seen from that perspective” and then have it discussed primarily in that lens. We need to primarily discuss the criticism. This is one of the most basic points of rationality, to keep your eye on the ball and spend 90% of your time on the object level.
(Also: you did the thing.)

Ben Pace 10 Sep 2026 22:43 UTC
5 points
2
in reply to: Raemon’s comment on: Personal statement on joining the OpenAI nonprofit board
Another thing that makes this complicated is that the value of most comments isn’t to the person you’re responding to. Here I was primarily sharing my amusement with a much larger set of people.

Ben Pace 10 Sep 2026 19:20 UTC
9 points
7
in reply to: mattmacdermott’s comment on: Personal statement on joining the OpenAI nonprofit board
Thank you, I think this is a good comment (Upvote.)
I did genuinely find it grimly amusing, and thought that worth sharing. I admit the humor had some bite in it, and I think I regret the ambiguity about whether that was there. But I am otherwise not sure this is bad, in my culture biting humor between friends/allies is often healthy. I have worked with Paul on some things in the past, I expect I will again in the future in some small ways, I have had friendly interactions with him at personal gatherings and such. I think some of his work is pretty good. And yet I think this behavior of his is bad. Such is life. You can’t expect to like everything about the people around you. I think he should be able to put up with me finding amusement in what I perceive as his failings.

Ben Pace 10 Sep 2026 4:11 UTC
6 points
2
on: I want to bitch about the increased salience of AI risk
5 years? Speak for yourself lol. For some of us it’s been more than a decade ;-)

Ben Pace 10 Sep 2026 4:10 UTC
6 points
2
on: I want to bitch about the increased salience of AI risk
Now everyone is realising that AI risk is higher. And I suspect I and you will not get much thanks for our positions over the last 5 years.
Oh, I am expecting a lot of people around these parts to get a lot more money, status, and (newly) prestige.

Ben Pace 10 Sep 2026 0:28 UTC
4 points
0
in reply to: Erich_Grunewald’s comment on: Personal statement on joining the OpenAI nonprofit board
I guess that’s true, but it still seems pretty sketchy to me. I think the basic idea is that if he said things that caused the stock to fall, then they could sue him for damages? That sure sounds like there’s someone around the senior levels of govt who you believe should be able to give you an insider take (and honest take) on OpenAI but who has a strong financial incentive to keep tight lips.
What’s more, if someone tried to promote him to a senior role in government, he’d have to turn them down without being able to tell them why! “Why?” “Oh… I feel like I’ve been too close to industry...” “But I think that’s an asset!” Or if he accepts a role in the OSTP with Jason Matheny (who had a senior role there and was historically tight with OpenPhil EAs)? He could easily end up in situations where he was unexpectedly asked to give public comment and wouldn’t be able to tell anyone that his finances were at risk.

Ben Pace 9 Sep 2026 20:29 UTC
28 points
7
in reply to: Ben Pace’s comment on: Personal statement on joining the OpenAI nonprofit board
If anyone who thinks this comment is somehow inappropriate (or doesn’t get why it’s amusing) would like to explain why, I would welcome that.
One of the top 3 things that has made Paul’s career has been writing a lot in public about this subject in a way that is respectable, never rhetorically alarming, and able to serve as an optimistic counterweight those sounding the alarm. So it is funny in the immediate weeks after the NYT has frontpage pieces about rogue AIs committing crimes and Bernie Sanders announcing a bill to ban superintelligence, to see his one tonal note be that he has softened his writing even further.

Ben Pace 9 Sep 2026 19:45 UTC
3 points
18
in reply to: paulfchristiano’s comment on: Personal statement on joining the OpenAI nonprofit board
I made the tone in this post softer than I would have if I were not a director,
Lol. Ah yes, finally, Paul Christiano is toning down his extremist rhetoric!

Ben Pace 9 Sep 2026 19:01 UTC
20 points
14
in reply to: orthonormal’s comment on: Personal statement on joining the OpenAI nonprofit board
Didn’t Paul take a government regulator role job while under a secret non-disparagement agreement with OpenAI? If so, pretty dumb move if you ask me.
(Added: More specifically, is a low-integrity thing to do, which worries me greatly.)

Ben Pace 9 Sep 2026 18:58 UTC
17 points
−1
on: Personal statement on joining the OpenAI nonprofit board
A twit by the founder of an AI safety advocacy organization states that
the SSC in particular oversees model launches and can delay releases for safety reasons
I have never heard this before and is outside the usual remit of boards. This would be a strong positive update for me about OpenAI’s governance having any teeth (though it will not prevent an extinction-level threat, because of course most of the risk comes from training the model and internal runs, not releasing it to the public). Anyone got any more information on this?

Ben Pace 9 Sep 2026 18:13 UTC
53 points
2
on: Personal statement on joining the OpenAI nonprofit board
Recap for those not tracking the details: my understanding is that the nonprofit (“OpenAI Foundation”) owns 26% of the shares in the public-benefit corporation (“OpenAI Group PBC”). However, the non-profit board has special governance rights that give it complete control over who sits on the PBC board: it appoints all of its directors and can replace them at any time.
Confusingly, the two boards have so far been nearly identical, with 9 people sitting on both, including Bret Taylor as Chair of both boards, and Sam Altman also serving on both (being the only PBC executive to do so). Zico Kolter (Professor at CMU and Head of its Machine Learning Department) was the one exception, serving only on the nonprofit board (and as a non-voting “observer” on the PBC board). Paul Christiano now appears to be the second person appointed only to the nonprofit board.
I guess if there are subcommittees, perhaps more people will be announced soon. We’ll see!

Ben Pace 8 Sep 2026 22:40 UTC
20 points
3
in reply to: johnswentworth’s comment on: Contra Piper on When Conversation Is Possible
I mean I am agreeing with everything you’re preaching, and I believe I behave in these ways too.
To say it in my words: It is very important epistemically that individual instances of someone having a dumb self-model or believing that they believe something (when they don’t) are able to be pointed out and discussed without the person feeling that their entire credibility on all things are being called into question and becoming extremely defensive.
But: sometimes reasonable people are in messed up group settings and are subject to dumb group dynamics, and it is socially destabilizing if the group determines they’re not a credible source of information about themselves, and puts them in a kafka-esque trap where evidence they raise is often discredited because they were the one to raise it. Classic scenarios are people reporting bullying being called paranoid and having their social reads and memory discredited (useful because bullying often happens 1-1 in ways that are hard to document), and whistleblowers having heaps of scorn raised upon their basic mental faculties so as to discredit their testimony. I think these situations aren’t that rare and how reliable someone is seen as affects them a great deal, so I think on some occasions it’s understandable for people to be defensive about having their trustworthiness called into question when it comes to accounts of their own experiences and feelings.

Ben Pace 8 Sep 2026 19:51 UTC
6 points
3
in reply to: Ruby’s comment on: Ruby’s Shortform Feed
Good point, but also, I don’t expect them to deign to tell the public about the internal conflict even when it’s done. They have shown an abject disregard for the public sense-making about them and their behavior, with extreme silencing of staff and failure to answer questions about their trustworthiness, with the CEO occasionally publishing poorly argued propaganda on his blog.

Ben Pace 8 Sep 2026 19:46 UTC
12 points
2
in reply to: johnswentworth’s comment on: Contra Piper on When Conversation Is Possible
While I largely agree that it is important for people to call out others’ self-models as biased and fabricated (including for their friends!), my first thought about you and what you might be missing about others here is that (perhaps) you’re not tracking how dangerous it can be socially if people around you come to a consensus that you are not a trustworthy source of information about yourself, your behavior, your beliefs, and so on. I suspect the people you’re referring to are concerned that they basically will have their voice silenced as a result, and also accusations against them about their behavior will be presumed true because their evidence is not accepted.

Ben Pace 8 Sep 2026 19:23 UTC
2 points
0
in reply to: snapcaster’s comment on: Leveraged on being right
I would want to know if a friend that I trust thought my position on something was mistaken and naive. I think there’s a certain self-respect involved, which I believe my friends have too, so I think they would want to know.

Ben Pace 7 Sep 2026 5:22 UTC
18 points
10
in reply to: maxnadeau’s comment on: Alex Mallen’s Shortform
Constellation pedagogy foregrounds particular types of misalignment like “schemers” and “reward-seekers” too much, rather than the basic problem of Goodharting on outcomes
I find myself confused about the referent of “Constellation pedagogy”. It’s been many years since I’ve spent much time there, back then my understanding was hat Constellation was primarily a shared office space for orgs to the tastes of whoever the people running it happened to like the work of. But the website lists the Astra Fellowship, Visting Fellowship, Generator Residency, and an Incubator, so now I wonder if half the people there are “junior people” studying AI risk doing related work. Might someone shed light on the makeup of the folks working there?

Ben Pace 7 Sep 2026 2:34 UTC
13 points
2
in reply to: Thomas Kwa’s comment on: Thomas Kwa’s Shortform
I am confused why you don’t just list the topics. Then I thought “probably it’s a case by case basis“. But then I thought “I doubt Thomas is running every comment by OpenAI comms team”. And then I was confused. And so I wrote this comment.