The author, like many others, misunderstands what people mean when they talk about capabilities vs. alignment. They do not mean that everything is either one or the other, and that nothing is both
I had a similar reaction, which made me want to go looking for the source of disagreement. Do you have a post or thread that comes to mind which makes this distinction well? Most of what I am able to find just sort of gestures at some tradeoffs, which seems like a situation where we would expect the kind of misunderstanding you describe.
To all doing that (directly and purposefully for its own sake, rather than as a mournful negative externality to alignment research): I request you stop.
I had a similar reaction, which made me want to go looking for the source of disagreement. Do you have a post or thread that comes to mind which makes this distinction well? Most of what I am able to find just sort of gestures at some tradeoffs, which seems like a situation where we would expect the kind of misunderstanding you describe.
Perhaps this? Request: stop advancing AI capabilities—LessWrong 2.0 viewer (greaterwrong.com)
Yep, it’s nicely packaged right here:
Ehh, it’s not long enough, doesn’t explain things as well as it could.