Another way to state your second point—the only way to exploit that free energy may be through something that looks a lot like a ‘pivotal act’. And in your third point, there may be no acceptable way to exploit that free energy, in which case the only option is to prevent any equally-capable unaligned AI from existing—not necessarily through a pivotal act, but Eliezer argues that’s the only practical way to do so.
I think the existence/accessibility of these kinds of free energy (offense-favored domains whose exploitation is outside of the Overton window or catastrophic) this is a key crux for ‘pivotal act’ vs. gradual risk reduction strategies, plausibly the main one.
In the terms of Paul’s point #2 - this could still be irrelevant because earlier AI systems will have killed us in more boring ways, but the ‘radically advancing the state of human R&D’ branch may not meaningfully change our vulnerability. I think this motivates the ‘sudden doom’ story even if you predict a smooth increase in capabilities.
Seconding all of this.
Another way to state your second point—the only way to exploit that free energy may be through something that looks a lot like a ‘pivotal act’. And in your third point, there may be no acceptable way to exploit that free energy, in which case the only option is to prevent any equally-capable unaligned AI from existing—not necessarily through a pivotal act, but Eliezer argues that’s the only practical way to do so.
I think the existence/accessibility of these kinds of free energy (offense-favored domains whose exploitation is outside of the Overton window or catastrophic) this is a key crux for ‘pivotal act’ vs. gradual risk reduction strategies, plausibly the main one.
In the terms of Paul’s point #2 - this could still be irrelevant because earlier AI systems will have killed us in more boring ways, but the ‘radically advancing the state of human R&D’ branch may not meaningfully change our vulnerability. I think this motivates the ‘sudden doom’ story even if you predict a smooth increase in capabilities.