As for how this idea can be used—I’d say that as a sort of artistic thing, as described it feels a little deus ex machina, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, its just I’m right now personally trying to come up with stories where by the time the AI is actually on the verge of being developed, enough right choices were made earlier that it is inevitable things go well, with the idea that what is valuable now is encouraging people to build the institutions and safety procedures into their system so that it doesn’t come close. On the other hand that doesn’t optimize for strong conflicts and climax, and I think your plan could do that really well.
We’re both still just sort of guessing at what will actually help—but signal boosting existing organizations like MIRI and CHAI and the idea of explicitly taking safety really seriously sounds promising to me.
One thing I do do in my Pride and Prejudice Variations is always write an afterward talking about how I wrote the book, and then ending with telling people that they should donate to Doctors Without Borders, something like that, explicitly having a simple call to action at the end of the novel probably is a good idea.
Yes, I can see why it would be greater motivation for people to act today, if they read a book where the actions today to a greater extent determine the outcome of the first AGI/ASI.
And I can see some ways we today could increase the likelihood of aligned AI, like a international cooperation program, or very high funding of organisations like MIRI and CHAI. I presume the people that aided to the safe creation of AI, could be painted as heroes, which might also work as a motivator for the reader to act.
A clear call to action after the book seems like an effective way to increase the chance that people will act, I will include that in the book if we finish writing it.
If you have a specific approach to aligned AI, that you think is likely to work and would like to write the book about, I think it would be very interesting to discuss, and potentially be included in my book as well.
I’m a writer, not a technical person—what I’m interested in trying to do is signal boosting ideas that within the community to the sort of general tech audience that reads hard sci fi novels, in the hopes of boosting serious interest and awareness around the subject, rather than painting a particular approach as the right approach.
I think that was a great comment :)
As for how this idea can be used—I’d say that as a sort of artistic thing, as described it feels a little deus ex machina, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, its just I’m right now personally trying to come up with stories where by the time the AI is actually on the verge of being developed, enough right choices were made earlier that it is inevitable things go well, with the idea that what is valuable now is encouraging people to build the institutions and safety procedures into their system so that it doesn’t come close. On the other hand that doesn’t optimize for strong conflicts and climax, and I think your plan could do that really well.
We’re both still just sort of guessing at what will actually help—but signal boosting existing organizations like MIRI and CHAI and the idea of explicitly taking safety really seriously sounds promising to me.
One thing I do do in my Pride and Prejudice Variations is always write an afterward talking about how I wrote the book, and then ending with telling people that they should donate to Doctors Without Borders, something like that, explicitly having a simple call to action at the end of the novel probably is a good idea.
Yes, I can see why it would be greater motivation for people to act today, if they read a book where the actions today to a greater extent determine the outcome of the first AGI/ASI.
And I can see some ways we today could increase the likelihood of aligned AI, like a international cooperation program, or very high funding of organisations like MIRI and CHAI. I presume the people that aided to the safe creation of AI, could be painted as heroes, which might also work as a motivator for the reader to act.
A clear call to action after the book seems like an effective way to increase the chance that people will act, I will include that in the book if we finish writing it.
If you have a specific approach to aligned AI, that you think is likely to work and would like to write the book about, I think it would be very interesting to discuss, and potentially be included in my book as well.
I’m a writer, not a technical person—what I’m interested in trying to do is signal boosting ideas that within the community to the sort of general tech audience that reads hard sci fi novels, in the hopes of boosting serious interest and awareness around the subject, rather than painting a particular approach as the right approach.
That does sound like a rational approach, especially since the complexity of the problem makes it near impossible to promote a single approach.