I could equally see these events leading to AI capability development speeding or slowing. Too little is known about the operational status quo that has been interrupted for me to imagine counterfactuals at the company level.
But that very lack of information gives me hope that the overall PR impact of this may (counterintuitively) incline the Overton window toward more caution.
“The board should have given the press more dirt to justify this action!” makes sense as an initial response. When this all sinks in, what will people think of Effective Altruism then?! …They won’t. People don’t think much about EA or care what that is. But the common person does think more and more about AI these days. And due to the lack of detail around why Altman was removed, the takeaway from this story cannot be “Sam is alleged to have XYZ’d. Am I pro- or anti-XYZ?” Instead, the media is forced to frame the news in broad terms of profit incentives versus AI safety measures. That’s a topic that many people outside of this niche community may now be considering for the first time.
Ideally, this could be like a Sydney Bing moment that gets people paying attention without causing too much direct damage.
(The worst case: Things are playing out exactly as the AI told Sam they would before his ouster. Speculating about agents with access to cutting-edge AI may soon be futile.)
Thanks for the good discussion.
I could equally see these events leading to AI capability development speeding or slowing. Too little is known about the operational status quo that has been interrupted for me to imagine counterfactuals at the company level.
But that very lack of information gives me hope that the overall PR impact of this may (counterintuitively) incline the Overton window toward more caution.
“The board should have given the press more dirt to justify this action!” makes sense as an initial response. When this all sinks in, what will people think of Effective Altruism then?! …They won’t. People don’t think much about EA or care what that is. But the common person does think more and more about AI these days. And due to the lack of detail around why Altman was removed, the takeaway from this story cannot be “Sam is alleged to have XYZ’d. Am I pro- or anti-XYZ?” Instead, the media is forced to frame the news in broad terms of profit incentives versus AI safety measures. That’s a topic that many people outside of this niche community may now be considering for the first time.
Ideally, this could be like a Sydney Bing moment that gets people paying attention without causing too much direct damage.
(The worst case: Things are playing out exactly as the AI told Sam they would before his ouster. Speculating about agents with access to cutting-edge AI may soon be futile.)