Independent researchers sometimes seem to think that if they come up with a particularly brilliant idea about alignment, leading AGI labs will adopt it. Not realising that this won’t happen no matter what partially for social reasons
MATS generally thinks that separating the alignment problem into “lowering the alignment tax” via technical research and “convincing others to pay the alignment tax” via governance interventions is a useful framing. There are worlds in which the two are not so cleanly separable, of course, but we believe that making progress toward at least one of these goals is probably useful (particularly if more governance-focusedinitiatives exist). We also support several mentors whose research crosses this boundary (e.g., Dan Hendrycks, Jesse Clifton, Daniel Kokotajlo).
MATS generally thinks that separating the alignment problem into “lowering the alignment tax” via technical research and “convincing others to pay the alignment tax” via governance interventions is a useful framing. There are worlds in which the two are not so cleanly separable, of course, but we believe that making progress toward at least one of these goals is probably useful (particularly if more governance-focused initiatives exist). We also support several mentors whose research crosses this boundary (e.g., Dan Hendrycks, Jesse Clifton, Daniel Kokotajlo).