Generally I’d steer towards informal power over formal power.
Think about the OpenAI debacle last year. If I understand correctly, Microsoft had no formal power to exert control over OpenAI. But they seemed to have employees on their side. They could credibly threaten to hire away all the talent, and thereby reconstruct OpenAI’s products as Microsoft IP. Beyond that, perhaps OpenAI was somewhat dependent on Microsoft’s continued investment, and even though they don’t have to do as Microsoft says, are they really going to jeopardise future funding? What is at stake is not just future funding from Microsoft, but also all future investors who will look at OpenAI’s interactions with its investors in the past to understand the value they will get by investing.
It does seem like informal power structures seem more difficult to study, because they are by their nature much less legible. You have to perceive and name the phenomena, the conduits of power, yourself rather than having them laid out for you in legislation. But a case study on last year’s events could give you something concrete to work with. You might form some theories about power relations between labs, their employees, and investors, and then based on those theoretical frameworks, describe some hypothetical future scenarios and the likely outcomes.
If there was any lesson from last year’s events, IMAO, it was that talent and the raw fascination with creating a god might be even more powerful than capital. Dan Faggella described this well in a Future of Life podcast episode released in May this year (from about 0:40 onwards).
Generally I’d steer towards informal power over formal power.
Think about the OpenAI debacle last year. If I understand correctly, Microsoft had no formal power to exert control over OpenAI. But they seemed to have employees on their side. They could credibly threaten to hire away all the talent, and thereby reconstruct OpenAI’s products as Microsoft IP. Beyond that, perhaps OpenAI was somewhat dependent on Microsoft’s continued investment, and even though they don’t have to do as Microsoft says, are they really going to jeopardise future funding? What is at stake is not just future funding from Microsoft, but also all future investors who will look at OpenAI’s interactions with its investors in the past to understand the value they will get by investing.
It does seem like informal power structures seem more difficult to study, because they are by their nature much less legible. You have to perceive and name the phenomena, the conduits of power, yourself rather than having them laid out for you in legislation. But a case study on last year’s events could give you something concrete to work with. You might form some theories about power relations between labs, their employees, and investors, and then based on those theoretical frameworks, describe some hypothetical future scenarios and the likely outcomes.
If there was any lesson from last year’s events, IMAO, it was that talent and the raw fascination with creating a god might be even more powerful than capital. Dan Faggella described this well in a Future of Life podcast episode released in May this year (from about 0:40 onwards).