I am not quite ready to pull my own personal fire alarm. The word ‘quite’ is doing a lot of lifting in that sentence. Because a fire is starting to feel like a real possibility in my future, I’ve begun to think about what pulling the fire alarm would actually mean. What would it mean for me? What would it mean for the community if a significant proportion agreed?
This is an open question for folks who have a good understanding of what actions the AI safety community would do if we agreed to pull the alarm. It’s also for people who have a good idea of what they personally would do.
For myself, I haven’t put enough thought into it yet. I think it would be wise not to burn all my resources immediately, since if done right, a fire alarm will be at least a little early. I think I would start to spend 1-2 hours a day, coordinating with the community, planning, and lobbying for an AI slowdown. I would probably not quit my job (yet) or spend more than 10% of my money. Most of all, this initial exercise has shown me that I’m not really prepared for the alarm to be pulled, and that a bit of forethought might be quite useful.
[Question] What does pulling the fire alarm look like?
I am not quite ready to pull my own personal fire alarm. The word ‘quite’ is doing a lot of lifting in that sentence. Because a fire is starting to feel like a real possibility in my future, I’ve begun to think about what pulling the fire alarm would actually mean. What would it mean for me? What would it mean for the community if a significant proportion agreed?
This is an open question for folks who have a good understanding of what actions the AI safety community would do if we agreed to pull the alarm. It’s also for people who have a good idea of what they personally would do.
For myself, I haven’t put enough thought into it yet. I think it would be wise not to burn all my resources immediately, since if done right, a fire alarm will be at least a little early. I think I would start to spend 1-2 hours a day, coordinating with the community, planning, and lobbying for an AI slowdown. I would probably not quit my job (yet) or spend more than 10% of my money. Most of all, this initial exercise has shown me that I’m not really prepared for the alarm to be pulled, and that a bit of forethought might be quite useful.