It seems to me like the main three RSP posts (ARC’s, Anthropic’s, and yours) are (perhaps unintentionally?) painting and overly-optimistic portrayal of RSPs.
I mean, I am very explicitly trying to communicate what I see as the success story here. I agree that there are many ways that this could fail—I mention a bunch of them in the last section—but I think that having a clear story of how things could go well is important to being able to work to actually achieve that story.
On top of that, the posts seem to have this “don’t listen to the people who are pushing for stronger asks like moratoriums—instead please let us keep scaling and trust industry to find the pragmatic middle ground” vibe.
I want to be very clear that I’ve been really happy to see all the people pushing for strong asks here. I think it’s a really valuable thing to be doing, and what I’m trying to do here is not stop that but help it focus on more concrete asks.
I would be more sympathetic to the RSP approach if it was like “well yes, we totally think it’d great to have a moratorium or a global compute cap or a kill switch or a federal agency monitoring risks or a licensing regime”, and we also think this RSP thing might be kinda nice in the meantime.
To be clear, I definitely agree with this. My position is not “RSPs are all we need”, “pauses are bad”, “pause advocacy is bad”, etc.—my position is that getting good RSPs is an effective way to implement a pause: i.e. “RSPs are pauses done right.”
To be clear, I definitely agree with this. My position is not “RSPs are all we need”, “pauses are bad”, “pause advocacy is bad”, etc.—my position is that getting good RSPs is an effective way to implement a pause: i.e. “RSPs are pauses done right.”
Some feedback on this: my expectation upon seeing your title was that you would argue, or that you implicitly believe, that RSPs are better than other current “pause” attempts/policies/ideas. I think this expectation came from the common usage of the phrase “done right” to mean that other people are doing it wrong or at least doing it suboptimally.
I mean, to be clear, I am saying something like “RSPs are the most effective way to implement a pause that I know of.” The thing I’m not saying is just that “RSPs are the only policy thing we should be doing.”
This reads as some sort of confused motte and bailey. Are RSPs “an effective way” or “the most effective way… [you] know of”? These are different things, with each being stronger/weaker in different ways. Regardless, the title could still be made much more accurate to your beliefs, e.g. ~’RSPs are our (current) best bet on a pause’. ‘An effective way’ is definitely not “i.e … done right”, but “the most effective way… that I know of” is also not.
‘An effective way’ is definitely not “i.e … done right”, but “the most effective way… that I know of” is also not.
I disagree? I think the plain English meaning of the title “RSPs are pauses done right” is precisely “RSPs are the right way to do pauses (that I know of)” which is exactly what I think and exactly what I am defending here. I honestly have no idea what else that title would mean.
Sorry yeah I could have explained what I meant further. The way I see it:
‘X is the most effective way that I know of’ = X tops your ranking of the different ways, but could still be below a minimum threshold (e.g. X doesn’t have to even properly work, it could just be less ineffective than all the rest). So one could imagine someone saying “X is the most effective of all the options I found and it still doesn’t actually do the job!”
‘X is an effective way’ = ‘X works, and it works above a certain threshold’.
‘X is Y done right’ = ‘X works and is basically the only acceptable way to do Y,’ where it’s ambiguous or contextual as to whether ‘acceptable’ means that it at least works, that it’s effective, or sth like ‘it’s so clearly the best way that anyone doing the 2nd best thing is doing something bad’.
I mean, I am very explicitly trying to communicate what I see as the success story here. I agree that there are many ways that this could fail—I mention a bunch of them in the last section—but I think that having a clear story of how things could go well is important to being able to work to actually achieve that story.
I want to be very clear that I’ve been really happy to see all the people pushing for strong asks here. I think it’s a really valuable thing to be doing, and what I’m trying to do here is not stop that but help it focus on more concrete asks.
To be clear, I definitely agree with this. My position is not “RSPs are all we need”, “pauses are bad”, “pause advocacy is bad”, etc.—my position is that getting good RSPs is an effective way to implement a pause: i.e. “RSPs are pauses done right.”
Some feedback on this: my expectation upon seeing your title was that you would argue, or that you implicitly believe, that RSPs are better than other current “pause” attempts/policies/ideas. I think this expectation came from the common usage of the phrase “done right” to mean that other people are doing it wrong or at least doing it suboptimally.
I mean, to be clear, I am saying something like “RSPs are the most effective way to implement a pause that I know of.” The thing I’m not saying is just that “RSPs are the only policy thing we should be doing.”
This reads as some sort of confused motte and bailey. Are RSPs “an effective way” or “the most effective way… [you] know of”? These are different things, with each being stronger/weaker in different ways. Regardless, the title could still be made much more accurate to your beliefs, e.g. ~’RSPs are our (current) best bet on a pause’. ‘An effective way’ is definitely not “i.e … done right”, but “the most effective way… that I know of” is also not.
I disagree? I think the plain English meaning of the title “RSPs are pauses done right” is precisely “RSPs are the right way to do pauses (that I know of)” which is exactly what I think and exactly what I am defending here. I honestly have no idea what else that title would mean.
Sorry yeah I could have explained what I meant further. The way I see it:
‘X is the most effective way that I know of’ = X tops your ranking of the different ways, but could still be below a minimum threshold (e.g. X doesn’t have to even properly work, it could just be less ineffective than all the rest). So one could imagine someone saying “X is the most effective of all the options I found and it still doesn’t actually do the job!”
‘X is an effective way’ = ‘X works, and it works above a certain threshold’.
‘X is Y done right’ = ‘X works and is basically the only acceptable way to do Y,’ where it’s ambiguous or contextual as to whether ‘acceptable’ means that it at least works, that it’s effective, or sth like ‘it’s so clearly the best way that anyone doing the 2nd best thing is doing something bad’.
Why then “RSPs are the most effective way to implement a pause that I know of” is literally not the title of your post?