Do we want to put out a letter for labs to consider signing, saying something like “if all other labs sign this letter then we’ll stop”?
I heard lots of lab employees hope the other labs would slow down.
I’m not saying this is likely to work, but it seems easy and maybe we can try the easy thing? We might end up with a variation like “if all other labs sign this AND someone gets capability X AND this agreement will be enforced by Y, then we’ll stop until all the labs who signed this agree it’s safe to continue”. Or something else. It would be nice to get specific pushback from the labs and improve the phrasing.
I think this is very different from RSPs: RSPs are more like “if everyone is racing ahead (and so we feel we must also race), there is some point where we’ll still chose to unilaterally stop racing”
I think this is very different from RSPs: RSPs are more like “if everyone is racing ahead (and so we feel we must also race), there is some point where we’ll still chose to unilaterally stop racing”
In practice, I don’t think any currently existing RSP-like policy will result in a company doing this as I discuss here.
Law question: would such a promise among businesses, rather than an agreement mandated by / negotiated with governments, run afoul of laws related to monopolies, collusion, price gouging, or similar?
Right now, the USG seems to very much be in [prepping for an AI arms race] mode. I hope there’s some way to structure this that is both legal and does not require the explicit consent of the US government. I also somewhat worry that the US government does their own capabilities research, as hinted at in the “datacenters on federal lands” EO. I also also worry that OpenAI’s culture is not sufficiently safety-minded right now to actually sign onto this; most of what I’ve been hearing from them is accelerationist.
Still, I think this letter has value, especially if it has “P.S. We’re making this letter because we think if everyone keeps racing then there’s a noticable risk of everyone dying. We think it would be worse if only we stop, but having everyone stop would be the safest, and we think this opinion of ours should be known publicly”
[disclaimers: they’re not an anti trust lawyer and definitely don’t take responsibility for this opinion, nor do I. This all might maybe be wrong and we need to speak to an actual anti-trust lawyer to get certainty. I’m not going to put any more disclaimers here, I hope I’m not also misremembering something]
So,
Having someone from the U.S government sign that they won’t enforce anti trust laws isn’t enough (even if the president signs), because the (e.g) president might change their mind, or the next president might enforce it retroactively. This is similar to the current situation with Tiktok where Trump said he wouldn’t enforce the law that prevents Google from having Tiktok on their app store, but Google still didn’t put Tiktok back, probably because they’re afraid that someone will change their mind and retroactively enforce the law
I asked if the government (e.g president) could sign “we won’t enforce this, and if we change our mind we’ll give a 3 month notice”.
The former-lawyer’s response was to consider whether, in a case the president would change their mind immediately, this signature would hold up in court. He thinks that not, but couldn’t remember an example of something similar happening (which seems relevant)
If the law changes (for example, to exclude this letter), that works
(but it’s hard to pass such changes through congress)
If the letter is conditional on the law changing, that seems ok
My interpretation of this:
It seems probably possible to find a solution where signing this letter is legal, but we’d have to consult with an anti-trust lawyer.
[reminder that this isn’t legal advice, isn’t confident, is maybe misremembered, and so on]
We are concerned about late-stage AGI development becoming a competitive race without time for adequate safety precautions. Therefore, if a value-aligned, safety-conscious project comes close to building AGI before we do, we commit to stop competing with and start assisting this project. We will work out specifics in case-by-case agreements, but a typical triggering condition might be “a better-than-even chance of success in the next two years.”
Speaking in my personal capacity as research lead of TGT (and not on behalf of MIRI), I think work in this direction is potentially interesting. One difficulty with work like this are anti-trust laws, which I am not familiar with in detail but they serve to restrict industry coordination that restricts further development / competition. It might be worth looking into how exactly anti-trust laws apply to this situation, and if there are workable solutions. Organisations that might be well placed to carry out work like this might be the frontier model forum and affiliated groups, I also have some ideas we could discuss in person.
I also think there might be more legal leeway for work like this to be done if it’s housed within organisations (government or ngos) that are officially tasked with defining industry standards or similar.
Do we want to put out a letter for labs to consider signing, saying something like “if all other labs sign this letter then we’ll stop”?
I heard lots of lab employees hope the other labs would slow down.
I’m not saying this is likely to work, but it seems easy and maybe we can try the easy thing? We might end up with a variation like “if all other labs sign this AND someone gets capability X AND this agreement will be enforced by Y, then we’ll stop until all the labs who signed this agree it’s safe to continue”. Or something else. It would be nice to get specific pushback from the labs and improve the phrasing.
I think this is very different from RSPs: RSPs are more like “if everyone is racing ahead (and so we feel we must also race), there is some point where we’ll still chose to unilaterally stop racing”
In practice, I don’t think any currently existing RSP-like policy will result in a company doing this as I discuss here.
Law question: would such a promise among businesses, rather than an agreement mandated by / negotiated with governments, run afoul of laws related to monopolies, collusion, price gouging, or similar?
Sounds like a legit pushback that I’d add to the letter?
“if all other labs sign this letter AND the U.S government approves this agreement, then we’ll stop” ?
Right now, the USG seems to very much be in [prepping for an AI arms race] mode. I hope there’s some way to structure this that is both legal and does not require the explicit consent of the US government. I also somewhat worry that the US government does their own capabilities research, as hinted at in the “datacenters on federal lands” EO. I also also worry that OpenAI’s culture is not sufficiently safety-minded right now to actually sign onto this; most of what I’ve been hearing from them is accelerationist.
US Gov isn’t likely to sign: Seems right.
OpenAI isn’t likely to sign: Seems right.
Still, I think this letter has value, especially if it has “P.S. We’re making this letter because we think if everyone keeps racing then there’s a noticable risk of everyone dying. We think it would be worse if only we stop, but having everyone stop would be the safest, and we think this opinion of ours should be known publicly”
An opinion from a former lawyer
[disclaimers: they’re not an anti trust lawyer and definitely don’t take responsibility for this opinion, nor do I. This all might maybe be wrong and we need to speak to an actual anti-trust lawyer to get certainty. I’m not going to put any more disclaimers here, I hope I’m not also misremembering something]
So,
Having someone from the U.S government sign that they won’t enforce anti trust laws isn’t enough (even if the president signs), because the (e.g) president might change their mind, or the next president might enforce it retroactively. This is similar to the current situation with Tiktok where Trump said he wouldn’t enforce the law that prevents Google from having Tiktok on their app store, but Google still didn’t put Tiktok back, probably because they’re afraid that someone will change their mind and retroactively enforce the law
I asked if the government (e.g president) could sign “we won’t enforce this, and if we change our mind we’ll give a 3 month notice”.
The former-lawyer’s response was to consider whether, in a case the president would change their mind immediately, this signature would hold up in court. He thinks that not, but couldn’t remember an example of something similar happening (which seems relevant)
If the law changes (for example, to exclude this letter), that works
(but it’s hard to pass such changes through congress)
If the letter is conditional on the law changing, that seems ok
My interpretation of this:
It seems probably possible to find a solution where signing this letter is legal, but we’d have to consult with an anti-trust lawyer.
[reminder that this isn’t legal advice, isn’t confident, is maybe misremembered, and so on]
OpenAI already have this in their charter:
Maybe a good fit for Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) to flesh out and publish?
Speaking in my personal capacity as research lead of TGT (and not on behalf of MIRI), I think work in this direction is potentially interesting. One difficulty with work like this are anti-trust laws, which I am not familiar with in detail but they serve to restrict industry coordination that restricts further development / competition. It might be worth looking into how exactly anti-trust laws apply to this situation, and if there are workable solutions. Organisations that might be well placed to carry out work like this might be the frontier model forum and affiliated groups, I also have some ideas we could discuss in person.
I also think there might be more legal leeway for work like this to be done if it’s housed within organisations (government or ngos) that are officially tasked with defining industry standards or similar.
Hey,
On anti-trust laws, see this comment. I also hope to have more to share soon