On the contrary, I think ~all of the “alignment researchers” I know claim to be working on the big problem, and I think ~90% of them are indeed doing work that looks good in terms of the big problem. (Researchers I don’t know are likely substantially worse but not a ton.)
In particular I think all of the alignment-orgs-I’m-socially-close-to do work that looks good in terms of the big problem: Redwood, METR, ARC. And I think the other well-known orgs are also good.
This doesn’t feel odd: these people are smart and actually care about the big problem; if their work was in the even if this succeeds it obviously wouldn’t be helpful category they’d want to know (and, given the “obviously,” would figure that out).
Possibly the situation is very different in academia or MATS-land; for now I’m just talking about the people around me.
I do not.
On the contrary, I think ~all of the “alignment researchers” I know claim to be working on the big problem, and I think ~90% of them are indeed doing work that looks good in terms of the big problem. (Researchers I don’t know are likely substantially worse but not a ton.)
In particular I think all of the alignment-orgs-I’m-socially-close-to do work that looks good in terms of the big problem: Redwood, METR, ARC. And I think the other well-known orgs are also good.
This doesn’t feel odd: these people are smart and actually care about the big problem; if their work was in the even if this succeeds it obviously wouldn’t be helpful category they’d want to know (and, given the “obviously,” would figure that out).
Possibly the situation is very different in academia or MATS-land; for now I’m just talking about the people around me.