Nitpick: I’m not yet working on alignment. Also, if someone had given me Superintelligence a year ago, I probably would have fixated on all the words I didn’t know instead of taking the problem seriously. They might become aware of the problem, and maybe even work on it—but as habryka pointed out, they wouldn’t be using rationalist methodology.
Edit: a lot of the value of reading Superintelligence came from having to seriously consider the problem for an extended period of time. I had already read CEV, WaitButWhy, IntelligenceExplosion, and various LW posts about malevolent genies, but it still hadn’t reached the level of “I, personally, want and need to take serious action on this”. I find it hard to imagine that someone could simply pick up Superintelligence and skip right to this state of mind, but maybe I’m generalizing too much from my situation.
Nitpick: I’m not yet working on alignment. Also, if someone had given me Superintelligence a year ago, I probably would have fixated on all the words I didn’t know instead of taking the problem seriously. They might become aware of the problem, and maybe even work on it—but as habryka pointed out, they wouldn’t be using rationalist methodology.
Edit: a lot of the value of reading Superintelligence came from having to seriously consider the problem for an extended period of time. I had already read CEV, WaitButWhy, IntelligenceExplosion, and various LW posts about malevolent genies, but it still hadn’t reached the level of “I, personally, want and need to take serious action on this”. I find it hard to imagine that someone could simply pick up Superintelligence and skip right to this state of mind, but maybe I’m generalizing too much from my situation.