Terminological note: something which does not buy ample time is not a pivotal act. Eliezer introduced the term to mean a specific thing, which he summarized as:
(as of late 2021) researchers use ‘pivotal’ and ‘pivotal act’ to refer to good events that upset the current gameboard—events that decisively settle a win, or drastically increase the probability of a win.
That same page also talks a bunch about how sticking to that definition is important, because there will predictably be lots of pressure to water the term down.
However: you also seem to be using the term Pivotal Act as a synonym for removing all time pressure from competing AI projects (which the AI in my post does). Example 3 of the arbital page that you link to also explicitly refers to an act that removes all time pressure from competing AI projects as a Pivotal Act. This usage is also present in various comments by you, Yudkowsky, and others (see links and quotes below). And there does not seem to exist any other established term for an AI that: (i): completely removes all time pressure from competing AI projects by uploading a design team and giving them infinite time to work, (ii): keeps the designers calm, rational, sane, etc indefinitely (with all definitional issues of those terms fully solved), and (iii): removes all risks from scenarios where someone fails to hit an alignment target. What other established term exists for such an AI? I think people would generally refer to such an AI as a Pivotal Act AI. And as demonstrated in the post: such an AI might not buy a lot of time.
Maybe using the term Pivotal Act as a synonym for an act that removes all time pressure from competing AI projects is a mistake? (Maybe the scenario in my post should be seen as showing that this usage is a mistake?). But it does seem to be a very well established way of using the term. And I would like to have a title that tells readers what the post is about. I think the current title probably did tell you what the post is about, right? (that the type of AI actions that people tend to refer to as Pivotal Acts might not buy a lot of time in reality)
In the post I define new terms. But if I use a novel term in the title before defining the this term, the title will not tell you what the post is about. So I would prefer to avoid doing that.
But I can see why you might want to have Pivotal Act be a protected term for something that is actually guaranteed to buy a lot of time (which I think is what you would like to do?). And perhaps it is possible to maintain (or re-establish?) this usage. And I don’t want to interfere with your efforts to do this. So I will change the title.
If we can’t find a better solution I will change the title to: Internal Time Pressure. It does not really tell you what the post will be about. But at least it is accurate and not terminologically problematic. And even though the term is not commonly known, Internal Time Pressure is actually the main topic of the post (Internal Time Pressure is the reason that the AI mentioned above, that does all the nice things mentioned, might not actually buy a lot of time).
Regarding current usage of the term Pivotal Act:
It seems to me like you and many others are actually using the term as a shorthand for an AI that removes time pressure from competing AI projects. I can take many examples of this usage just from the discussion that faul_sname links to in the other reply to your comment.
In the second last paragraph of part 1 of the linked post, Andrew_Critch writes:
Overall, building an AGI development team with the intention to carry out a “pivotal act” of the form “forcibly shut down all other A(G)I projects” is probably going to be a rough time, I predict.
No one seems to be challenging that usage of Pivotal Act (even though many other parts of the post are challenged). And it is not just this paragraph. The tl;dr also treats a Pivotal Act as interchangeable with: shut down all other AGI projects, using safe AGI. There are other examples in the post.
In this comment on the post, it seems to me that Scott Alexander is using a Pivotal Act AI as a direct synonym for an AI capable of destroying all competing AI projects.
In this comment it seems to me like you are using Pivotal Act interchangeably with shutting down all competing AI projects. In this comment, it seems to me that you accept the premise that uploading a design team and running them very quickly would be a Pivotal Act (but you question the plan on other grounds). In this comment, it seems to me that you are equating successful AI regulation with a Pivotal Act (but you question the feasibility of regulation).
In this comment, Yudkowsky seems to me to be accepting the premise that preventing all competing AI projects would count as a Pivotal Act. He says that the described strategy for preventing all competing AI projects is not feasible. But he also says that he will change the way he speaks about Pivotal Acts if the strategy actually does work (and this strategy is to shut down competing AI projects with EMPs. The proposed strategy does nothing else to buy time, other than shutting down competing AI projects). (It is not an unequivocal case of using Pivotal Act as a direct synonym for reliably shutting down all competing AI projects. But it really does seem to me like Yudkowsky is treating Pivotal Act as a synonym for: preventing all competing AI projects. Or at least that he is assuming that preventing all competing AI projects would constitute a Pivotal Act).
Consider also example 3 in the arbital page that you link to. Removing time pressure from competing AI projects by uploading a design team is explicitly defined as an example of a Pivotal Act. And the LAI in my post does exactly this. And the LAI in my post also does a lot of other things that increase the probability of a win (such as keeping the designers sane and preventing them from missing an aimed for alignment target).
This usage points to a possible title along the lines of: The AI Actions that are Commonly Referred to as Pivotal Acts, are not Actually Pivotal Acts (or: Shutting Down all Competing AI Projects is not Actually a Pivotal Act). This is longer and less informative about what the post is about (the post is about the need to start ATA work now, because there might not be a lot time to do ATA work later, even if we assume the successful implementation of a very ambitious AI, whose purpose was to buy time). But this title would not interfere with an effort to maintain (or re-establish?) the meaning of Pivotal Act as a synonym for an act that is guaranteed to buy lots of time (which I think is what you are trying to do?). What do you think about these titles?
PS:
(I think that technically the title probably does conform to the specific text bit that you quote. It depends on what the current probability of a win is. And how one defines: drastically increase the probability of a win. But given the probability that Yudkowsky currently assigns to a win, I expect that he would agree that the launch of the described LAI would count as drastically increasing the probability of a win. (In the described scenario, there are many plausible paths along which the augmented humans actually do reach the needed levels of ATA progress in time. They are however not guaranteed to do this. The point of the post is that doing ATA now increases the probability of this happening). The statement that the title conforms to the quoted text bit is however only technically true in an uninteresting sense. And the title conflicts with your efforts to guard the usage of the term. So I will change the title as soon as a new title has been settled on. If nothing else is agreed on, I will change the title to: Internal Time Pressure)
It does strike me that, to OP’s point, “would this act be pivotal” is a question whose answer may not be knowable in advance. See also previous discussion on pivotal act intentions vs pivotal acts (for the audience, I know you’ve already seen it and in fact responded to it).
Terminological note: something which does not buy ample time is not a pivotal act. Eliezer introduced the term to mean a specific thing, which he summarized as:
That same page also talks a bunch about how sticking to that definition is important, because there will predictably be lots of pressure to water the term down.
I will change the title.
However: you also seem to be using the term Pivotal Act as a synonym for removing all time pressure from competing AI projects (which the AI in my post does). Example 3 of the arbital page that you link to also explicitly refers to an act that removes all time pressure from competing AI projects as a Pivotal Act. This usage is also present in various comments by you, Yudkowsky, and others (see links and quotes below). And there does not seem to exist any other established term for an AI that: (i): completely removes all time pressure from competing AI projects by uploading a design team and giving them infinite time to work, (ii): keeps the designers calm, rational, sane, etc indefinitely (with all definitional issues of those terms fully solved), and (iii): removes all risks from scenarios where someone fails to hit an alignment target. What other established term exists for such an AI? I think people would generally refer to such an AI as a Pivotal Act AI. And as demonstrated in the post: such an AI might not buy a lot of time.
Maybe using the term Pivotal Act as a synonym for an act that removes all time pressure from competing AI projects is a mistake? (Maybe the scenario in my post should be seen as showing that this usage is a mistake?). But it does seem to be a very well established way of using the term. And I would like to have a title that tells readers what the post is about. I think the current title probably did tell you what the post is about, right? (that the type of AI actions that people tend to refer to as Pivotal Acts might not buy a lot of time in reality)
In the post I define new terms. But if I use a novel term in the title before defining the this term, the title will not tell you what the post is about. So I would prefer to avoid doing that.
But I can see why you might want to have Pivotal Act be a protected term for something that is actually guaranteed to buy a lot of time (which I think is what you would like to do?). And perhaps it is possible to maintain (or re-establish?) this usage. And I don’t want to interfere with your efforts to do this. So I will change the title.
If we can’t find a better solution I will change the title to: Internal Time Pressure. It does not really tell you what the post will be about. But at least it is accurate and not terminologically problematic. And even though the term is not commonly known, Internal Time Pressure is actually the main topic of the post (Internal Time Pressure is the reason that the AI mentioned above, that does all the nice things mentioned, might not actually buy a lot of time).
Regarding current usage of the term Pivotal Act:
It seems to me like you and many others are actually using the term as a shorthand for an AI that removes time pressure from competing AI projects. I can take many examples of this usage just from the discussion that faul_sname links to in the other reply to your comment.
In the second last paragraph of part 1 of the linked post, Andrew_Critch writes:
Overall, building an AGI development team with the intention to carry out a “pivotal act” of the form “forcibly shut down all other A(G)I projects” is probably going to be a rough time, I predict.
No one seems to be challenging that usage of Pivotal Act (even though many other parts of the post are challenged). And it is not just this paragraph. The tl;dr also treats a Pivotal Act as interchangeable with: shut down all other AGI projects, using safe AGI. There are other examples in the post.
In this comment on the post, it seems to me that Scott Alexander is using a Pivotal Act AI as a direct synonym for an AI capable of destroying all competing AI projects.
In this comment it seems to me like you are using Pivotal Act interchangeably with shutting down all competing AI projects. In this comment, it seems to me that you accept the premise that uploading a design team and running them very quickly would be a Pivotal Act (but you question the plan on other grounds). In this comment, it seems to me that you are equating successful AI regulation with a Pivotal Act (but you question the feasibility of regulation).
In this comment, Yudkowsky seems to me to be accepting the premise that preventing all competing AI projects would count as a Pivotal Act. He says that the described strategy for preventing all competing AI projects is not feasible. But he also says that he will change the way he speaks about Pivotal Acts if the strategy actually does work (and this strategy is to shut down competing AI projects with EMPs. The proposed strategy does nothing else to buy time, other than shutting down competing AI projects). (It is not an unequivocal case of using Pivotal Act as a direct synonym for reliably shutting down all competing AI projects. But it really does seem to me like Yudkowsky is treating Pivotal Act as a synonym for: preventing all competing AI projects. Or at least that he is assuming that preventing all competing AI projects would constitute a Pivotal Act).
Consider also example 3 in the arbital page that you link to. Removing time pressure from competing AI projects by uploading a design team is explicitly defined as an example of a Pivotal Act. And the LAI in my post does exactly this. And the LAI in my post also does a lot of other things that increase the probability of a win (such as keeping the designers sane and preventing them from missing an aimed for alignment target).
This usage points to a possible title along the lines of: The AI Actions that are Commonly Referred to as Pivotal Acts, are not Actually Pivotal Acts (or: Shutting Down all Competing AI Projects is not Actually a Pivotal Act). This is longer and less informative about what the post is about (the post is about the need to start ATA work now, because there might not be a lot time to do ATA work later, even if we assume the successful implementation of a very ambitious AI, whose purpose was to buy time). But this title would not interfere with an effort to maintain (or re-establish?) the meaning of Pivotal Act as a synonym for an act that is guaranteed to buy lots of time (which I think is what you are trying to do?). What do you think about these titles?
PS:
(I think that technically the title probably does conform to the specific text bit that you quote. It depends on what the current probability of a win is. And how one defines: drastically increase the probability of a win. But given the probability that Yudkowsky currently assigns to a win, I expect that he would agree that the launch of the described LAI would count as drastically increasing the probability of a win. (In the described scenario, there are many plausible paths along which the augmented humans actually do reach the needed levels of ATA progress in time. They are however not guaranteed to do this. The point of the post is that doing ATA now increases the probability of this happening). The statement that the title conforms to the quoted text bit is however only technically true in an uninteresting sense. And the title conflicts with your efforts to guard the usage of the term. So I will change the title as soon as a new title has been settled on. If nothing else is agreed on, I will change the title to: Internal Time Pressure)
It does strike me that, to OP’s point, “would this act be pivotal” is a question whose answer may not be knowable in advance. See also previous discussion on pivotal act intentions vs pivotal acts (for the audience, I know you’ve already seen it and in fact responded to it).