I think your analysis makes sense if using a “center” name really should require you to have some amount of eminence or credibility first. I’ve updated a little bit in that direction now, but I still mostly think it’s just synonymous with “institute”, and on that view I don’t care if someone takes a “center” name (any more than if someone takes an “institute” name). It’s just, you know, one of the five or so nouns non-profits and think tanks use in their names (“center”, “institute”, “foundation”, “organization”, “council”, blah).
Or actually, maybe it’s more like I’m less convinced that there’s a common pool of social/political capital that CAIS is now spending from. I think the signed statement has resulted in other AI gov actors now having higher chances of getting things done. I think if the statement had been not very successful, it wouldn’t have harmed those actors’ ability to get things done. (Maybe if it was really botched it would’ve, but then my issue would’ve been with CAIS’s botching the statement, not with their name.)
I guess I also don’t really buy that using “center” spends from this pool (to the extent that there is a pool). What’s the scarce resource it’s using? Policy-makers’ time/attention? Regular people’s time/attention? Or do people only have a fixed amount of respect or credibility to accord various AI safety orgs? I doubt, for example, that other orgs lost out on opportunities to influence people, or inform policy-makers, due to CAIS’s actions. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m a bit confused about your model!
Btw, in case it matters, the other examples I had in mind were Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) and Centre for the Governance of AI (GovAI).
I think your analysis makes sense if using a “center” name really should require you to have some amount of eminence or credibility first… I still mostly think it’s just synonymous with “institute”
I’m finding it hard to explain why I think that naming yourself “The Center for AI Safety” is taking ownership of a prime piece of namespace real estate and also positioning yourselves as representing the field moreso than if you call yourself “Conjecture” or “Redwood Research” or “Anthropic”.
Like, consider an outsider trying to figure out who to go to in this field to help out or ask questions. They will be more likely to figure out that “The Center for AI Safety” is a natural place to go to rather than “the Future of Humanity Institute”, even though the second one has done a lot more relevant research.
There are basically no other organizations with “AI Safety” in the name, even though when Dan picked the name the others had all done more work to build up the field (e.g. FLI’s puerto rico conference, FHI’s book on Superintelligence, MIRI’s defining the field a decade ago, more).
[Added: I think names should be accurate on Simulacra Level 1 and not Simulacra Level 3-4. For instance, if lots of small and incompetent organizations call themselves “Center” and “Institute” when they aren’t much of a center of anything and aren’t long-lasting institutions, this is bad for our ability to communicate and it isn’t okay even if a lot of people do it. “Organization” seems like a pretty low bar and means something less substantive. “Council” seems odd here and only counts if you are actually primarily a council to other institutions.]
Or actually, maybe it’s more like I’m less convinced that there’s a common pool of social/political capital that CAIS is now spending from.
I think it’s pretty clear that there is. Of course “the AI Safety field” has a shared reputation and social capital. People under the same flag all are taking and investing resources into that flag. Scandals in some parishes of the Catholic Church affect the reputation of other Catholic parishes (and other Christians broadly). The reputation of YC affects the reputation of Silicon Valley and startups more broadly. When I watch great talks by Patrick Collison I more want to work in startups and think highly of them, when I see Sam Bankman-Fried steal billions of dollars I think that in general crypto orgs are more likely to be frauds.
I agree that the signed sentence gave more capital back to others than they have spent. Hendrycks’ team are not in-debt in my book. I nonetheless want to name costs and be open about criticism, and also say I am a bit nervous about what they will do in the relationship with xAI (e.g. it feels a bit like they might give xAI a tacit endorsement from the AI Safety community, which could easily be exceedingly costly).
What’s the scarce resource it’s using?
For one, in an incognito browser, their website is the first google result for the search term “AI Safety”, before even the wikipedia page.
I think your analysis makes sense if using a “center” name really should require you to have some amount of eminence or credibility first. I’ve updated a little bit in that direction now, but I still mostly think it’s just synonymous with “institute”, and on that view I don’t care if someone takes a “center” name (any more than if someone takes an “institute” name). It’s just, you know, one of the five or so nouns non-profits and think tanks use in their names (“center”, “institute”, “foundation”, “organization”, “council”, blah).
Or actually, maybe it’s more like I’m less convinced that there’s a common pool of social/political capital that CAIS is now spending from. I think the signed statement has resulted in other AI gov actors now having higher chances of getting things done. I think if the statement had been not very successful, it wouldn’t have harmed those actors’ ability to get things done. (Maybe if it was really botched it would’ve, but then my issue would’ve been with CAIS’s botching the statement, not with their name.)
I guess I also don’t really buy that using “center” spends from this pool (to the extent that there is a pool). What’s the scarce resource it’s using? Policy-makers’ time/attention? Regular people’s time/attention? Or do people only have a fixed amount of respect or credibility to accord various AI safety orgs? I doubt, for example, that other orgs lost out on opportunities to influence people, or inform policy-makers, due to CAIS’s actions. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m a bit confused about your model!
Btw, in case it matters, the other examples I had in mind were Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) and Centre for the Governance of AI (GovAI).
I’m finding it hard to explain why I think that naming yourself “The Center for AI Safety” is taking ownership of a prime piece of namespace real estate and also positioning yourselves as representing the field moreso than if you call yourself “Conjecture” or “Redwood Research” or “Anthropic”.
Like, consider an outsider trying to figure out who to go to in this field to help out or ask questions. They will be more likely to figure out that “The Center for AI Safety” is a natural place to go to rather than “the Future of Humanity Institute”, even though the second one has done a lot more relevant research.
There are basically no other organizations with “AI Safety” in the name, even though when Dan picked the name the others had all done more work to build up the field (e.g. FLI’s puerto rico conference, FHI’s book on Superintelligence, MIRI’s defining the field a decade ago, more).
[Added: I think names should be accurate on Simulacra Level 1 and not Simulacra Level 3-4. For instance, if lots of small and incompetent organizations call themselves “Center” and “Institute” when they aren’t much of a center of anything and aren’t long-lasting institutions, this is bad for our ability to communicate and it isn’t okay even if a lot of people do it. “Organization” seems like a pretty low bar and means something less substantive. “Council” seems odd here and only counts if you are actually primarily a council to other institutions.]
I think it’s pretty clear that there is. Of course “the AI Safety field” has a shared reputation and social capital. People under the same flag all are taking and investing resources into that flag. Scandals in some parishes of the Catholic Church affect the reputation of other Catholic parishes (and other Christians broadly). The reputation of YC affects the reputation of Silicon Valley and startups more broadly. When I watch great talks by Patrick Collison I more want to work in startups and think highly of them, when I see Sam Bankman-Fried steal billions of dollars I think that in general crypto orgs are more likely to be frauds.
I agree that the signed sentence gave more capital back to others than they have spent. Hendrycks’ team are not in-debt in my book. I nonetheless want to name costs and be open about criticism, and also say I am a bit nervous about what they will do in the relationship with xAI (e.g. it feels a bit like they might give xAI a tacit endorsement from the AI Safety community, which could easily be exceedingly costly).
For one, in an incognito browser, their website is the first google result for the search term “AI Safety”, before even the wikipedia page.
After seeing The Center for AI Policy and The AI Policy Institute launch within a month of one another I am now less concerned about first-movers monopolizing the namespace.