I think a lot of orgs that are more focused on social issues which can or do arise from present day AI / ADM (automated decision making) technology should be thinking more about global coordination, but seem focused on national (or subnational, or EU) level policy. It seems valuable to make the most compelling case for stronger international coordination efforts to these actors. Examples of this kind of org that I have in mind are AINow and Montreal AI ethics institute (MAIEI).
As mentioned in other comments, there are many private conversations among people concerned about AI-Xrisk, and (IMO, legitimate) info-hazards / unilateralist curse concerns loom large. It seems prudent to make progress on those meta-level issues (i.e. how to engage the public and policymakers on AI(-Xrisk) coordination efforts) as a community as quickly as possible, because:
Getting effective AI governance in place seems like it will be challenging and take a long time.
There are a rapidly growing number of organizations seeking to shape AI policy, who may have objectives that are counter-productive from the point of view of AI-Xrisk. And there may be a significant first-mover advantage (e.g. via setting important legal or cultural precedents, and framing the issue for the public and policymakers).
There is massive untapped potential for people who are not currently involved in reducing AI-Xrisk to contribute (consider the raw number of people who haven’t been exposed to serious thought on the subject).
Info-hazard-y ideas are becoming public knowledge anyways, on the timescale of years. There may be a significant advantage to getting ahead of the “natural” diffusion of these memes and seeking to control the framing / narrative.
My answers to your 6 questions:
1. Hopefully the effect will be transient and minimal.
2. I strongly disagree. I think we (ultimately) need much better coordination.
3. Good question. As an incomplete answer, I think personal connections and trust play a significant (possibly indispensable) role.
4. I don’t know. Speculating/musing/rambling: the kinds of coordination where IT has made a big difference (recently, i.e. starting with the internet) are primarily economic and consumer-faced. For international coordination, the stakes are higher; it’s geopolitics, not economics; you need effective international institutions to provide enforcement mechanisms.
5. Yes, but this doesn’t seem like a crucial consideration (for the most part). Do you have specific examples in mind?
6. Social science and economics seem really valuable to me. Game theory, mechanism design, behavioral game theory. I imagine there’s probably a lot of really valuable stuff on how people/orgs make collective decisions that the stakeholders are satisfied with in some other fields as well (psychology? sociology? anthropology?). We need experts in these fields (esp, I think the softer fields are underrepresented) to inform the AI-Xrisk community about existing findings and create research agendas.
RE the title, a quick list:
FHI (and associated orgs)
CSER
OpenAI
OpenPhil
FLI
FRI
GovAI
PAI
I think a lot of orgs that are more focused on social issues which can or do arise from present day AI / ADM (automated decision making) technology should be thinking more about global coordination, but seem focused on national (or subnational, or EU) level policy. It seems valuable to make the most compelling case for stronger international coordination efforts to these actors. Examples of this kind of org that I have in mind are AINow and Montreal AI ethics institute (MAIEI).
As mentioned in other comments, there are many private conversations among people concerned about AI-Xrisk, and (IMO, legitimate) info-hazards / unilateralist curse concerns loom large. It seems prudent to make progress on those meta-level issues (i.e. how to engage the public and policymakers on AI(-Xrisk) coordination efforts) as a community as quickly as possible, because:
Getting effective AI governance in place seems like it will be challenging and take a long time.
There are a rapidly growing number of organizations seeking to shape AI policy, who may have objectives that are counter-productive from the point of view of AI-Xrisk. And there may be a significant first-mover advantage (e.g. via setting important legal or cultural precedents, and framing the issue for the public and policymakers).
There is massive untapped potential for people who are not currently involved in reducing AI-Xrisk to contribute (consider the raw number of people who haven’t been exposed to serious thought on the subject).
Info-hazard-y ideas are becoming public knowledge anyways, on the timescale of years. There may be a significant advantage to getting ahead of the “natural” diffusion of these memes and seeking to control the framing / narrative.
My answers to your 6 questions:
1. Hopefully the effect will be transient and minimal.
2. I strongly disagree. I think we (ultimately) need much better coordination.
3. Good question. As an incomplete answer, I think personal connections and trust play a significant (possibly indispensable) role.
4. I don’t know. Speculating/musing/rambling: the kinds of coordination where IT has made a big difference (recently, i.e. starting with the internet) are primarily economic and consumer-faced. For international coordination, the stakes are higher; it’s geopolitics, not economics; you need effective international institutions to provide enforcement mechanisms.
5. Yes, but this doesn’t seem like a crucial consideration (for the most part). Do you have specific examples in mind?
6. Social science and economics seem really valuable to me. Game theory, mechanism design, behavioral game theory. I imagine there’s probably a lot of really valuable stuff on how people/orgs make collective decisions that the stakeholders are satisfied with in some other fields as well (psychology? sociology? anthropology?). We need experts in these fields (esp, I think the softer fields are underrepresented) to inform the AI-Xrisk community about existing findings and create research agendas.