This is an intuition only based on speaking with researchers working on LLMs, but I think that OAI thinks that a model can simultaneously be good enough at next token prediction to assist with research but also be very very far away from being a powerful enough optimizer to realise that it is being optimized for a goal or that deception is an optimal strategy, since the latter two capabilities require much more optimization power. And that the default state of cutting edge LLMs for the next few years is to have GPT-3 levels of deception (essentially none) and graduate student levels of research assistant ability.
This is an intuition only based on speaking with researchers working on LLMs, but I think that OAI thinks that a model can simultaneously be good enough at next token prediction to assist with research but also be very very far away from being a powerful enough optimizer to realise that it is being optimized for a goal or that deception is an optimal strategy, since the latter two capabilities require much more optimization power. And that the default state of cutting edge LLMs for the next few years is to have GPT-3 levels of deception (essentially none) and graduate student levels of research assistant ability.