While a centralized project would get more resources, it also has more ability to pause//investigate things.
So EG if the centralized project researchers see something concerning (perhaps early warning signs of scheming), it seems more able to do a bunch of research on that Concerning Thing before advancing.
I think makes the effect of centralization on timelines unclear, at least if one expects these kinds of “warning signs” on the pathway to very advanced capabilities.
(It’s plausible that you could get something like this from a decentralized model with sufficient oversight, but this seems much harder, especially if we expect most of the technical talent to stay with the decentralized projects as opposed to joining the oversight body.)
Tbc, I don’t want to strongly claim that centralization implies shorter timelines. Besides the point you raise there’s also things like bureaucracy and diseconomies of scale. I’m just trying to figure out what the authors of the post were saying.
That said, if I had to guess, I’d guess that centralization speeds up timelines.
While a centralized project would get more resources, it also has more ability to pause//investigate things.
So EG if the centralized project researchers see something concerning (perhaps early warning signs of scheming), it seems more able to do a bunch of research on that Concerning Thing before advancing.
I think makes the effect of centralization on timelines unclear, at least if one expects these kinds of “warning signs” on the pathway to very advanced capabilities.
(It’s plausible that you could get something like this from a decentralized model with sufficient oversight, but this seems much harder, especially if we expect most of the technical talent to stay with the decentralized projects as opposed to joining the oversight body.)
Tbc, I don’t want to strongly claim that centralization implies shorter timelines. Besides the point you raise there’s also things like bureaucracy and diseconomies of scale. I’m just trying to figure out what the authors of the post were saying.
That said, if I had to guess, I’d guess that centralization speeds up timelines.