My claim is that *competence* isn’t the critical limiting factor in most cases because structure doesn’t usually allow decoupling, not that it’s not limited. When it IS the limiting factor, I agree with you, but it rarely is. And I think alignment is a different argument.
In EA orgs, alignment can solve the delegation-without-management problem because it can mitigate principal-agent issues. Once we agree on goals, we’re working towards them, and we can do so in parallel and coordinate only when needed. In most orgs, alignment cannot accomplish this, because it’s hard to get people to personally buy into your goals when those goals are profit maximization for a company. (Instead, you use incentive structures like bonuses to align them. But then you need to monitor them, etc.)
My claim is that *competence* isn’t the critical limiting factor in most cases because structure doesn’t usually allow decoupling, not that it’s not limited. When it IS the limiting factor, I agree with you, but it rarely is. And I think alignment is a different argument.
In EA orgs, alignment can solve the delegation-without-management problem because it can mitigate principal-agent issues. Once we agree on goals, we’re working towards them, and we can do so in parallel and coordinate only when needed. In most orgs, alignment cannot accomplish this, because it’s hard to get people to personally buy into your goals when those goals are profit maximization for a company. (Instead, you use incentive structures like bonuses to align them. But then you need to monitor them, etc.)