Thanks so much for your thoughts Dave.  I agree humans have always been misaligned, and that in many ways we have made significant advancements in alignment over long time frames. However, I think few would deny that any metric approximating alignment would be quite volatile over shorter time frames or specific populations, which creates periods of greater risk. I agree that there must be something new that increases that existential risk to justify significant concern. You identified bioweapons as one example, which I agree is a risk, but not the specific one I am concerned about.  The new factors I am concerned about are: * The vastly increased ease and ability of small groups of misaligned actors to significantly alter, manipulate, or undermine large numbers of other humans' capacities for alignment. This seems largely tied to social media. As evidence, I would point to the sharp increase in social divisions in the US in recent years. * The introduction of AI that allows individuals to project their misaligned will and power without having to involve or persuade other individuals who previously would have exerted some degree of influence toward realignment    It seems to be putting the cart before the horse to be spending so much time, money, effort, and thought on AI Alignment, while our alignment as humans is so poor. In my mind, understanding the nature and roots of our misalignment, and identifying how to use technology to increase our alignment rather than undermine it, seems to me to be an obvious prerequisite (or co-requisite, at least) to being able to trust ourselves to use powerful AI in ways that don't decrease alignment. While recent years may have presented conditions that were especially effective at exploiting vulnerabilities in our capacities for maintaining alignment, those vulnerabilities have always been and always will be a risk, so we will always be the weakest link in the Alignment equation until we put serious effort into elevating