I changed the title from: ``A Pivotal Act AI might not buy a lot of time'' to: ``Shutting down all competing AI projects might not buy a lot of time due to Internal Time Pressure''.

As explained by Martin Randall, the statement: ``something which does not buy ample time is not a pivotal act'' is false (based on the Arbital Guarded Definition of Pivotal Act). Given your ``Agreed react'' to that comment, this issue seems to be settled. In the first section of the present comment, I explain why I still think that the old title was a mistake. The second section outlines a scenario that better illustrates that a Pivotal Act AI might not buy a lot of time.

Why the old title was a mistake

The old title implied that launching the LAI was a very positive event. With the new title, launching the LAI may or may not have been a positive event. This was the meaning that I intended.

Launching the LAI drastically increased the probability of a win by shutting down all competing AI projects. It however also increased risks from scenarios where someone successfully hits a bad alignment target. This can lead to a massively worse than extinction outcome (for example along the lines of the outcome implied by PCEV). In other words: launching LAI may or may not have been a positive event. Thus, launching the LAI may or may not have been a Pivotal Act according to the Arbital Guarded Definition (which requires the event to be very positive).

The old title does not seem to be incompatible with the actual text of the post. But it is incompatible with my intended meaning. I didn't intend to specify whether or not LAI was a positive event. Because the argument about the need for Alignment Target Analysis (ATA) goes through regardless of whether or not launching LAI was a good idea. Regardless of whether or not launching LAI was a positive event, ATA work needs to start now to reduce risks. Because in both cases, ATA progress is needed to reduce risks. And in both cases, there is not a lot of time to do ATA later. (ATA is in fact more important in scenarios where launching the LAI was in fact a terrible mistake)

As I show in my other reply: there is a well established convention of using the term Pivotal Act as a shorthand for shutting down all competing AI projects. As can be seen by looking at the scenario in the post: this might not buy a lot of time. That is how I was using the term when I picked the old title.

A scenario that better illustrates why a Pivotal Act AI might not buy a lot of time

This section outlines a scenario where an unambiguous Pivotal Act is instantly followed by a very severe time crunch. It is possible to see that a Pivotal Act AI might not buy a lot of time by looking at the scenario in the post. But the present section will outline a scenario that better illustrates this fact. (In other words: this section outlines a scenario for which the old title would actually be a good title.) In this new scenario, a Pivotal Act dramatically reduces the probability of extinction by shutting down all unauthorised AI projects. It also completely removes the possibility of anything worse than extinction. Right after the Pivotal Act, there is a frenzied race against the clock to make enough progress on ATA before time runs out. Failure results in a significant risk of extinction.

Consider the case where Dave launches Dave's AI (DAI). If DAI had not been launched, everyone would have almost certainly been killed by some other AI. DAI completely and permanently shuts down all competing AI projects. DAI also reliably prevents all scenarios where designers fail to hit the alignment target that they are aiming at. Due to Internal Time Pressure, a Sovereign AI must then be launched very quickly (discussions of Internal Time Pressure can be found here, and here, and here). There is very little time to decide what alignment target to aim at. (The point made in this section is not sensitive to who gave Dave permission to launch DAI. Or sensitive to who DAI will defer to for the choice of alignment target. But for the sake of concreteness, let's say that the UN security council authorised DAI. And that DAI defers to a global electorate regarding the choice of alignment target).

By the time Dave launches DAI, work on ATA has already progressed very far. There already exist many alignment targets that would in fact lead to an unambiguous win (somehow, describing these outcomes as a win is objectively correct). Only one of the many proposed alignment targets still has an unnoticed problem. And this problem is not nearly as severe as the problem with PCEV. People take the risks of unnoticed problems very seriously. But due to severe Internal Time Pressure, there is not much they can do with this knowledge. The only option is to use their limited time to analyse all alignment targets that are being considered. (many very optimistic assumptions are made regarding both DAI and the level of ATA progress. This is partly to make sure that readers will agree that the act of launching DAI should count as a Pivotal Act. And partly to show that ATA might still be needed, despite these very optimistic assumptions).

The only alignment target that is not a clear win, is based on maximising the sum of re-normalised utility functions. The proposed AI includes a proposed way of mapping a human to a utility function. This always results in a perfect representation of what the human wants. (And there are no definitional issues with this mapping). These functions are then renormalised to have the same variance (as discussed here). Let's write VarAI for this AI. VarAI maximises the sum of the renormalised functions. The aggregation method described above has a problem that is obvious in retrospect. If that problem is explained, then it is clear that VarAI is an unacceptable alignment target. However, in this scenario, no one has noticed this problem. The question is now whether or not anyone will notice the problem (before an alignment target needs to be settled on).

Due to the problem with this aggregation method, VarAI would create a Soft Maximisation version of a Suffering Reducing AI (SMSRAI) as a successor AI (if VarAI is successfully implemented and pointed at the population in this thought experiment). So, if the proponents of VarAI happens to win the political fight, then the result would be SMSRAI. SMSRAI would work to reduce both average suffering and population size (without doing anything drastic). The quality of most peoples lives would increase very dramatically. Many people would choose to spend centuries living a very nice life. But after some conversations with SMSRAI, few would choose to live for millennia. No one would choose to live for many millennia. Humanity would very gradually go extinct in a few dozen generations. By the time it happens, no one would find this problematic in any way. Changes in attitudes are very gradual, and no one ever feels pressured or manipulated by SMSRAI (for example: if you ask SMSRAI to leave you alone, it backs off for a couple of centuries before politely asking again if you want to talk).

If anyone finds the problem with the aggregation method in time, then VarAI will be dropped as a potential alignment target. (Once the problem is explained, it is retrospectively obvious why VarAI is completely unacceptable as an alignment target). If no one finds this problem in time however, it is possible that VarAI will win the political fight.

In order to avoid accidental interference, Dave designed DAI to not discuss ATA. (As a general strategy for reducing risks from definitional issues, Dave actually made sure that DAI only does things that are absolutely necessary for the completion of a carefully chosen set of well defined tasks). So the only way to remove the possibility of extinction, is to reach the needed level of ATA understanding before it's too late. (If the problem with this aggregation method is not explained to them, their only path to understanding is to try doing ATA).

Despite severe Internal Time Pressure, the possibility of an unnoticed problem in an alignment target is taken very seriously. So a last judge safety add on is implemented. The last judge is extrapolated using a different extrapolation method than the one used in VarAI (in order to give the last judge a chance to veto a bad extrapolation method. The VarAI extrapolation definitions are in fact somehow objectively correct. But there is no way of verifying that fact). The result of the last judge extrapolation method turns out to be a very anxious mind. The result is a mind that is in general not comfortable with objecting to things (such as the extrapolation method that it is the output of, or the outcome implied by an alignment target). This mind is very reluctant to veto a scenario where no one is suffering, and where almost everyone are very happy with all aspects of how things turn out (SMSRAI very gradually, over many generations, ``helps people realise'' that the outcome is actually a good outcome. And people genuinely are having a very nice time, for a lot longer than most people expected). So the off switch is not triggered.

If Dave had not launched DAI, all humans would very likely have been killed very soon by some other AI. So I think a lot of people would consider Launching DAI to be a Pivotal Act. (It completely upset the game board. It drastically increased the probability of a win. It was a very positive event according to a wide range of value systems). But if someone wants humanity to go on existing (or wants to personally live a super long life), then there is not a lot of time to find the problem with VarAI (because without sufficient ATA progress, there still exists a significant probability of extinction). So, launching DAI was a Pivotal Act. And launching DAI did not result in a lot of time to work on ATA. Which demonstrates that a Pivotal Act AI might not buy a lot of time.

One can use this scenario as an argument in favour of starting ATA work now. It is one specific scenario that exemplifies a general class of scenarios: scenarios where starting ATA work now, would further reduce an already small risk of a moderately bad outcome. It is a valid argument. But it is not the argument that I was trying to make in my post. I was thinking of something a lot more dangerous. I was imagining a scenario where a bad alignment target is very likely to get successfully implemented unless ATA progresses to the needed levels of insight before it is too late. And I was imagining an alignment target that implied a massively worse than extinction outcome (for example along the lines of the outcome implied by PCEV). I think this is a stronger argument in favour of starting work on ATA now. And this interpretation was ruled out by the old title (which is why I changed the title).

(a brief tangent: if someone expects everything to turn out well. But would like to work on ATA in order to further reduce a small probability of something going moderately bad. Then I would be very happy to collaborate with such a person in a future ATA project. Having very different perspectives in an ATA project sounds like a great idea. An ATA project is very different from a technical design project where a team is trying to get something implemented that will actually work. There is really no reason for people to have similar worldviews or even compatible ontologies. It is a race against time to find a conceptual breakthrough of an unknown type. It is a search for an unnoticed implicit assumption of an unknown type. So genuinely different perspectives sounds like a great idea)

In summary: ``A Pivotal Act AI might not buy a lot of time'' is in fact a true statement. And it is possible to see this by looking at the scenario outlined in the post. But it was a mistake to use this statement as the title for this post. Because it implies things about the scenario that I did not intend to imply. So I changed the title and outlined a scenario that is better suited for illustrating that a Pivotal Act AI might not buy a lot of time.

PS:

I upvoted johnswentworth's comment. My original title was a mistake. And the comment helped me realise my mistake. I hope that others will post similar comments on my posts in the future. The comment deserves upvotes. But I feel like I should ask about these agreement votes.

The statement: ``something which does not buy ample time is not a pivotal act'' is clearly false. Martin Randall explained why the statement is false (helpfully pulling out the relevant quotes from the texts that johnswentworth cited). And then johnswentworth did an ``Agreed reaction'' on Martin Randall's explanation of why the statement is false. After this however, johnswentworth's comment (with the statement that had already been determined to be false) was agree voted to plus 7. That seemed odd to me. So I wanted to ask about it. (My posts sometimes question deeply entrenched assumptions. And johnswentworth's comment sort of looks like criticism (at least if one only skims the post and the discussion). So maybe there is no great mystery here. But I still wanted to ask about this. Mostly in case someone has noticed an object level error in my post. But I am also open to terminology feedback)

I will change the title.

However: you also seem to be using the term Pivotal Act as a synonym for removing all time pressure from competing AI projects (which the AI in my post does). Example 3 of the arbital page that you link to also explicitly refers to an act that removes all time pressure from competing AI projects as a Pivotal Act. This usage is also present in various comments by you, Yudkowsky, and others (see links and quotes below). And there does not seem to exist any other established term for an AI that: (i): completely removes all time pressure from competing AI projects by uploading a design team and giving them infinite time to work, (ii): keeps the designers calm, rational, sane, etc indefinitely (with all definitional issues of those terms fully solved), and (iii): removes all risks from scenarios where someone fails to hit an alignment target. What other established term exists for such an AI? I think people would generally refer to such an AI as a Pivotal Act AI. And as demonstrated in the post: such an AI might not buy a lot of time.

Maybe using the term Pivotal Act as a synonym for an act that removes all time pressure from competing AI projects is a mistake? (Maybe the scenario in my post should be seen as showing that this usage is a mistake?). But it does seem to be a very well established way of using the term. And I would like to have a title that tells readers what the post is about. I think the current title probably did tell you what the post is about, right? (that the type of AI actions that people tend to refer to as Pivotal Acts might not buy a lot of time in reality)

In the post I define new terms. But if I use a novel term in the title before defining the this term, the title will not tell you what the post is about. So I would prefer to avoid doing that.

But I can see why you might want to have Pivotal Act be a protected term for something that is actually guaranteed to buy a lot of time (which I think is what you would like to do?). And perhaps it is possible to maintain (or re-establish?) this usage. And I don't want to interfere with your efforts to do this. So I will change the title.

If we can't find a better solution I will change the title to: Internal Time Pressure. It does not really tell you what the post will be about. But at least it is accurate and not terminologically problematic. And even though the term is not commonly known, Internal Time Pressure is actually the main topic of the post (Internal Time Pressure is the reason that the AI mentioned above, that does all the nice things mentioned, might not actually buy a lot of time).

Regarding current usage of the term Pivotal Act:

It seems to me like you and many others are actually using the term as a shorthand for an AI that removes time pressure from competing AI projects. I can take many examples of this usage just from the discussion that faul_sname links to in the other reply to your comment.

In the second last paragraph of part 1 of the linked post, Andrew_Critch writes:

Overall, building an AGI development team with the intention to carry out a “pivotal act” of the form “forcibly shut down all other A(G)I projects” is probably going to be a rough time, I predict.

No one seems to be challenging that usage of Pivotal Act (even though many other parts of the post are challenged). And it is not just this paragraph. The tl;dr also treats a Pivotal Act as interchangeable with: shut down all other AGI projects, using safe AGI. There are other examples in the post.

In this comment on the post, it seems to me that Scott Alexander is using a Pivotal Act AI as a direct synonym for an AI capable of destroying all competing AI projects.

In this comment it seems to me like you are using Pivotal Act interchangeably with shutting down all competing AI projects. In this comment, it seems to me that you accept the premise that uploading a design team and running them very quickly would be a Pivotal Act (but you question the plan on other grounds). In this comment, it seems to me that you are equating successful AI regulation with a Pivotal Act (but you question the feasibility of regulation).

In this comment, Yudkowsky seems to me to be accepting the premise that preventing all competing AI projects would count as a Pivotal Act. He says that the described strategy for preventing all competing AI projects is not feasible. But he also says that he will change the way he speaks about Pivotal Acts if the strategy actually does work (and this strategy is to shut down competing AI projects with EMPs. The proposed strategy does nothing else to buy time, other than shutting down competing AI projects). (It is not an unequivocal case of using Pivotal Act as a direct synonym for reliably shutting down all competing AI projects. But it really does seem to me like Yudkowsky is treating Pivotal Act as a synonym for: preventing all competing AI projects. Or at least that he is assuming that preventing all competing AI projects would constitute a Pivotal Act).

Consider also example 3 in the arbital page that you link to. Removing time pressure from competing AI projects by uploading a design team is explicitly defined as an example of a Pivotal Act. And the LAI in my post does exactly this. And the LAI in my post also does a lot of other things that increase the probability of a win (such as keeping the designers sane and preventing them from missing an aimed for alignment target).

This usage points to a possible title along the lines of: The AI Actions that are Commonly Referred to as Pivotal Acts, are not Actually Pivotal Acts (or: Shutting Down all Competing AI Projects is not Actually a Pivotal Act). This is longer and less informative about what the post is about (the post is about the need to start ATA work now, because there might not be a lot time to do ATA work later, even if we assume the successful implementation of a very ambitious AI, whose purpose was to buy time). But this title would not interfere with an effort to maintain (or re-establish?) the meaning of Pivotal Act as a synonym for an act that is guaranteed to buy lots of time (which I think is what you are trying to do?). What do you think about these titles?

PS:

(I think that technically the title probably does conform to the specific text bit that you quote. It depends on what the current probability of a win is. And how one defines: drastically increase the probability of a win. But given the probability that Yudkowsky currently assigns to a win, I expect that he would agree that the launch of the described LAI would count as drastically increasing the probability of a win. (In the described scenario, there are many plausible paths along which the augmented humans actually do reach the needed levels of ATA progress in time. They are however not guaranteed to do this. The point of the post is that doing ATA now increases the probability of this happening). The statement that the title conforms to the quoted text bit is however only technically true in an uninteresting sense. And the title conflicts with your efforts to guard the usage of the term. So I will change the title as soon as a new title has been settled on. If nothing else is agreed on, I will change the title to: Internal Time Pressure)

Your comment makes me think that I might have been unclear regarding what I mean with ATA. The text below is an attempt to clarify.

Summary

Not all paths to powerful autonomous AI go through methods from the current paradigm. It seems difficult to rule out the possibility that a Sovereign AI will eventually be successfully aligned to some specific alignment target. At current levels of progress on ATA this would be very dangerous (because understanding an alignment target properly is difficult, and a seemingly-nice proposal can imply a very bad outcome). It is difficult to predict how long it would take to reach the level of understanding needed to prevent scenarios where a project successfully hits a bad alignment target. And there might not be a lot of time to do ATA later (for example because a tool-AI shuts down all unauthorised AI projects. But does not buy a lot of time due to internal time pressure). So a research effort should start now.

Therefore ATA is one of the current priorities. There are definitely very serious risks that ATA cannot help with (for example misaligned tool-AI projects resulting in extinction). There are also other important current priorities (such as preventing misuse). But ATA is one of the things that should be worked on now.

The next section outlines a few scenarios designed to clarify how I use the term ATA. The section after that outlines a scenario designed to show why I think that ATA work should start now.

What I mean with Alignment Target Analysis (ATA)

The basic idea with ATA is to try to figure out what would happen if a given AI project were to successfully align an autonomously acting AI Sovereign to a given alignment target. The way I use the term, there are very severe risks that cannot be reduced in any way, by any level of ATA progress (including some very serious misalignment and misuse risks). But there are also risks that can and should be reduced by doing ATA now. There might not be a lot of time to do ATA later, and it is not clear how long it will take to advance to the level of understanding that will be needed. So ATA should be happening now. But let's start by clarifying the term ATA, by outlining a couple of dangerous AI projects where ATA would have nothing to say.

Consider Bill, who plans to use methods from the current paradigm to build a tool-AI. Bill plans to use this tool AI to shut down competing AI projects and then decide what to do next. ATA has nothing at all to say about this situation. Let's say that Bill's project plan would lead to a powerful misaligned AI that would cause extinction. No level of ATA progress would reduce this risk.

Consider Bob who also wants to build a tool-AI. But Bob's AI would work. If the project would go ahead, then Bob would gain a lot of power. And Bob would use that power to do some very bad things. ATA has nothing to say about this project and ATA cannot help reduce this risk.

Now let's introduce an unusual ATA scenario, just barely within the limits of what ATA can be used for (the next section will give an example of the types of scenarios that makes me think that ATA should be done now. This scenario is meant to clarify what I mean with ATA). Consider Dave who wants to use methods from the current paradigm to implement PCEV. If the project plan moves forwards, then the actual result would be a powerful misaligned AI: Dave's Misaligned AI (DMAI). DMAI would not care at all what Dave is trying to do, and would cause extinction (for reasons that are unrelated to what Dave was aiming at). One way to reduce the extinction risk from DMAI would be to tell Dave that his plan would lead to DMAI. But it would also be valid to let Dave know that if his project were to successfully hit the alignment target that he is aiming for, then the outcome would be massively worse than extinction.

Dave assumes that he might succeed. So, when arguing against Dave's project, it is entirely reasonable to argue from the assumption that Dave's project will lead to PCEV. Pointing out that success would be extremely bad is a valid argument against Dave's plan, even if success is not actually possible.

You can argue against Dave's project by pointing out that the project will in fact fail. Or by pointing out that success would be very bad. Both of these strategies can be used to reduce the risk of extinction. And both strategies are cooperative (if Dave is a well meaning and reasonable person, then he would thank you for pointing out either of these aspects of his plan). While both strategies can prevent extinction in a fully cooperative way, they are also different in important ways. It might be the case that only one of these arguments is realistically findable in time. It might for example be the case that Dave is only willing to publish one part of his plan (meaning that there might not be sufficient public information to construct an argument about the other part of the plan). And even if valid arguments of both types are constructed in time, it might still be the case that Dave will only accept one of these arguments. (similar considerations are also relevant for less cooperative situations. For example if one is trying to convince a government to shut down Dave's project. Or if one is trying to convince an electorate to vote no on a referendum that Dave needs to win in order to get permission to move forwards)

The audience in question (Dave, bureaucrats, voters, etc) are only considering the plan because they believe that it might result in PCEV. Therefore it is entirely valid to reason from the assumption that Dave's plan will result in PCEV (when one is arguing against the plan). There is no logical reason why such an argument would interfere with attempts to argue that Dave's plan would in fact result in DMAI.

Now let's use an analogy from the 2004 CEV document to clarify what role I see an ATA project playing. In this analogy, building an AI Sovereign is analogous to taking power in a political revolution. So (in the analogy) Dave proposes a political revolution. One way a revolution can end in disaster is that the revolution leads to a destructive civil war that the revolutionaries loose (analogous to DMAI causing extinction). Another way a revolution can end in disaster is that ISIS takes power after the government is overthrown (analogous to the outcome implied by PCEV).

It is entirely valid to say to Dave: ``if you actually do manage to overthrow the government, then ISIS will seize power'' (assuming that this conditional is true). One can do this regardless of whether or not one thinks that Dave has any real chance of overthrowing the government. (Which in turn means that one can actually say this to Dave, without spending a lot of time trying to determine the probability that the revolution will in fact overthrow the government. Which in turn means that people with wildly different views on how difficult it is to overthrow the government can cooperate while formulating such an argument)

(this argument can be made separately from an argument along the lines of: ``our far larger neighbour has a huge army and would never allow the government of our country to be overthrown. Your revolution will fail even if every single soldier in our country joins you instantly. Entirely separately: the army of our county is in fact fiercely loyal to the government and you don't have enough weapons to defeat it. In addition to these two points: you are clearly bad at strategic thinking and would be outmanoeuvred in a civil war by any semi-competent opponent''. This line of argument can also prevent a hopeless civil war. The two arguments can be made separately and there is no logical reason for them to interfere with each other)

Analysing revolutionary movements in terms of what success would mean can only help in some scenarios. It requires a non-vague description of what should happen after the government falls. In general: this type of analysis cannot reduce the probability of lost civil wars, in cases where the post revolutionary strategy is either (i): too vaguely described to analyse, or (ii): actually sound (meaning that the only problem with the revolution in question is that it has no chance of success). Conversely however: arguments based on revolutions failing to overthrow the government cannot prevent revolutions that would actually end with ISIS in charge (analogous to AI projects that would successfully hit a bad alignment target). Scenarios that end in a bad alignment target getting successfully hit is the main reason that I think that ATA should happen now (in the analogy, the main point would be to reduce the probability of ISIS gaining power). Now let's leave the revolution analogy and outline one such scenario.

A tool-AI capable of shutting down all unauthorised AI projects might not buy a lot of time

It is difficult to predict who might end up controlling a tool-AI. But one obvious compromise would be to put it under the control of some group of voters (for example a global electorate). Let's say that the tool-AI is designed such that one needs a two thirds majority in a referendum, to be allowed to launch a Sovereign AI. There exists a Sovereign AI proposal that a large majority thinks sounds nice. A small minority would however prefer a different proposal.

In order to prevent inadvertent manipulation risks, the tool AI was designed to only discuss topics that are absolutely necessary for the process of shutting down unauthorised AI projects. Someone figures out how to make the tool-AI explain how to implement Sovereign AI proposals (and Explanation / Manipulation related definitions happens to hold for such discussions). But no one figures out how to get it to discuss any topic along the lines of ATA. The original plan was to take an extended period of time to work on ATA before implementing a Sovereign AI.

Both alignment targets use the same method for extrapolating people and for resolving disagreements. The difference is in terms of who is part of the initial group. The two proposals have different rules with respect to things like: animals, people in cryo, foetuses, artificial minds, etc. It doesn't actually matter which proposal gets implemented: the aggregation method leads to the same horrific outcome in both cases (due to an issue along the lines of the issue that PCEV suffers from. But more subtle and difficult to notice). (All proposed alignment targets along the lines of ``build an AI Sovereign that would do whatever some specific individual wants it to do'' are rejected out of hand by almost everyone).

In order to avoid making the present post political, let's say that political debates center around what to do with ecosystems. One side cares about nature and wants to protect ecosystems. The other side wants to prevent animal suffering (even if the cost of such prevention is the total destruction of every ecosystem on earth). It is widely assumed that including animals in the original group will lead to an outcome where animal suffering is prevented at the expense of ecosystems. (in order to make the following scenario more intuitive, readers that have an opinion regarding what should be done with ecosystems, can imagine that the majority shares this opinion)

The majority has enough support to launch their Sovereign AI. But the minority is rapidly and steadily gaining followers due to ordinary political dynamics (sometimes attitudes on a given issue changes steadily in a predictable direction). So the ability to get the preferred alignment target implemented can disappear permanently at any moment (the exact number of people that would actually vote yes in a referendum is difficult to estimate. But it is clearly shrinking rapidly). In this case the majority might act before they loose the ability to act. Part of the majority would however hesitate if the flaw with the aggregation method is noticed in time.

After the tool-AI was implemented, a large number of people started to work on ATA. There are also AI assistants that contribute to conceptual progress (they are tolerated by the tool-AI because they are not smarter than humans. And they are useful because they contribute a set of unique non-human perspectives). However, it turns out that ATA progress works sort of like math progress. It can be sped up significantly by lots of people working on it in parallel. But the main determinant of progress is how long people have been working on it. In other words: it turns out that there is a limit to how much the underlying conceptual progress can be sped up by throwing large numbers of people at ATA. So the question of whether or not the issue with the Sovereign AI proposal is noticed in time, is to a large degree determined by how long a serious ATA research project has been going on at the time that the tool-AI is launched (in other words: doing ATA now reduces the risk of a bad alignment target ending up getting successfully hit in this scenario).

(the idea is not that this exact scenario will play out as described. The point of this section was to give a detailed description of one specific scenario. For example: the world will presumably not actually be engulfed by debates about the Prime Directive from Star Trek. And a tool-AI controlled by a messy coalition of governments might lead to a time crunch due to dynamics that are more related to Realpolitik than any form of ideology. This specific scenario is just one example of a large set of similar scenarios)

PS:

On a common sense level I simply don't see how one can think that it is safe to stay at our current level of ATA progress (where it is clearly not possible to reliably tell a good alignment target from an alignment target that implies an outcome massively worse than extinction). The fact that there exists no research project dedicated to improving this situation seems like a mistake. Intuitively this seems like a dangerous situation. At the very least it seems like some form of positive argument would be needed before concluding that this is safe. And it seems like such an argument should be published so that it can be checked for flaws before one starts acting based on the assumption that the current situation is safe. Please don't hesitate to contact me with theories / questions / thoughts / observations / etc regarding what people actually believe about this.

I interpret your comment as a prediction regarding where new alignment target proposals will come from. Is this correct?

I also have a couple of questions about the linked text:

How do you define the difference between explaining something and trying to change someone's mind? Consider the case where Bob is asking a factual question. An objectively correct straightforward answer would radically change Bob's entire system of morality, in ways that the AI can predict. A slightly obfuscated answer would result in far less dramatic changes. But those changes would be in a completely different direction (compared to the straightforward answer). Refusing to answer, while being honest about the reason for refusal, would send Bob into a tailspin. How certain are you that you can find a definition of Acceptable Forms of Explanation that holds up in a large number of messy situations along these lines? See also this.

And if you cannot define such things in a solid way, how do you plan to define ``benefit humanity''? PCEV was an effort to define ``benefit humanity''. And PCEV has been found to suffer from at least one difficult-to-notice problem. How certain are you that you can find a definition of  ``benefit humanity'' that does not suffer from some difficult-to-notice problem?

PS:

Speculation regarding where novel alignment target proposals are likely to come from are very welcome. It is a prediction of things that will probably be fairly observable fairly soon. And it is directly relevant to my work. So I am always happy to hear this type of speculation.

Let's reason from the assumption that you are completely right. Specifically, let's assume that every possible Sovereign AI Project (SAIP) would make things worse in expectation. And let's assume that there exists a feasible Better Long Term Solution (BLTS).

In this scenario ATA would still only be a useful tool for reducing the probability of one subset of SAIPs (even if all SAIPs are bad some designers might be unresponsive to arguments, some flaws might not be realistically findable, etc). But it seems to me that ATA would be one complementary tool for reducing the overall probability of SAIP. And this tool would not be easy to replace with other methods. ATA could convince the designers of a specific SAIP that their particular project should be abandoned. If ATA results in the description of necessary features, then it might even help a (member of a) design team see that it would be bad if a secret project were to successfully hit a completely novel, unpublished, alignment target (for example along the lines of this necessary Membrane formalism feature).

ATA would also be a project where people can collaborate despite almost opposite viewpoints on the desirability of SAIP. Consider Bob who mostly just wants to get some SAIP implemented as fast as possible. But Bob still recognizes the unlikely possibility of dangerous alignment targets with hidden flaws (but he does not think that this risk is anywhere near large enough to justify waiting to launch a SAIP). You and Bob clearly have very different viewpoint regarding how the world should deal with AI. But there is actually nothing preventing you and Bob from cooperating on a risk reduction focused ATA project.

This type of diversity of perspectives might actually be very productive for such a project. You are not trying to build a bridge on a deadline. You are not trying to win an election. You do not have to be on the same page to get things done. You are trying to make novel conceptual progress, looking for a flaw of an unknown type.

Basically: reducing the probability of outcomes along the lines of the outcome implied by PCEV is useful according to a wide range of viewpoints regarding how the world should deal with AI. (there is nothing unusual about this general state of affairs. Consider for example Dave and Gregg who are on opposite sides of a vicious political trench war over the issue of pandemic lockdowns. There is nothing on the object level that prevents them from collaborating on a vaccine research effort. So this feature is certainly not unique. But I still wanted to highlight the fact that a risk mitigation focused ATA project does have this feature)

I think I see your point. Attempting to design a good alignment target could lead to developing intuitions that would be useful for ATA. A project trying to design an alignment target might result in people learning skills that allows them to notice flaws in alignment targets proposed by others. Such projects can therefore contribute to the type of risk mitigation that I think is lacking. I think that this is true. But I do not think that such projects can be a substitute for an ATA project with a risk mitigation focus.

Regarding Orthogonal:

It is difficult for me to estimate how much effort Orthogonal spends on different types of work. But it seems to me that your published results are mostly about methods for hitting alignment targets. This also seems to me to be the case for your research goals. If you are successful, it seems to me that your methods could be used to hit almost any alignment target (subject to constraints related to finding individuals that want to hit specific alignment targets).

I appreciate you engaging on this, and I would be very interested in hearing more about how the work done by Orthogonal could contribute to the type of risk mitigation effort discussed in the post. I would, for example, be very happy to have a voice chat with you about this.

The proposed research project would indeed be focused on a certain type of alignment target. For example proposals along the lines of PCEV. But not proposals along the lines of a tool-AI. Referring to this as Value-Alignment Target Analysis (VATA) would also be a possible notation. I will adopt this notation for the rest of this comment.

The proposed VATA research project would be aiming for risk mitigation. It would not be aiming for an answer:

There is a big difference between proposing an alignment target on the one hand. And pointing out problems with alignment targets on the other hand. For example: it is entirely possible to reduce risks from a dangerous alignment target, without having any idea how one might find a good alignment target. One can actually reduce risks without having any idea, what it even means for an alignment target to be a good alignment target.

The feature of PCEV mentioned in the post is an example of this. The threat posed by PCEV has presumably been mostly removed. This did not require anything along the lines of an answer. The analysis of Condorcet AI (CAI) is similar. The analysis simply describes a feature shared by all CAI proposals (the feature that a barely caring solid majority can do whatever they want with everyone else). Pointing this out presumably reduces the probability that a CAI will be launched by designers that never considered this feature. All claims made in the post about a VATA research project being tractable is referring to this type of risk mitigation being tractable. There is definitely no claim that a VATA research project can (i): find a good alignment target, (ii): somehow verify that this alignment target does not have any hidden flaws, and (iii): convince whoever is in charge to launch this target.

One can also go a bit beyond analysis of individual proposals, even if one does not have any idea how to find an answer. One can mitigate risk by describing necessary features (for example along the lines of this necessary Membrane formalism feature). This reduces risks from all proposal that clearly does not have such a necessary feature.

(and just to be extra clear: the post is not arguing that launching a Sovereign AI is a good idea. The post is assuming an audience that agree that it is possible that a Sovereign AI might be launched. And then the post is arguing that if this does happen, then there is a risk that such a Sovereign AI project will be aiming at a bad value alignment target. The post then further argues that this particular risk can be reduced by doing VATA)

Regarding people being skeptical of Value Alignment Target proposals:

If someone ends up with the capability to launch a Sovereign AI, then I certainly hope that they will be skeptical of proposed Value Alignment Targets. Such skepticism can avert catastrophe even if the proposed alignment target has a flaw that no one has noticed.

The issue is that a situation might arise where (i): someone has the ability to launch a Sovereign AI, (ii): there exists a Sovereign AI proposal that no one can find any flaws with, and (iii): there is a time crunch.

Regarding the possibility that there exists people trying to find an answer without telling anyone:

I'm not sure how to estimate the probability of this. From a risk mitigation standpoint, this is certainly not the optimal way of doing things (if a proposed alignment target has a flaw, then it will be a lot easier to notice that flaw, if the proposal is not kept secret). I really don't think that this is a reasonable way of doing things. But I think that you have a point. If Bob is about to launch an AI Sovereign with some critical flaw that would lead to some horrific outcome. Then secretly working Steve might be able to notice this flaw. And if Bob is just about to launch his AI, and speaking up is the only way for Steve to prevent Bob from causing a catastrophe, then Steve will presumably speak up. In other words: the existence of people like secretly working Steve would indeed offer some level of protection. It would mean that the lack of people with relevant intuitions is not as bad as it appears (and when allocating resources, this possibility would indeed point to less resources for VATA). But I think that what is really needed is at least some people doing VATA with a clear risk mitigation focus. And discussing their finding with each other. This does not appear to exist.

Regarding other risks, and the issue that findings might be ignored:

A VATA research project would not help with misalignment. In other words: even if the field of VATA was somehow completely solved tomorrow, AI could still lead to extinction. So the proposed research project is definitely not dealing with all risks. The point of the post is that the field of VATA is basically empty. I don't know of anyone that is doing VATA full time with a clear risk mitigation focus. And I don't know if you personally should switch to focusing on VATA. It would not surprise me at all if some other project is a better use of your time. It just seems like there should exist some form of VATA research project with a clear risk mitigation focus.

It is also possible that a VATA finding will be completely ignored (by leading labs, or by governments, or by someone else). It is possible that a Sovereign AI will be launched, leading to catastrophe, even though it has a known flaw (because the people launching it is just refusing to listen). But finding a flaw at least means that it is possible to avert catastrophe.

PS:

Thanks for the links! I will look into this. (I think that there are many fields of research that are relevant to VATA. It's just that one has to be careful. A concept can behave very differently when it is transferred to the AI context)

Regarding the political feasibility of PCEV:

PCEV gives a lot of extra power to some people, specifically because those people intrinsically value hurting other humans. This presumably makes PCEV politically impossible in a wide range of political contexts (including negotiations between a few governments). More generally: now that it has been pointed out that PCEV has this feature, the risks from scenarios where PCEV gets successfully implemented has presumably been mostly removed. Because PCEV is probably off the table as a potential alignment target, pretty much regardless of who ends up deciding what alignment target to aim an AI Sovereign at (the CEO of a tech company, a designs team, a few governments, the UN, a global electorate, etc).

PCEV is however just one example of a bad alignment target. Let's take the perspective of Steve, an ordinary human individual with no special influence over an AI project. The reason that PCEV is dangerous for Steve, is that PCEV (i): adopts preferences that refer to Steve, (ii): in a way that gives Steve no meaningful influence over the decision, of which Steve-referring preferences PCEV will adopt. PCEV is just one possible AI that would adopt preferences about Steve, in a way that Steve would have no meaningful influence over. So, even fully removing the all risks associated with PCEV in particular, does not remove all risks from this more general class of dangerous alignment targets. From Steve's perspective, the PCEV thought experiment is illustrating a more general danger: risks from scenarios where an AI will adopt preferences that refer to Steve, in a way that Steve will have no meaningful influence over.

Even more generally: scenarios where someone successfully implements some type of bad alignment target still pose a very real risk. Alignment Target Analysis (ATA) is still at a very early stage of development, and these risks are not well understood. ATA is also a very neglected field of research. In other words: there are serious risks that could be mitigated. But those risks are not currently being mitigated. (As a tangent, I think that the best way of looking at ATA is: risk mitigation through the identification of necessary features. As discussed here, identifying features that are necessary can be a useful risk mitigation tool, even if those features are far from sufficient, and even if one is not close to any form of solution)

Regarding Corrigibility as an alternative safety measure:

I think that exploring the Corrigibility concept sounds like a valuable thing to do. I also think that Corrigibility formalisms can be quite tricky (for similar reasons that Membrane formalisms can be tricky: I think that they are both vulnerable to difficult-to-notice definitional issues). Consider a powerful and clever tool-AI. It is built using a Corrigibility formalism that works very well when the tool-AI is used to shut down competing AI projects. This formalism relies on a definition of Explanation, that is designed to prevent any form of undue influence. When talking with this tool-AI about shutting down computing AI projects, the definition of Explanation holds up fine. In this scenario, it could be the case that asking this seemingly corrigible tool-AI about a Sovereign AI proposal, is essentially equivalent to implementing that proposal.

Any definition of Explanation will necessarily be built on top of a lot of assumptions. Many of these will be unexamined implicit assumptions that the designers will not be aware of. In general, it would not be particularly surprising if one of these assumptions turns out to hold when discussing things along the lines of shutting down competing AI projects. But turns out to break when discussing a Sovereign AI proposal.

Let's take one specific example. Consider the case where the tool-AI will try to Explain any topic that it is asked about, until the person asking Understands the topic sufficiently. When asked about a Sovereign AI proposal, the tool-AI will ensure that two separate aspects of the proposal will be Understood, (i): an alignment target, and (ii): a normative moral theory according to which this alignment target is the thing that a Sovereign AI project should aim at. It turns out that Explaining a normative moral theory until the person asking Understands it, is functionally equivalent to convincing the person to adopt this normative moral theory. If the tool-AI is very good at convincing, then the tool-AI could be essentially equivalent to an AI that will implement whatever Sovereign AI proposal it is first asked to explain (with a few extra steps).

(I discussed this issue with Max Harms here)

I agree that focus should be on preventing the existence of a Sovereign AI that seeks to harm people (as opposed to trying to deal with such an AI after it has already been built). The main reason for trying to find necessary features, is actually that it might stop a dangerous AI project from being pursued in the first place. In particular: it might convince the design team to abandon an AI project, that clearly lacks a feature that has been found to be necessary. An AI project that would (if successfully implemented) result in an AI Sovereign that would seek to harm people. For example a Sovereign AI that wants to respect a Membrane. But where the Membrane formalism does not actually prevent the AI from wanting to hurt individuals, because the formalism lacks a necessary feature.

One reason we might end up with a Sovereign AI that seeks to harm people is that someone makes two separate errors. Let's say that Bob gains control over a tool-AI, and uses it to shut down unauthorised AI projects (Bob might for example be a single individual, or a design team, or a government, or a coalition of governments, or the UN, or a democratic world government, or something else along those lines). Bob gains the ability to launch a Sovereign AI. And Bob settles on a specific Sovereign AI design: Bob's Sovereign AI (BSAI).

Bob knows that BSAI might contain a hidden flaw. And Bob is not being completely reckless about launching BSAI. So Bob designs a Membrane, whose function is to protect individuals (in case BSAI does have a hidden flaw). And Bob figures out how to make sure that BSAI will want to avoid piercing this Membrane (in other words: Bob makes sure that the Membrane will be internal to BSAI).

Consider the case where both BSAI, and the Membrane formalism in question, each have a hidden flaw. If both BSAI and the Membrane is successfully implemented, then the result would be a Sovereign AI that seeks to harm people (the resulting AI would want to both, (i): harm people, and (ii): respect the Membrane of every individual). One way to reduce the probability that such a project would go ahead, is to describe necessary features.

For example: if it is clear that the Membrane that Bob is planning to use, does not have the necessary Extended Membrane feature described in the post, then Bob should be able to see that this Membrane will not offer reliable protection from BSAI (which Bob knows might be needed, because Bob knows that BSAI might be flawed).

For a given AI project, it is not certain that there exists a realistically findable necessary feature, that can be used to illustrate the dangers of the project in question. And even if such a feature is found, it is not certain that Bob will listen. But looking for necessary features is still a tractable way of reducing the probability of a Sovereign AI that seeks to harm people.

A project to find necessary features is not really a quest for a solution to AI. It is more informative to see such a project as analogous to a quest to design a bulletproof vest for Bob, who will be going into a gunfight (and who might decide to put on the vest). Even if very successful, the bulletproof vest project will not offer full protection (Bob might get shot in the head). A vest is also not a solution. Whether Bob is a medic trying to evacuate wounded people from the gunfight, or Bob is a soldier trying to win the gunfight, the vest cannot be used to achieve Bob's objective. Vests are not solutions. Vests are still very popular amongst people who know that they will be going into a gunfight.

So if you will share the fate of Bob. And if you might fail to persuade Bob to avoid a gunfight. Then it makes sense to try to design a bulletproof vest for Bob (because if you succeed, then he might decide to wear it. And that would be very good if he ends up getting shot in the stomach). (the vest in this analogy is analogous to descriptions of necessary features, that might be used to convince designers to abandon a dangerous AI project. The vest in this analogy is not analogous to a Membrane)