Thoughts on “AI is easy to control” by Pope & Belrose

Crossposted from the AI Alignment Forum. May contain more technical jargon than usual.Quintin Pope & Nora Belrose have a new “AI Optimists” website, along with a new essay “AI is easy to control”, arguing that the risk of human extinction due to future AI (“AI x-risk”) is a mere 1% (“a tail risk worth considering, but not the dominant source of risk in the world”). (I’m much more pessimistic.) It makes lots of interesting arguments, and I’m happy that the authors are engaging in substantive and productive discourse, unlike the ad hominem vibes-based drivel which is growing increasingly common on both sides of the AI x-risk issue in recent months.This is not a comprehensive rebuttal or anything, but rather picking up on a few threads that seem important for where we disagree, or where I have something I want to say.Summary / table-of-contents:Note: I think Sections 1 [...]--- First published: December 1st, 2023 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YyosBAutg4bzScaLu/thoughts-on-ai-is-easy-to-control-by-pope-and-belrose --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.