Something I'm considering. Is the Coxon moment leading to one-off interest in AI safety concerns, requiring urgent action in a narrow window, or is it part of the broader trend of increasing salience of AI in the national and global conversation?
I'm currently leaning it's the latter (it seems non-obvious in any case), but I'm bringing this up because I feel like this matters.
Heavy on opinion, but:
I argue be urgent, but not reckless. I'm not at all arguing the speed premium for projects is 0. This may be the largest leverage moment safety researchers have had yet, and for many reasons it's important to rapidly both continue to do good research, and to use the voice we do have to inform policymakers accurately and truthfully, advocating for good policies when advocacy is appropriate.
But there's a big difference between "highest leverage yet" and "highest leverage ever." Relationships between policymakers and advocates are more effective the longer term they are, and I think we should not treat this like the last moment we'll have the public's ears. All the effort in the world will do no good (and indeed, could do much harm) if we advocate for nonsense. Try to act, if possible, as communities; even just a second person engaging with your work, even if they're not a formal researcher, I've found very helpful. Having even a couple of people critically and effortfully engaging with ideas will help defuse some of your blindspots before you present them to policymakers and not after.
And be careful when burning bridges. Burning bridges is the correct thing to do sometimes, but do it when it must be done; when it's likely to be robustly beneficial, not just out of urgency. The sense that something needs to be done, by itself, doesn't seem like a reliable guide to good action.
