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It's been pointed out that the 9/11 attacks on the US resulted in decades of US paranoia and imposed costs (eg at airports) that were arguably a great result for Obama bin Laden. It would be grimly amusing if the discovery of Jensen Huang's affair with an alleged Chinese spy, and the subsequent Nvidia selloff (which has so far shed nearly $2 trillion in value), resulted in a broader tech crash, leading to the US tech industry falling behind China.
Given the timing, I think it should be considered part of the broader challenge to how the AI economy is being governed in the US, that is presented by the return of the Democrats to institutional influence. Huang had become a friend of Trump and one may suppose that he was brought down by enemies of Trump who want to change Nvidia policy towards China, not crash the whole economy.
Put it another way, grimly uneasy, too. 9/11 produced a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment, often unreasonable. I know some people here have misgivings about Asian immigrants, but it'd be a severe blow to alignment efforts if this triggered a more intense backlash against Asian scientists and businesspeople in general, given how many of the top AI scientists and engineers are Asian. Especially in a period where the trustworthiness of current systems is severely in doubt and we desperately need skilled human personnel.
(Obviously, being Asian, I also wish that anti-Asian racism in the Bay and America does not intensify due to this for moral reasons, but even purely pragmatically, increased anti-Asian racism would be counterproductive.)
3Mateusz Bagiński
I don't wish racism, ever, but on this specific point: I'm sure way more of them are pushing capabilities than reducing x-risk because that's the case with the general population.