There’s a cottage industry that thrives off of sneering, gawking, and maligning the AI safety community. This isn't new, but it's probably going to become more intense and pointed now that there are two giant super PACs that (allegedly^[1]) see safety as a barrier to [innovation/profit, depending on your level of cynicism]. Brace for some nasty, uncharitable articles.

I think the largest cost of this targeted bad press will be the community's overreaction, not the reputational effects outside the AI safety community. I've already seen people shy away from doing things like donating to politicians that support AI safety for fear of provoking the super PACs.

Historically, the safety community often freaked out in the face of this kind of bad press. People got really stressed out, pointed fingers about whose fault it was, and started to let the strong frames in the hit pieces get into their heads.^[2] People disavowed AI safety and turned to more popular causes. And the collective consciousness decided that the actions and people who ushered in the mockery were obviously terrible and dumb, so much so that you'd get a strange look if you asked them to justify that argument. In reality I think many actions that were publicly ridiculed were still worth it ex-ante despite the bad press.

It seems bad press is often much, much more salient to the subjects of that press than it is to society at large, and it's best to shrug it off and let it blow over. Some of the most PR-conscious people I know are weirdly calm during actual PR blowups and are sometimes more willing than the "weird" folks around me to take dramatic (but calculated) PR risks.

In the activist world, I hear this is a well-known phenomenon. You can get 10 people to protest a multi-billion-dollar company and a couple journalists to write articles, and the company will bend to your demands.^[3] The rest of the world will have no idea who you are, but to the executives at the company, it will feel the world is watching them. These executives are probably making a mistake!^[4] Don't be like them.

With all these (allegedly anti-safety^[1]) super PACs, there will probably be a lot more bad press than usual. All else being equal, avoiding the bad press is good, but in order to fight back, people in the safety community will probably take some actions, and the super PACs will probably twist any actions into headlines about cringe doomer tech bros.

I do think people should take into account when deciding what to do that provoking the super PACs is risky, and should think carefully before doing it. But often I expect it will be the right choice and the blowback will be well worth it.

If people in the safety community refuse to stand up to them, then they super PACs will get what they want anyway and the safety community won't even put up a fight.

Ultimately I think the AI safety community is an earnest, scrupulous group of people fighting for an extremely important cause. I hope we continue to hold ourselves to high standards for integrity and honor, and as long as we do, I will be proud to be part of this community no matter what the super PACs say.

1. ^{^}

   They haven't taken any anti-safety actions yet as far as I know (they're still new). The picture they paint of themselves isn't opposed to safety, and while I feel confident they will take actions I consider opposed to safety, I don't like maligning people before they've actually taken actions worthy of condemnation.

2. ^{^}

   I think it's really healthy to ask yourself if you're upholding your principles and acting ethically. But I find it a little suspicious how responsive some of these attitudes can be to bad press, where people often start tripping over themselves to distance themselves from whatever the journalist happened to dislike. If you've ever done this, consider asking yourself before you take any action how you'd feel if the fact that you took that action was on the front page of the papers. If you'd feel like you could hold your head up high, do it. Otherwise don't. And then if you do end up on the front page of the papers, hold your head up high!

3. ^{^}

   To a point. They won't do things that would make them go out of business, but they might spend many millions of dollars on the practices you want them to adopt.

4. ^{^}

   Tactically, that is. In many cases I'm glad the executives can be held responsible in this way and I think their changed behavior is better for the world.