This is a special post for quick takes by Dan Braun. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
Maybe we should declare a “frontier lab staff speak-your-mind day”. Something like:
On 30th November, staff at frontier labs are encouraged to say what they believe (on X/Facebook/wherever) about when superintelligence might arrive, and what some likely outcomes of this are. They can be as short, long, optimistic, or pessimistic as they like. Quantitative estimates are encouraged.
I think most staff at frontier labs don’t speak their mind publicly for fear of repercussions from their company, or to avoid standing out amongst their peers, or because they’re just not the kind of people who post things publicly. If we mark this one day where all staff at all frontier labs are encouraged to do it, there would be safety in numbers.
If a company were to somehow prevent their staff from participating when the other leading labs did, the public should strongly criticise them for it. Staff can base their thoughts on merely public information, nothing confidential need be shared.